"Do you? Because your hand keeps going for the laptop like it owes you money."
"I just... I could help with the books. Or the inventory. I noticed a formula error in your cost-per-unit calculation lastweek, and the depreciation schedule on the garage equipment hasn't been updated since—"
"Nico."
"Yeah?"
"There will be plenty of time for you to fix my spreadsheets. And believe me, they need fixing — I know about the depreciation schedule, I've been meaning to update it for three years." He closes his laptop halfway. Looks at me. "But right now, today, you just quit your job. You blew the whistle on a corporate displacement program. You moved out of a hotel and into a room above a bar. You don't have to earn the stool you're sitting on."
"I'm not trying to earn—"
"You are. You're sitting here calculating how to be useful because that's how you've survived every environment you've been in since you were twelve. Be useful, be thorough, be indispensable, and nobody sends you away." He says it plainly, without drama. The way he says everything. "Nobody's sending you away."
I look at the oak bar top. The grain that Knox's grandfather chose, that Knox's dad milled. Sixty years of people sitting where I'm sitting, not because they were useful but because they were here. The same bar top I told Cass about three times, unprompted, because it meant something I didn't know how to name.
"I don't know how to do nothing," I say.
"You're not doing nothing. You're being."
"Being isn't a verb."
"It's literally a verb. It's the most basic verb that exists."
"Grammatically, yes. Functionally—"
"Nico. Shut up. Eat your muffin. Be."
I eat my muffin. I be.
* * *
It gets slightly less awful around noon. Jason makes sandwiches for everyone, the kind with thick bread and actual vegetables and a pickle spear that I eat first because pickles are a priority. Robin comes by with a new batch of something for the café and sits with me for ten minutes talking about nothing — his supply chain for vanilla extract, the library's radiator issues, a woman who comes to story hour every week and cries during the sad parts.
"She cries every time?" I ask.
"Every single time. Last week it wasGoodnight Moonand she still cried."
"Goodnight Moonisn't sad."
"That's what I said! Toby says it's about impermanence and the passage of time, which okay, but it's a bunny saying goodnight to furniture, Toby."
I laugh. It comes out easy, unforced, the kind of laugh that happens when you're not performing and someone says something genuinely funny. Robin looks pleased. Not smugly, not like he's collecting a reaction. Just pleased, the way you are when someone laughs at your observation and it feels like a connection.
Vaughn comes through at one. Doesn't speak to me, which I've learned is not hostility but simply Vaughn. He gets water, drinks it, looks at me on the stool, looks at Ezra's hand near mine on the bar, and goes back to the garage. That's Vaughn's whole deal. Presence without commentary. I respect itenormously. And I also envy how easy he and Robin are together as Robin hugs him and Vaughn keeps him close.
At two, Cass calls.
I answer at the bar, because where else am I going to answer? The spare room is upstairs and my phone is in my hand and Cass doesn't wait for convenient timing.
"Nico! Did you quit? Uncle Martin said you quit. He called me, Nico. Hecalled me.On the phone. Not a text, a phone call. On his lunch break. He asked if I was alright and I almost fainted."
"Martin called you."
"He asked about university. About my plans. He asked if I needed anything. I've lived in his house for six years and he's never asked if I needed anything." Her voice goes soft. Something I rarely hear from Cass — the softness of a girl who's been performing loudness to fill the space where a parent should be. "What did you say to him?"
"I asked him for legal advice."
"You asked him for legal advice and he turned into a person?"
