It’s midafternoon, that slow slice of day when the snow looks flat and the storefronts blink like they need coffee. I wipe my hands on a towel and tell my mother I’m taking the trash to the alley. It’s an excuse, and she knows it.
“Take a minute,” she replies from the counter.
“I will.”
“Walk to the corner and back,” she adds.
“I will.”
“Do not pick a fight unless you mean to finish it,” she says with a fine laugh as if nothing’s wrong here.
“I never start fights.”
“Mm-hmm.”
I tie the trash, push through the back door, and stand in the narrow slice of cold behind the shop. The alley smells like wet cardboard and clean snow. The sky has that pewter look that means more will fall by dark. I set the bag in the bin and keep going. The block’s half my childhood and half my present—same bricks, different signs. The florist’s lights glow in the window, a little village under glass. The hardware store’s got snow shovels stacked like a parade. The diner’s got steam on the windows and a waitress with a pencil behind her ear. Nothing’s changed, and everything’s changed.
I step around to Main. He’s there, leaning on a lamppost across the street like he has belonged to it his whole life. Shoulders straight, mouth curled just enough to look like a smile, as ifhe’s not watching everything, just his phone feed. Men like him pretend to have no work. They do.
I walk straight across and stop in front of him. I don’t touch him because that would be a different conversation. I fold my arms and stand close enough that he has to tip his chin down a fraction to meet my eyes.
“Stay away from my son,” I tell him, voice low and sharp.
He listens. He always has that skill, the stillness that reads as control and not indifference. A muscle tics in his jaw and smooths. His gaze doesn’t flinch.
“I will not come up the stairs,” he answers, measured, “if that is what you want.”
“How about leaving us alone?” I push.
“I will not leave you unsafe.” There is no heat in it, only iron. “Not until this is finished.”
“You get to decide when a thing is finished, do you?” My voice is off-key, dangerous. I know I’m running into peril here.
“I do when I know the ones who start playing it foolishly.”
“You think you own this town because you can place two vans and buy three coffees.”
“I think I can read a pattern,” he replies. “And I think the pattern says a car will slow today, and a man will look where he should not, and that will be the beginning if I am not here to make it the end.”
“Always the general,” I mutter. In a flash, I remember Marco being called one, one time too many.
“Always the man who cleans messes I do not make,” he corrects.
“You made this,” I cut in. “You walked into my life and left a shadow I had to live with. Then you show up like a solution and expect me to say thank you.”
“No,” he returns, calm. “I expect you to stay standing. I expect you to keep your boy fed and warm and stubborn. I expect you to hate me if that helps you keep your head clear.” He lets his voice rise a shade. “I do not require your gratitude.”
Anger flares and fades faster than I want. He stands there absorbing it like he’s had practice. It makes me want to hit him, and it makes me want to lean into him.
“You always speak like you are in a briefing,” I tell him. “Do you ever use words that do not sound like orders?” I tilt my head. “Or is that classified?”
He looks at my mouth just once, quick and clean, then back to my eyes. “With you,” he says, softer, “yes.”
I hate that my pulse notices that. I hate that a memory slips in anyway, as if a door slides open and I can see a woman in a green dress on the balcony one night in Milan, a man’s hand on her back that felt like a choice I had wanted for years without knowing it.
“This isn’t Milan,” I remind him.
“No,” he agrees. “This is a town with one main street and a bakery that smells like the thing we both want.”
