"Am I an animal?"
I hold his gaze. The grey of his eyes is deeper tonight—storm clouds, not winter ice. There's something behind them that I can't name, something that makes me want to look away and lean closer at the same time.
"Aren't we all?"
He doesn't answer. He takes a sip of his coffee, and I watch his throat move when he swallows, and I tell myself I'm not watching anything. I'm just standing here. Doing my job. Existing in the same space as a man who happens to be handsome in a way that makes my stomach do something I don't want to analyze.
"Pie," I say, because I need to say something, and pie is safe.
"Excuse me?"
"Pie. You need to order something, or Del will complain that I'm letting loiterers take up space. What kind do you want?"
He looks at the pie case like he's never seen one before. Like he's never had to make a decision this small, this inconsequential, in his entire life.
"What do you recommend?"
"Apple's the freshest. Cherry's too sweet. Pecan is good if you like nuts. The chocolate silk has been here since Monday and I wouldn't feed it to a stray dog."
"The apple, then."
I cut him a slice—generous, because I'm not a monster—and slide it across the counter on a chipped plate. He picks up the fork and takes a bite, and I watch his face change. Just slightly. The way a person's face changes when they taste something that reminds them of something else.
"Good?" I ask.
"Yes." He takes another bite. "Very good."
"You sound surprised."
"I'm not used to eating food that isn't prepared by a private chef."
I laugh. I don't mean to—it just comes out, a short, startled sound that echoes off the tile and makes Del stir in the back booth. "A private chef. Of course. I should have known."
"Known what?"
"That you're one of those people."
"What people?"
"The ones who live in a different world. The ones who don't have to think about how much milk costs or whether the landlord is going to fix the heat before winter. The ones whowalk into diners at two in the morning because they're bored, not because they're hungry."
He sets down his fork. "I'm not bored."
"Then why are you here?"
He doesn't answer. He just looks at me—that same steady, unreadable gaze—and I feel the air between us change. Thicken. Become something that has weight and texture and a temperature all its own.
"Tell me about veterinary school," he says.
I blink. "What?"
"Last time, you mentioned it. You wanted to be a veterinarian. You said you had the hands for it." He glances down at my hands—just a flicker, just a moment—and then back up to my face. "What happened?"
The question lands somewhere soft. Somewhere I've been protecting.
"The farm failed," I say. "My father sold the animals. Sold the equipment. Sold most of the furniture, honestly. He moved into a small apartment in Scranton, and I moved here, and veterinary school stopped being an option when I couldn't afford the application fees."
"That's unfortunate."
