He's staring at me.
I'm staring at him.
The bone saw is still screaming between us.
He moves first, reaching over with one blood-streaked hand to flip a switch. The saw winds down with a protesting whine, and the sudden silence is almost worse than the noise. My ears ring in the absence of sound.
"The shop's not open." His voice is a low rumble, rough and unpolished, with an accent I can't quite place. He doesn't move from behind the butcher's block, cleaver still gripped in one massive hand.
My brain reboots with the speed of over-proofed dough in a hot kitchen.
"Your shop is not open," I repeat, my customer-service smile snapping into place with the muscle memory of years in food service. "That's fascinating. Truly. Because my shop, the one on the other side of that wall, is very much open and has been since four-thirty this morning. And I was finishing a wedding cake when your little horror-movie sound effects decided to redecorate it for me."
He blinks with surprise.
"Didn't know anyone was over there."
"Well, someone is. Me. Quinn Hayes, owner of Flour & Fancy, the bakery you're currently vibrating into structural instability with your—" I gesture wildly at the saw, the hooks, the entire blood-splattered nightmare of his workspace, "—your murder dungeon."
His jaw tightens. The tusks shift slightly with the movement. "It's a butcher shop."
"It's five in the morning."
"I start early."
"So do I, but you don't see me attacking innocent baked goods with power tools before sunrise."
The corner of his mouth twitches. It might be amusement. It's hard to tell under the general aura of intimidating mountain-man energy he's radiating.
"The cake. Is it ruined?"
I cross my arms over my flour-dusted apron, the morning light from his open door catching on the pastry cutter still clutched in my hand like some kind of ridiculous pastel weapon."Completely. The entire top tier collapsed when you decided to audition for a slasher film."
He's quiet for a moment. "How much?"
I blink at him, thrown off by the abrupt shift. The cleaver is still in his hand, catching the light in a way that should be threatening but somehow isn't. Not anymore. Now it just looks like a tool, held loosely at his side. "I'm sorry, what?"
"How much. For the cake." He sets the cleaver down on the butcher's block with a heavy thunk that makes me jump. "I'll cover it."
The audacity of it hits me like a delayed reaction. He thinks he can just throw money at this. As if the hours of meticulous work, the carefully calibrated buttercream, the vision I held in my head while piping each individual rosette can be reduced to a dollar amount.
"You can't just pay me off and keep using industrial equipment at ungodly hours."
"Not paying you off. Paying for damages." He wipes his hands on a rag that's seen significantly better days, leaving new streaks across the leather apron. "And five AM isn't ungodly. It's standard prep time."
"For a butcher shop that hasn't even officially opened yet, apparently."
"Soft open. Tomorrow."
"Oh, perfect. So I can expect this delightful concert every morning?"
His eyes narrow slightly. They're dark, nearly black, and deeply unreadable under the harsh lighting. "You got a problem with butchers?"
"I have a problem with noise ordinances and common courtesy."
"File a complaint."
The dismissal in his tone makes my teeth clench. I take a step forward before my brain catches up, and suddenly I'm very aware of how much space he takes up, how the temperature in the room makes my skin prickle, how the odor of blood and wild things fills my lungs.
