Page 8 of Claimed By the BRATVA Grump

Fuck.

Sammie

I have a plan for if he comes in this morning, and the plan is to be completely normal. Though it wouldn’t surprise me if he never shows his face here again considering I molested him yesterday.

And I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. Not just because I could quite literally die from the embarrassment, but because of what I actuallyfelt.

No amount of cold showers could eliminate that from my memory.

Delilah grins over at me, knowing exactly what’s happening inside my head right now.

“Stop it,” I say, trying my hardest to just let it go and forget about it.

If he comes, I will say good morning. I will hand him his coffee. I will not think about yesterday, I will not think about napkins, and I will absolutely not think about what I felt beneath napkins. I am a professional adult woman who runs a business, and professional adult women do not spiral about these things while operating industrial ovens.

The bell chimes at his usual time, and my entire plan dies on the spot.

He does his four-second read of the room. Then his eyes find me behind the counter, and I watch him register my face, whichI already know is doing something, because I can feel the heat climbing my neck like it has somewhere important to be.

He crosses to the counter. I slide his coffee toward him. House blend, black, already made, because my hands at least are still following the plan even if my face has defected.

"Good morning," I say, and it comes out almost normal. Ninety percent normal. Very nearly normal with just a slightly high-pitched squeak at the end of the wordmorning.

"Good morning." He taps his phone to the reader, then, while I'm still congratulating myself on surviving, he picks up the cup and says, "The suit was recovered. The shirt, unfortunately, not."

I stare at him.

"In case you were concerned," he adds, and there it is, a tiny glint in his eyes that tells me he is finding this all too funny.

"I wasn't concerned," I say. "I'd already moved through concern into planning my new identity. I was thinking Margaret. Margaret runs a yarn shop in a coastal town and has never spilled anything in her life."

"Margaret sounds dull."

"Margaret is extremely dull. That's what appeals to me."

He looks at me for a second longer than the joke needs, in that footnote-reading way, and then he goes to his table, where Lucifer is already performing his sentry duties. And that's it. That's the whole horror I lost sleep over, dismantled in thirty seconds by a man who apparently decided to be gracious about it, which is honestly the most confusing thing he's done yet.

Delilah appears at my elbow. "You're pink."

"I'm warm,” I counter. “Ovens."

"You're oven-adjacent pink on one side of your face only, and it's the side facing the corner table."

I hand her a tray and tell her table six wants their toasted sandwich.

The day rolls on the way our days do. Old Bill arrives at nine and takes up his post by the pastry display. The green-coat woman, Pattie, gets her oat milk. Red stares at the wall, receiving his transmissions. Eduard drinks his coffee and watches his window, and I bring him fresh coffee twice and leave a slice of the lemon poppyseed on the second round, house policy, non-negotiable, and he eats it without comment.

He leaves earlier than usual. Mid-afternoon, before the school rush, folding his cash tip under the cup where he thinks I don't see him do it. At the door he pauses, just briefly, and looks back at me.

"Lock up properly tonight," he says. Which is a strange thing to say.

I file it under Mr. Grumpy Oddities, a folder that is getting genuinely quite full, and I say something breezy about how the deadbolt and I are old friends, and he leaves. I don't think about it again.

I should have thought about it.

The last customer leaves at five forty-seven, and I don't even have to check the clock because Delilah has been counting down for the past twenty minutes.

"Five fifty," she says, untying her apron.