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Something pressed against the back of my teeth, a question I wanted to ask so badly it almost tasted like copper. But pushing now would be the worst thing I could do. Everything about Phineas told me the man operated on a hair trigger, and one wrong word would slam the door shut permanently.

So I swallowed it and waited.

“I should—I have to get back. My break’s almost over,” Phineas said softly.

“Sure. Hey, Phineas?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m glad you called.”

A beat of quiet. Then, so softly I almost missed it, he said, “Goodbye, Drift.”

The line went dead.

I lowered the phone and stared at the blank screen. My thumb hovered over the number, as if pressing it again might somehow fix whatever had just cracked open during that conversation.

Did someone hurt you?

Four words, and they’d come out of Phineas like a reflex. Not “that’s a weird thing to say” or “ha-ha, good one” or any of the dozen deflections a normal person might reach for. Phineas had gone straight to the wound, as if pain was the default setting and safety was the anomaly. Had asked the question like he already knew the answer and was terrified of hearing it confirmed about someone else.

There wasn’t a doubt in my mind. Someone was hurting the human.

The question was what to do about it.

Pushing would send Phineas running. The man was already operating on a hair trigger, calibrating every interaction for danger. If I came on too strong—demanded answers, played the hero, showed up at his workplace like some territorial asshole marking my claim—Phineas would bolt. And wherever he fled to, I had a sinking feeling it would be straight back to whoever was leaving those bruises.

So I couldn’t push. Couldn’t pull either. I had to just be there, consistent and safe, until Phineas decided on his own to step forward.

The back door opened, and Blade leaned out, screwdriver clutched in his hand. “You coming back, or are you communing with my weeds?”

“Give me a second.”

Blade studied me, reading whatever was written across my face. The door closed with a quiet click. That was one of the best things about my brother. The man understood when silence was an answer, not an invitation.

I pocketed my phone and looked out at the yard without really seeing it. Pine trees lined the back fence, their tops swaying in a breeze I couldn’t feel at ground level. Somewhere down the block, a lawnmower droned. Kids were shouting and laughing.

Nothing about this moment should’ve felt like standing on the edge of a cliff.

Chapter Seven

Drift

“Don’t you dare screw up on me,” I snarled at the espresso machine. The damn thing sputtered like it was coughing up a lung. Steam hissed from the group head in fits and starts, spitting hot water across the drip tray instead of pulling the smooth, even shot I needed.

I tightened the portafilter, checked the grind, adjusted the tamp pressure, and tried again. Same result. A thin, anemic stream dribbled into the cup, blond and bitter and completely unusable.

“Come on,” I muttered, dismantling the portafilter for the third time. “Don’t do this to me today.”

The espresso machine had been temperamental all week. Last Tuesday, the pressure gauge had decided to lie to me outright, claiming nine bars while delivering something closer to six.

Wednesday brought a clogged steam wand that took an hour and three YouTube tutorials to clear.

And now this. Intermittent flow issues that couldn’t decide if they wanted to be a gasket problem, a pump failure, or just middle-aged machinery having a damn snit.

I ejected the puck of grounds and watched it crumble in the knock box, too dry in some spots and too wet in others. Channeling. The water was finding paths of least resistance through the coffee instead of saturating it evenly.

Classic symptom of either a worn gasket, an uneven burr grind, or the universe simply having it out for me.