I nod once. “Walked out without finishing her food.”
“That’s something, at least.”
He pauses beside me. Doesn’t sit. He never sits in booths. Says they’re for cowards and liars. Claims a man should eat on his feet if the truth is in question.
“You want to close the place down?” he asks, like he’s asking whether I want to take a piss or sharpen knives.
I glance up at him. The ceiling’s glow halos around his head, catching the white streaks in his crimson scales. He looks like a statue left behind by war gods.
“No,” I say. “But she doesn’t eat here anymore.”
He nods.
Then, for the first time in a long damn while, he sits anyway.
Across from me. Right in the spot where she used to.
“Good,” he says, folding his arms. “Means you’re still thinking.”
I snort. “Barely.”
“You gave her your trust,” he says, not soft but not cruel either. “It was earned. You’re not wrong for that. She made you believe she could stand between your world and hers. You believed because you’re still a fool with your heart open.”
“That a compliment?”
He shrugs. “Depends what you do next.”
I lean back, fingers twitching. “Thought I might cook until my hands fall off.”
He raises a brow. “Not enough.”
“You got a better idea?”
His silence is answer enough. He’s seen it all. Done it twice. But this? Heartbreak? That’s not something the old warriors prepared us for. They trained us for pain, notbetrayal that smells like perfume and citrus and sounds like soft apologies.
I stare at the ceiling like it might give me something useful.
But all it gives me is more silence.
“I wanted her to see us,” I say eventually. “Not justme. I wanted her to understand what we built here. What it means.”
“She saw,” he says. “She just didn’t believe it was worth standing for.”
That hits harder than I expect. Because it’s true.
“She could have,” I whisper.
He leans forward, claws tapping the table with sharp patience. “Maybe one day she will.”
I look at him.
“You still think she’s coming back?”
“No.” He doesn’t blink. “But pain doesn’t always mean permanence.”
I huff out a breath. Almost a laugh. Almost.
He stands then, slow and heavy. “Get some sleep, boy. Tomorrow you cook. And the day after. And the day after that.”
