He starts typing.
The bar is quiet. Robin catches my eye and mouthswhat the fuck.Jason is staring. Silas hasn't looked up from his book, but he's stopped turning pages.
The guy from Coldwell Development is sitting in our bar and doing his work like he didn't just try to buy our home out from under us.
I should be angry. Knox is clearly angry, in his controlled, alpha way — I can see it in the set of his shoulders as he disappears back into the office. Robin is already composing a rant. Jason looks like someone scratched his bike on purpose.
But I'm watching Nicholas in the window booth, and what I'm feeling isn't anger.
It's curiosity.
He's uncomfortable. I can smell it — not fear exactly, but unease. Low-grade tension in someone who knows they're in a room full of predators and is choosing to stay anyway. His heartbeat hasn't settled. His shoulders are a fraction too high. Every few minutes, his eyes lift from the laptop and sweep the room — a check, making sure nothing has changed.
He doesn't like being here. He doesn't like us. Not in a hostile way. More like someone who's been told the stove is hot and is sitting in the kitchen anyway because that's where the work is.
But he tipped well. He said please and thank you. He accepted Knox's no without arguing. And he asked before staying.
The tabby jumps up on the windowsill outside, right next to Nicholas's booth. He notices. Looks at her for a long moment. Doesn't tap the glass, doesn't try to make friends. Just acknowledges her existence and goes back to his laptop.
Huh.
"Ezra." Robin is suddenly next to me, voice low. "He's literally here to take our home."
"He's literally here to eat nachos and drink beer."
"That's not—" Robin makes a frustrated sound. "Aren't you worried?"
"Knox said no. We own the property outright. There's nothing to worry about."
"Then why is he still sitting there?"
I look at Nicholas in his booth. Suit jacket off now, draped neatly over the back of the seat. Sleeves rolled once at the cuff. Working steadily, pausing only to eat a chip or take a sip of his IPA. Sitting in our bar like it's a coffee shop, like humans walk in here every day, like this is normal.
It's not normal. Nobody comes here on purpose.
"Because his car's in the lot and it's a long drive back, and he's a professional who's not going to waste the afternoon." I close my inventory spreadsheet. "He'll finish his beer, finish his nachos, and leave. And we'll never see him again."
Robin doesn't look convinced. I'm not entirely convinced either.
But the stray tabby is still sitting on the windowsill, watching Nicholas with the same expression I probably have — not friendly, not hostile. Just interested. Waiting to see what he does next.
I go check on the bourbon order.
Chapter 2
Nicholas
Five shifters.
I counted five. I don't know what kind — you can't tell from the eyes alone, just that they're not human. The gold flash, the predator stillness, the way they track movement without turning their heads. Could be wolves, bears, big cats. Doesn't matter. The specifics don't change the math.
The big one in the office doorway — Knox, the owner, the only name I had going in. Alpha, obvious from ten feet away. The mechanic who came in from the back with grease on his hands and a posture that said he'd been in fights and won all of them. The quiet one in the corner who never looked up from his book but tracked every movement I made with his peripheral vision. The young one behind the bar who kept glancing at me like I was a stray dog he wanted to feed.
And the one at the bar with the spreadsheet.
He was the hardest to read. The others had tells — the alpha presence, the fighter's build, the predator watchfulness. The one with the spreadsheet just looked at me like I was mildly interesting. Not a threat, not prey. A variable. Something to factor into his numbers.
Another man joined them shortly after I arrived, took a long look at me, and then the one making pastries pulled him behind the bar. Now he's sitting at the bar with some books.
