“You really think the tariffs will pass?” I ask, knowing it doesn’t matter.
“Not if the Fratvoyans get their way,” he says. “They’ll stall the bill until the dry moons crack. Politics tastes worse than sour bark.”
I smirk. “Sounds like someone’s been burned.”
“More than once,” he says, and the flicker in his eyes is all shadow. But he moves past it with grace—pulls two bowls, sets them down.
We eat.
We talk.
And slowly, inevitably, I unravel.
I don’t mean to. I never do. But something about the way he listens—open, still, like I’m the only frequency he’s tuned to—makes the walls inside me shudder.
“My mother had this scarf,” I say.
He looks up, not interrupting.
“It was stupid. Ugly thing. Yellow with little green leaves. I used to tease her about it.”
He waits.
“They found it two blocks away. After the blast. Just... there. Hanging off a streetlight like some kind of sick flag.”
Silence.
A different kind. Not absence. Presence.
I don’t know when the tears start. Don’t know when my voice breaks. All I know is that the breath shakes in my chest and my fingers curl into fists and I can’t look at him.
Not until his hand covers mine.
Warm. Gentle. Solid like stone warmed in the sun.
“I hate that I still miss her,” I whisper. “That I still think I see her in crowds.”
“That’s not weakness,” he says softly. “That’s love.”
And I lose it.
The sob rips out of me without warning, raw and aching, like something I’ve kept buried too long has finally clawed its way out.
Kenron doesn’t say anything else. He just shifts closer, lets our forearms press together, lets the silence hold everything I can’t.
When I finally look up, our faces are inches apart.
And he’s not smiling.
He’s not smirking or charming or any of the things I expect him to be. He’s justthere. Honest. Real.
Our lips touch.
Soft. Slow. Tasting like salt and smoke and pain and something that might be the start of healing.
I don’t know who leans in first. Doesn’t matter.
It’s not hunger. Not lust. It’sneed. And when we pull apart, I’m breathing like I ran a mile uphill, and he’s watching me like I’m the only damn thing left standing after a storm.
