Luke shot them both a withering look. “I don’t pay you to critique my spice tolerance.”
“That’s a shame,” I muttered under my breath. “You might get your money’s worth.”
Luke straightened, likely trying to salvage what was left of his dignity. His face was still an alarming shade of crimson, and his eyes were watering so much I half-expected him to start crying actual tears. "You know what? Maybe I'm trying too hard because—" He paused, wiping his face with Hal's handkerchief. "Because there's not exactly a lot to work with here."
I felt my spine stiffen. "Excuse me?"
"I mean, look around." He gestured wildly at the French Market, nearly smacking a woman carrying a bag of beignets. "It's the same twelve songs on repeat, drunk people stumbling around at eleven in the morning, and vendors selling garbage with 'Made in China' stickers they forgot to peel off. You keep acting like this place is sacred, but it's basically Disneyland with worse parking and more vomit."
Tom's café au lait stopped halfway to his mouth. Hal's eyes went wide, and he took a subtle step backward like he was trying to distance himself from the impending explosion.
My jaw clenched so hard I thought my teeth might crack. "Disneyland with worse parking?"
"I just mean—" Luke started, his voice slightly hoarse from the hot sauce damage.
"No, no, please. Continue." I folded my arms tighter. "Tell me more about how the city I love is basically a tourist trap with better music."
"That's not what I?—"
"And for your information, those 'twelve songs' you're complaining about? They're classics. They're the soundtrack of this city. People have been playing those songs for generations because theymatter.But I guess when you're used to Auto-Tuned pop garbage, you wouldn't recognize real music if it hit you in your sunburned face."
Luke opened his mouth, then closed it. His face was now red for an entirely different reason.
"And those 'drunk people'? Some of them are musicians who've been playing since dawn. Some of them are locals who actually live here and don't need your permission to enjoy their own city. And yeah, some of them are tourists, but at least they'retryingto have a good time instead of—" I gestured at his entire outfit, "—whatever disaster this is supposed to be."
"I was trying to blend in!" Luke's voice cracked slightly, either from defensiveness or from lingering hot-sauce trauma.
Hal cleared his throat. "Maybe we should?—"
"And another thing," I continued, on a roll now, "you waltzed in here with your bodyguards and your credit card, thinking you could just throw money at everything and make it go away. That's not how this works. That vendor knewexactlywhat he was doing when he saw you coming, and you know what? Good for him. You want to act like you're better than everyone here? Then yeah, you can pay the idiot tax."
Luke's jaw tightened. "I never said I was better than anyone."
"You didn't have to say it. It's written all over your face. All over that ridiculous outfit. All over the way you keep looking around like you're afraid someone's going to mug you for your flip-flops." I took a breath, my chest heaving. "This city has survived hurricanes, floods, and centuries of people trying to tell us we're doing it wrong. We don't need some Hollywood pretty boy in a tacky hat telling us we're not good enough for him."
The words hung in the air between us.
Luke's expression shifted—hurt flickering across his face before he schooled it back into something neutral. "Right," he said quietly. "Got it."
Tom muttered under his breath, "This is going well."
Hal shot him a look that could've melted steel.
I took a step back, suddenly exhausted. "Luke, this isn't working."
He stopped, frowning. "What isn't?"
"This. You. Me. All of it." I gestured between us. "You're not the lie low and disappear type, and that's fine. But trying to make this arrangement work? It's not happening. I think we need to cut our losses before you insult jazz music or call gumbo 'swamp soup' or whatever's next."
His jaw tightened, and for a second, I thought he might argue. Push back. Maybe even apologize. But then he shrugged, his expression carefully blank. "So, what? You're saying we call it quits?"
I nodded, ignoring the unexpected twist in my chest. "Yeah. No harm, no foul, right?"
Tom muttered under his breath, "Plenty of foul. That shirt alone?—"
Luke shot him a glare before turning back to me. "If you think that's best."
"It is." I kept my voice steady even as something inside me wavered.
