"You're doing good here," Betty says. "Jenny needed the help, and Lord knows I'm too old to work double shifts anymore. The regulars like you."
"Even the ones who stare?"
Her mouth tightens. "Small town. New faces draw attention. Give it time."
I nod and take another bite, but I've noticed the way conversations stop when I walk into the general store. The glances exchanged across the post office counter. Whispers I catch fragments of before they cut off.
Knox's human.
The words drift back from yesterday. Two women at the corner booth who didn't realize I could hear them.
He brought her to the clubhouse himself. First outsider in years.
Heard he's had brothers driving past her place at night.
I'd dropped the coffee pot. Blaming the slick handle. But my hands shook for an hour afterward.
Two weeks of silence. Not a visit, not a message through Betty, not even a glimpse of him on Main Street. But his brothers drive past my apartment after dark, the rumble of their bikes cutting through the quiet.
He's watching over me. From a distance.
I don't understand it.
Liar.The voice in my head sounds tired.You know why he's keeping his distance. You felt it too, that night.
"Finish eating," Betty says, sliding off the stool. "Lunch rush starts at eleven thirty, and Jenny called in—her kid's got the flu."
Noon hits and the diner fills up fast.
Tourists passing through, locals grabbing quick bites, a group of construction workers from the highway project. I weavebetween tables with plates of burgers and refills of coffee, falling into the rhythm of work the way I used to fall into lesson plans.
Teaching feels like another lifetime now.
I'm clearing the corner booth when the argument starts.
Three men at the counter, wearing matching red caps with an embroidered fist logo. They've been nursing coffees for an hour, loud in a way that sets my teeth on edge. When the door opened earlier and a young orc mother walked in with her son—maybe seven or eight, green-skinned and nervous—they started muttering.
Now one of them stands, blocking the mother's path to the door.
"Just saying." His voice carries across the diner. "There's a human school across town. Don't know why your kind needs to be at ours."
The mother pulls her son closer. "Excuse me. We need to get past."
"Bet you do." The man doesn't move. His buddies snicker behind their coffee cups. "What's the matter? Can't understand English? Or do orcs only grunt?"
My blood runs cold, then hot.
Don't get involved. You're new here. You don't know these people. Keep your head down, stay small, stay safe—
The boy flinches when the man steps closer, and every instinct I spent years suppressing roars back to life.
"Hey." My voice cuts across the diner. "Leave them alone."
The man turns. Takes in my apron, my ponytail, my five-foot-four frame and smirks.
"This your business, sweetheart?"
"He's a child." I move between them, "and she's a customer. You're blocking the door."
