“Funny observation.”
“I will avoid repeating the error.”
“Please don’t.”
His gaze returns to the coffee, but I catch the faint shift again. That almost-smile. It feels like seeing sunlight slip between storm clouds for half a second.
I turn away before I look too delighted and embarrass us both. “Darlene, can you cover the register for two minutes?”
“I live to serve,” she says with the enthusiasm of someone sharpening a knife.
In the kitchen, I assemble a plate despite the ache in my ribs. Two cinnamon rolls, eggs, fried potatoes, fruit from Mrs. Pell’s gifted oranges, and a wedge of savory breakfast tart. I add extra because Kauss is enormous and because feeding people is easier than saying, I thought about you all night and it scared me almost as much as the alley did.
When I return, the bakery has resumed cautious motion. Conversations restart in low voices. Customers keep stealing glances at Kauss, but no one says anything stupid. This is partly because Halo people possess survival instincts and partly because Darlene has positioned herself behind the register like an elderly gargoyle prepared to attack rudeness at the root.
I set the plate in front of him.
Kauss stares at it. “This is too much.”
“You are too much. The plate is proportional.”
“I cannot pay.”
“I didn’t ask.”
His expression closes. “I do not take charity.”
“Great. Then don’t.”
“That is what this is.”
“No, this is a thank-you.”
“I do not require thanks.”
“Good thing it’s not up to you.”
He looks at me then, really looks, and the whole noisy bakery seems to fall back from the edge of my awareness. His eyes are dark and steady, heavy with things he does not say. “You do not owe me.”
“I know.”
“Then why?”
“Because I want to.” My voice softens. “Because you helped me. Because you looked at a bad thing happening and decided it was not going to keep happening. Because everyone else keeps telling me nobody else would have stepped in, and I know they’re right.”
His jaw flexes. “That should not be enough to earn gratitude.”
“It is in Halo.”
“It should not be.”
“No. It shouldn’t.” I lean one hip carefully against the counter because standing too straight hurts. “But here we are.”
He looks down at the plate again. For a moment I think he will get up and leave. His pride is a fortress, and I have apparently arrived at the gates with baked goods and terrible siege tactics.
Then he picks up a fork.
I have never seen anyone his size handle anything so carefully. The fork rests between fingers that could crush it flat, but he grips it with precise restraint. He cuts into the tartwithout breaking the plate. He takes a bite, chewing slowly, and something in his face changes before he can stop it.
