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You got used to that, too.
Shepherdstown was a place full of people you just got used to, that was the thing. Usually, if you liked it here, it was because there were things about you that took some getting used to as well. You were tolerant as a strategy of reciprocal goodwill.
Anyway, that day, it started because Niles was having a fight on the phone with Will, who owned the place. Will was… also a person you had to get used to. Okay, Will washardto get used to.
The nice way to explain Will was that he was a perfectionist who took pride in his place of business and the products he sold to the public. He had an exacting opinion of how things should be done. To Will, there was right, and there was wrong.
If Will thought a person was wrong, however—any person, whether they be his employee or his customer or his longterm boyfriend Gordon—he would scream at that person. A lot of times he used profanity.
The reason that The Daily Bread was still open was that Will no longer worked behind the counter, because when he was there, people would literally cross on the other side of the street to avoid seeing him.
He did have a tendency to, for instance, scream at people if they would mess up the mat in front of the door or if they messed up the two sets of tables and chairs that were out on the sidewalk in the front of the place.
So, Niles was on the phone with Will.
She could hear Will screaming on the other end of the phone, and Niles would occasionally try to get a word in edgewise, but that would quickly be squelched, and Niles would bow down his head and and wince hard and then steel himself for the next thing that Will said. This went on for about ten minutes.
Eventually, Niles hung up the phone. “Well, Gordon left him again?”
“Again?” she said. To be fair, whenever people talked about Gordon and Will, the conversation usually got around to how they were such a strange couple. Will was the gruffest, grouchiest, eye-twitchiest elf that probably anyone had ever met. Gordon, on the other hand, was a goblin, and very friendly, always smiling, the sweetest guy. When the two of them were together, however, that was when Gordon showed a different side. He’d get really snippy.
She’d never seen them do anything other than argue.
Will treated everyone that way, and Gordon spent all his time with Will being incredibly sarcastic and rolling his eyes a lot. He muttered under his breath whenever Will ordered him around—which Will did. To be fair, Will ordered everyone around.
They were constantly breaking up, which seemed to make sense. But then they always got back together again, which… okay?
There were couples like that, she supposed, who enjoyed the drama of the whole thing. Will and Gordon were both in their fifties and had been together for, like, twenty years or something, so she guessed that was their thing. She didn’t want a relationship like that, though. She did not like arguments atall.
“Yeah, so he’s just in a mood,” said Niles.
“He’s kind of always in a mood,” she said.
“Good point,” said Niles.
“So, should we start a bet on how long this lasts?” she said.
Gordon came into the shop to make the bread. He was the baker in the enterprise, and even when he and Will were broken up, they were still running this business together.
“I’m thinking maybe I should use this opportunity to flirt with Will,” said Niles. “You know, maybe try to move up the corporate ladder with my hot bod.” He gestured to his body.
Which was naked except for a blue-and-red checked silk scarf complete with fringes. She registered that, not for the first time, but it went through her brain in a different way.
This guy is my boss and he comes to work naked every day,she thought, and it felt, er, sexual in a way that it had never felt before. She had never really thought about Niles in a sex way. Or in a romantic way. Or in that sort of capacity at all. She looked him up and down, thinking about it, thinkingallabout it.
“That was a joke, but you’re a tough crowd,” said Niles.
“Oh.” She laughed. Belatedly. “Um, this is not a corporation.”
“No,” he said.
“And what ladder? You’re already the general manager. Like, how much higher could you climb?”
“Right, no, it was a joke.” He turned away, snickering. “Obviously, not one of my better ones.”
“It was funny.” She nodded. Suddenly, she blurted, “So, is it true about nagas?” Equally suddenly, she cleared her throat, heat rushing to her face, and turned back to the counter. “Never mind. I don’t know why I said that. Forget it.”
“Is what true?” Niles voice was teasing as he slithered closer, his snake body doing a mesmerizing back and forth motion.
