“What if she comes back?”
He pauses by the exit to the kitchen, hand on the frame.
“Then you serve her like any customer. No more. No less.”
He leaves without another word.
I stay in the booth another hour.
Long enough for the flames to cool completely.
Long enough to remember how I used to cook because I loved it—not just because someone beautiful watched me from the corner.
Eventually, I get up. Wash the glass she never touched. Wipe the table she barely leaned on. Reset the silverware.
And then I kill the lights.
CHAPTER 11
KRISTI
The first step through the door burns worse than I expect.
It’s like walking into a memory that forgot how to welcome me. The smells hit first—firefruit glaze, charred root broth, and the sharp whisper of fermented citrus peel. It used to feel warm, rich. Now it’s cloying, like a perfume worn by someone who doesn’t love you anymore.
I make it as far as the threshold before my feet hesitate. The place is alive—laughter spilling over warm lights, glass clinking, someone in the corner booth raising a toast in Vakutan. But none of it’s for me.
I catch sight of him. Kenron. Bent over the kitchen line, muscles taut beneath his chef’s coat, golden eyes locked on a plating board like the dish might detonate if he looks away. His mouth moves. He’s saying something to a cook beside him. Smiling, even.
But not for me.
No seat is waiting.
No glance. No nod.
No trace of the man who used to tell me I had too much steel in my spine and not enough fire in my sauce.
I slide into a booth myself—his old one. My old one. Ours, once. The cushion squeaks beneath me. The table’s been polished to a gleam, erasing the spot where my ring once scraped a line into the wood.
The server who approaches doesn’t recognize me. Or pretends not to.
I don’t blame her.
She sets a glass of water down without speaking. No special. No usual. No familiar wink.
I don’t ask for anything. I don’t think I’m hungry.
But he comes anyway.
Kenron approaches with a dish I didn’t order. His face gives nothing away.
“House special,” he says.
“That’s not what I ordered,” I manage, voice quiet.
“It’s what we’re serving.”
He walks off before I can say more.
