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“Then you’re very good.”

She clears her throat and looks away. “Flattery won’t get you out of sanitation modules.”

“I figured.”

Bitter still watches me. “Most people see a dead man sitting on a bike and get pale.”

“I like people getting what they wanted.”

“He wanted to be dead on a Harley?”

“He wanted to be remembered as himself.” I glance toward the chapel doors. “That’s different.”

The hallway goes still around that sentence.

Bitter’s expression changes, just barely. Suspicion doesn’t leave his face, but something else slips in beside it. Interest, maybe. Or caution.

“You always this sunny about dead folks?” he asks.

“Only when they have excellent presentation.”

Mercy mutters, “Lord, I made a mistake naming her Sweet. Should’ve called her Oddball.”

“I’d answer to both.”

Bitter leans one shoulder against the wall. “Where you from, Oddball?”

“Here and there.”

“Here and there got a last name?”

“Yes.”

“You gonna share it?”

“No.”

“Running from something?”

I keep smiling because that is what people expect from girls in yellow cardigans. “Ain’t we all?”

His eyes sharpen.

There. I know that look. The one people get when they realize the sunshine might not be the whole weather report.

Mercy steps in before he can ask more. “She’s here to learn, not be interrogated by a biker who thinks charm is a weapon.”

“It is a weapon,” Bitter says.

“Not a safe one.”

“Safe is boring.”

“Safe keeps women from crying in my bathroom.”

“I ain’t never made a woman cry in your bathroom.”

“Only because I lock the door during festivals.”