“It’s a good day when I see you, Crois.”
She walked away, leaving the two of them alone at the table.
“You come here a lot,” Harmony looked at him with a smile.
“It’s easier than trying to cook for myself.”
“You sound like you don’t like cooking.”
He shrugged. “I don’t, really. It’s more of a bother. I only worry when I have to train for a fight.”
“A… a fight?”
“I box from time to time. Not much in the recent years, but I like the sport of it.”
“Sport?” Harmony sounded pained. “I’ve seen the damage that boxers take from repeated hits.”
Crois couldn’t help but smile. “I don’t worry about that too much.”
Harmony narrowed her gaze at him. “Why not? I can tell you the kid of harm that you could suffer from a single hit and-”
He reached out a hand and touched her arm where it was rested on the table.
The sudden contact stopped her words, and she looked up at him.
“I don’t worry about it much, Harm, because I don’t let them land a hit anywhere important.”
She didn’t say a word in reply.
The silence stretched on and he ended up giving her a tight-lipped grimace. “You don’t believe me.”
She gave him the hint of a shrug. “I can believe that you’d want to stay safe and that your training would do you good, but you can’t control the other fighter.” She put a hand over her heart. “I can’t understand why someone would put themselves in danger for sport or anything else.”
He leaned closer to the table, meeting her gaze with his own. “Harmony, I’m a police officer. Danger is a daily thing for me.”
Her complexion paled and he knew he hadn’t made a good point. He’d made a point all right, but it wasn’t one that would make her feel better.
“Crois, I-”
“Ooookay, you two.” Peggy showed up at their table side with two plates. She put down a plate in front of Harmony and Crois watched her expression change in a heartbeat.
Harmony Morgan looked at her plate full of pancakes and bacon like he’d seen women stare at two dozen roses.
She touched her palms together and rubbed them in glee. “Oh, this is glorious, Peggy!”
Peggy beamed at her. “You are a sweetheart, Harmony.”
Then Peggy turned to him and put his plate down in front of him. “Be nice to her.”
Crois held his hands up in surrender. “What? Of course!”
Peggy’s gaze was fixed on him as she nodded. “You’ve been warned.”
When she walked away, Crois turned back to look at Harmony and found himself smiling from ear to ear.
She was bent over her plate, her nose about an inch away from her pancakes.
She moved back and forth from edge to edge on the stack of pancakes, breathing it in.
