“Good. Saves time.” Al settles heavily into a booth and points his fork at me. “He smiled at a dog yesterday.”
Kauss stiffens. “It was a capable dog.”
I grin helplessly. “What kind of dog?”
“Large. Brown.”
“Compelling description.”
“It assisted an elderly man across flooded pavement.”
“That’s adorable.”
“It was practical.”
Darlene leans over the counter toward me. “Notice how every story about him being soft gets explained like a police report.”
“I am not soft,” Kauss mutters.
Mrs. Pell, eighty-three years old and terrifying, raises her coffee from across the room. “You carried my groceries upstairs last week, sweetheart. That ship sailed.”
The entire bakery laughs.
Kauss stands motionless beside the flour sacks while social defeat settles visibly across his face.
I fall in love a little harder.
That is the problem with happiness. Once you start imagining permanence, every good moment becomes terrifyingly fragile.
The afternoon drifts warm and golden around us despite the weather outside. Kauss fixes the front bell because it started sticking again. I catch him swaying slightly to music while stocking cups, which he immediately denies when I point it out. We steal kisses in the storage room between deliveries like teenagers despite both of us being fully grown adults with responsibilities and emotional damage.
At one point he corners me beside the dry goods shelf with flour dust on his jaw and kisses me slow enough to make my knees weak.
“You’re distracting,” I whisper against his mouth.
“You initiated this interaction.”
“You’re very literal after making out.”
“It helps maintain structural integrity.”
I laugh softly, hands sliding up his chest. “You know what I love?”
His eyes flicker slightly at the word love.
Not panic.
Something deeper.
“What?” he asks quietly.
“The way you pretend you’re all terrifying while secretly being the gentlest person in Halo.”
His thumb brushes my hip through my apron. “That is not true.”
“You helped Mrs. Pell carry soup to her apartment because she looked tired.”
“She is elderly.”
