Instead, I keep walking. Past my door. Past the stairwell. I don’t even bother checking the compad, though it buzzes in my pocket like a wasp ready to sting. I know where I’m going before I admit it to myself.
Kenron’s place isn’t far.
Too close, actually.
The neighborhood hums with evening life—open storefronts, street vendors hawking hot bowls of something smoky and fragrant. A couple of teenagers zip past on hoverboards, laughing like nothing in the world can touch them.
I round the corner and there it is. His family’s eatery. The lights are on. The windows fogged with heat and spice. Inside, I can see him—moving like he always does, with that strange grace that looks like violence held on a tight leash. He’s stirring something. Laughing at something one of the other cooks says. The sound doesn’t reach me, but I see it in the shape of his mouth, the way his shoulders move.
He looks... good.
Gods.
I’m frozen across the street, hidden in the shadow of a noodle cart that smells like seaweed and vinegar. I don’t move. I don’t breathe.
I could go in.
He’d see me. He’d probably smile. Say something flirty. Pretend nothing’s wrong. Or maybe he’d see through me. See the hollow place Dennis carved into my chest. See the doubt. The fear. The mess.
Maybe he’d hate me.
I don’t know which scares me more.
The warmth spilling from the windows should feel comforting. Instead, it feels like a boundary I’m not allowed to cross.
Not yet.
A woman laughs inside. Not him—someone else. One of the servers maybe. He grins, says something I can’t hear.
My stomach twists.
I stand there for five minutes. Maybe ten. The compad buzzes again, a sharp vibration against my thigh.
I turn away.
Walk home in silence.
The apartment feels colder than usual when I finally get inside. I strip off my coat and drop it in the chair by the door. My hands are shaking again. I don’t know if it’s from the wind or the emotions I keep trying to shove down like broken glass.
I pour myself a drink. Not tea. Something stronger. Cheap brandy from a human market stall, sweet and sharp, burning all the way down. I pour another. And then a third.
My reflection stares back at me from the dark screen again. The same woman. The same flushed face. The same lie.
It’s not serious.
The hell it isn’t.
CHAPTER 10
KENRON
Ifeel her before I see her.
It’s the weight in my gut, the tightening in my jaw, the way my claws press harder into the dough I’m kneading. Like my body knows she’s coming, like it’s bracing for impact before my brain can catch up.
The lunch rush is thinning, and I’m elbows deep in prep for dinner—charred root slurry, flash-seared zathen ribs, slow fermenting jal crocks singing quietly beneath the heat lamps. The smells are good, comforting even—garlic-glaze haze, bone broth steam, citrus-sharp fronds soaking in firewine—but I can’t taste any of it today. Not really. It all feels... muted. Like I’m cooking underwater. Like something important’s been buried alive in my chest, and I can’t dig it out.
Then the bell chimes.
