“I should not stay.”
“Then don’t stay. Sit temporarily with coffee.”
“That is staying.”
“That is semantics, and I win those before breakfast.”
Darlene pours coffee into the chipped blue mug and sets it at the end of the counter. “Sit down before she hurts herself flirting at you.”
Evie’s mouth falls open. “I am not flirting.”
Darlene looks at me. “She’s flirting.”
“I heard you,” Evie says.
“Good. Head injury didn’t take your ears.”
I stand there like an idiot while several customers suddenly become fascinated by their pastries. Evie’s cheeks turn pink beneath the bruises. Heat moves along my neck all the same.
“I can leave,” I say.
Evie’s eyes snap back to mine. “No.”
The word comes too quickly. She notices. I notice her noticing. Darlene’s gaze sharpens as if she is carving the moment into evidence.
Evie clears her throat. “I mean, you don’t have to. If you’re hungry.”
I am hungry. I am almost always hungry. Life in the tunnels teaches the body to accept emptiness as ordinary. Pride teaches the mouth to refuse what the stomach needs.
“I have credits,” I say.
Darlene snorts. “Sure you do.”
I reach into my coat and produce a few crumpled notes and metal chits. They are legitimate, earned by hauling scrap from a collapsed warehouse two nights ago. Darlene eyes them, then eyes me.
“Huh,” she says. “He does.”
“I do not take charity,” I say.
Evie steps from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel. “Fine. Then today you pay.”
The words should relieve me. Instead they land strangely. “You accept?”
“Kauss, I run a business. If a man wants to pay for his coffee, I’m not going to wrestle him to the floor about it. Besides, I’m injured. I’d lose.”
“You would lose even uninjured.”
“Wow. Rude and accurate.”
Darlene takes my credits, opens the register, and returns change I did not expect.
“That is too much,” I say.
“No,” she replies. “That is what coffee and breakfast costs.”
“The plate yesterday was larger.”
“The plate yesterday was a thank-you, and today’s the normal one. You want a giant plate, commit another heroic act or order two specials like a regular glutton.”
