I step out into the alley, then pause. “Evie.”
Her smile gentles. “Yeah?”
“Thank you for the coffee.”
“It was adequate coffee, apparently.”
“It was good.”
Her expression warms in a way that makes the alley feel less cold. “You’re welcome, Kauss.”
I walk away before I can say more. Behind me, the lock clicks into place. Sensible. Safe. A sound I can approve of.
Still, as I move through Halo toward the old drainage access, I realize I am carrying the bakery with me. Cinnamon in my nose. Coffee on my tongue. Her laugh under my ribs. The almost-smile still lingering on my face like evidence of a crime.
I promised myself I would never again become attached to a place, a routine, or a person who could be taken from me.
Today, I broke that promise in increments.
Tomorrow, I will probably break it again.
CHAPTER 7
EVIE
By the end of the week, Halo decides Kauss and I are either dating, running a protection racket, secretly married by obscure Vakutan law, or involved in a complicated pastry-based hostage situation.
The morning begins warm inside Sweet Tooth Bakery, despite the rain needling sideways against the windows and the harbor wind rattling the loose sign bracket above the door. The ovens give off a steady heat that wraps around my sore ribs and makes the kitchen smell like butter, yeast, cinnamon, and the sharp brightness of orange zest. Flour dust clings to my forearms. Coffee gurgles in the urns. Outside, the street is a slick gray ribbon of puddles and reflected neon, but inside, the bakery glows honey-gold beneath the old pendant lights, and every table is packed with people pretending they did not come in early just to see whether the enormous Vakutan would appear.
He does.
Of course he does.
Not because he wants to, he would insist. Not because he enjoys the coffee, though he drinks three mugs and once threatened the display case when it popped too close to his elbow. Not because he likes the customers, though he fixed Mr.Eddison’s compad twice, adjusted the leg brace on Mrs. Nadir’s mobility chair, and stood in the doorway yesterday until two Poison Memories boys across the street remembered urgent business elsewhere.
No, Kauss comes because he is “nearby.”
Nearby, apparently, has become a daily appointment.
The bell over the door rings at nine seventeen, and half the room goes quiet in that guilty way people go quiet when they have just been talking about the person entering. Kauss ducks beneath the frame, rain darkening the shoulders of his battered hooded coat, and the bakery rearranges itself around his presence. Conversation dips, glances dart, chairs scrape a little closer to tables. He notices all of it. I can tell by the small tightening around his eyes.
So I lift the coffee pot and smile like his arrival is the most normal thing in the galaxy.
“Morning, sunshine.”
Darlene coughs so violently behind the register that I suspect she is either choking or trying not to laugh herself into cardiac trouble.
Kauss stops. His hood casts a shadow across his scarred face, but I still catch the slow turn of his gaze toward me. “That is inaccurate.”
“Which part?”
“Both.”
“You arrived in the morning, and you brighten my day. I stand by the greeting.”
A dockworker at table three whispers, “Damn,” under his breath.
Kauss looks at him.
