"Shortly."
"Good. You look..." He seemed to search for a diplomatic phrasing. "Tired."
"I appreciate your concern."
"That means go away, doesn't it."
"It does."
He went. The door clicked shut. I stared at theelevations for another thirty seconds, then closed the folder and reached for my keys.
She was waiting on the sidewalk outside Brew & Bean when I pulled up—not in a visible way, not obviously watching for my car. She was leaning against the brick facade with her bag over her shoulder, scrolling through her phone, and the fact that I recognized her particular brand of forced nonchalance from half a block away told me everything I needed to know about how far gone I was.
She spotted the car, pushed off the wall, and pulled open the passenger door before I could come around to get it.
"Before you say anything," she said, dropping into the seat and kicking off her shoes—a move I'd catalogued as Standard Willow Protocol—"today was a day."
I pulled back into traffic. "Bad?"
"Not catastrophe-level. More of a slow, grinding sort of awful." She leaned her head back against the seat, stared at the ceiling. The wardrobe I'd bought her—dark jeans, a cream sweater that made her skin look warm—fit well. I noticed. Told myself to stopnoticing.
"Tell me."
She didn't commandeer my radio. Didn't connect her phone to the Bluetooth. That absence told me more than any complaint could have.
"I had a meeting with the owners today. Pete and Linda." She picked at a thread on her sleeve. "The espresso machine needs a full replacement. Not a repair—a replacement. And the cooler's been making that grinding noise for weeks, and now it's graduated to full death rattle." She paused. "The repair estimates are... significant."
"How significant?"
"Significant enough that Pete's face went a color I've never seen on a living person." She turned toward the window. "They didn't say it. They're too decent to say it while I'm standing right there. But I could do the math. The equipment costs are stacking up and revenue isn't keeping pace, and at a certain point the numbers just stop making sense."
The shop might close. She wasn't saying it. She was arranging the facts in neat rows and letting me draw the conclusion myself.
My instinct was to fix it. Write a check. Make a call. I knew suppliers, knew equipment dealers, could have a reconditioned commercial espresso machine sourced and delivered within a week. The solution was so obvious it practically vibrated in my teeth.
But I'd watched Willow long enough to understandthat what she needed right now wasn't a man with a checkbook swooping in to save her. She needed to be heard. To have the worry taken seriously without being immediately solved.
So I drove. Let her talk. Let her explain the repair timeline, the budget constraints, the way Linda had hugged her before leaving as if they both knew what the hug meant.
Mid-sentence, she trailed off. Stared out the window at the city passing.
I didn't fill the silence. Just drove.
After a while, she said, "Sorry. I'm not great company tonight."
"You don't need to be great company. You need to be fed."
The ghost of a smile. "Is that your solution to everything? Food?"
"It's my solution to most things. The rest I handle with expensive whiskey and denial."
She laughed—short, tired, but real. I'd take it.
The apartment wrapped around us in its usual silence. I'd never minded the quiet before Willow. Now it felt conspicuous, as if the apartment itself was holding its breath.
She offered to help cook. I told her to sit. She hoisted herself onto the kitchen island—her spot, claimed with the casual territorial instinct of a cat—and pulled her knees up, making herself small on the marble.
"Tell me a customer horror story," I said, pulling ingredients from the fridge. "Distract me from the fact that I'm about to butcher this garlic."
