I press my fingers against my sore ribs. “He’s not a killer.”
“Sweetheart.”
“I know what he is capable of. I saw it. But that’s not all he is.”
“No one said it was.”
“Everyone says it without saying it.”
“Because people are scared of what strength looks like when it’s honest.” She taps ash from an unlit cigarette into her palm out of habit, then frowns at it like it has disappointed her. “Kauss doesn’t pretend he’s civilized the way men in nice suits do. Ron walks in smiling and destroys your bakery. Kauss walks inscowling and fixes your window latch. Folks fear the wrong thing because the wrong thing has better manners.”
I stare at her. “That was actually profound.”
“Don’t spread it around. I’ve got a reputation.”
The afternoon slides toward evening, gray and restless. The crowd thins. The charity repair crew disperses. Renn promises to return tomorrow with a salvaged pane that might fit the side window. Mrs. Pell hugs me too tightly and smells like oranges. Mr. Eddison refuses to leave until Darlene threatens to call his daughter, which is apparently the one power in the galaxy stronger than pride.
By seven, Sweet Tooth is almost quiet.
I should close. I know I should close. The city outside has that waiting feel again, the one that makes the hairs rise at the back of my neck. Rain dots the boarded window. The repaired door lock gleams where Kauss installed the new brace earlier in the week. The empty space at the counter where his reinforced stool waits looks larger than it should.
Darlene stands beside me, wiping the same clean spot on the counter. “Go upstairs.”
“I’m waiting.”
“For him?”
“Yes.”
She does not tease me. That is how I know I look as bad as I feel.
“He may not come here first,” she says.
“I know.”
“You may get a call.”
The words chill me. “From who?”
“Clinic. Police. Some idiot witness. Bad news travels with options.”
“Stop.”
“I’m not trying to scare you.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No. I’m trying to make sure you’re scared of the right things.”
I turn away because my eyes have started burning. I hate this. I hate not knowing. I hate how quickly Kauss became a person whose absence changes the air. I hate that I can remember the exact weight of his hand at my back when I cried in the ruined bakery. I hate that I want him safe with a ferocity that feels far too intimate for a man I keep insisting is only my friend.
The compad rings at seven forty-three.
The sound cuts through the bakery like a shot.
Darlene and I both freeze.
My compad sits on the counter beside the register, projecting an incoming local official channel in pale blue. Not Mira. Not a neighbor. Not a vendor.
