“He still thinks he shouldn’t be here.”
“Men like him always think the doorway is temporary.”
“I don’t know how to make him believe he’s allowed to stay.”
“You don’t make people believe anything. You give them room to learn it, and you stop standing in the doorway with a shovel waiting to bury yourself if they take too long.”
I stare at her. “That metaphor got away from you.”
“It had ambition.”
“I swore I was done with this.”
“With what?”
“Men. Wanting. Trusting. Caring whether someone comes back.”
Darlene’s gaze sharpens but not unkindly. “Garrett was a thief, sweetheart. Kauss is a haunted man with a repair kit and a body count he’s actively trying not to increase. Different problems.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“It wasn’t meant to be. Love isn’t reassuring. It’s a diagnostic tool for all the places you are still breakable.”
I hate that. I hate how true it sounds. I hate how badly I want to look toward the storage room where Kauss is stacking crates and proving, with every careful motion, that enormous strength can be gentle if the person carrying it chooses restraint.
“I’m scared,” I say.
Darlene puts the towel over my hand and squeezes once. “Good. Means you know it matters.”
Before I can answer, Kauss appears from the storage room carrying two sacks of flour against one hip. His arm flexes beneath the weight, scales shifting smoothly over muscle, red highlights catching in the kitchen light. I notice the size of his hands around the sacks. I notice the line of his throat above the collar of his coat. I notice the scar that disappears under the fabric at his shoulder and wonder how far it goes.
Then I realize I am staring.
Kauss sets the sacks down. “You are red.”
“I’m hot.”
Darlene mutters, “Accurate.”
I kick her ankle lightly.
She does not even flinch. “Weak.”
By late afternoon, the bakery slows enough that I can pack the food I promised myself I would bring underground. Kauss has told me little about the drainage tunnels, but I know enough. People live there. His people, though he would argue. Al Simmons. Doreen with the cybernetic ankle. Maren and her son. Veterans, displaced workers, strays the city stepped over and forgot.
I line up containers on the prep table: soup, rolls, day-old pastries, roasted vegetables, fried potatoes, sliced fruit, and protein patties Darlene claims taste like despair unless properly seasoned.
Kauss enters the kitchen and stops. “What is this?”
“Food.”
“I can see that.”
“Then why ask?”
“Why is there this much?”
“I’m coming with you tonight.”
