I look at him. “Don’t.”
“She needs food.”
“I know she needs food.”
“Then take payment.”
“I said on the house.”
“You cannot feed everyone.”
“I can feed her.”
“You cannot afford?—”
“Kauss.”
The sharpness in my voice surprises both of us. The bakery quiets at the edges, sensing the shift. Darlene pauses by the coffee urn but does not intervene. Kauss looks at me, and for a moment I see the soldier beneath the coat, the one trained to press every practical advantage, to count supplies and casualties and outcomes without sentiment.
I soften before either of us turns this into a fight. “I know what I can and can’t afford. Thank you for caring. But this is my counter, my soup, and my decision.”
Something flickers through his eyes. Respect, maybe. Frustration, definitely. He picks up the credits slowly and puts them away.
“As you say,” he murmurs.
“Don’t sound so wounded. I’m still giving you pie later.”
“I did not ask for pie.”
“You never ask for anything. That’s why you’re getting pie.”
Doreen snorts into her tea.
Kauss looks betrayed by the room’s amusement, and I have to turn away before I smile too obviously. He can be so stern that people miss the sweetness hiding underneath it.
The afternoon wears on with rain tapping a steady rhythm against the windows and the bakery full of that strange, tense warmth that follows danger when people are trying to pretend they are not scared. Kauss stays longer than usual, fixing the hinge on the rear door without being asked and checking the alley twice before returning to his stool. Every time someone vulnerable comes through the door, his gaze tracks them with silent assessment. Every time a stranger lingers too long near the window, his shoulders shift beneath his battered coat.
By four, the clouds lower over Halo until the whole neighborhood feels pressed beneath a dirty gray lid. Kauss finally leaves after making me promise to lock the rear door early, and I tease him about becoming my unpaid security consultant. He tells me, very seriously, that unpaid work is inefficient. I tell him friendship is often inefficient. That makes him go quiet in a way that warms me and scares me at the same time.
“You really are impossible,” I say as he stands near the back door.
“That has been said.”
“By military commanders or old girlfriends?”
His expression shuts down for half a breath before I can regret the question. “Commanders.”
I immediately soften. “Sorry.”
“It was not offensive.”
“No, but it hit something.”
He looks at me for a long moment, rainlight silvering the scars along his face. “You notice too much.”
“I run a bakery. Noticing too much is basically the job.”
“That seems inefficient.”
