"What about you, Drake?" I ask, propping my chin in my hand. "What bringsyouto this thriving metropolis?"
"Work, mostly. I do a little of everything around here." He spreads his hands with false modesty. "Plowing. Hauling. Whatever needs doing. Town like this, you wear a lot of hats." He leans in. "But I'll tell you what: If I'd known the scenery was gonna improve this much, I'd have come in for pie a whole lot sooner."
I laugh. It just sort of falls out of me, and Drake beams like he's won the lottery.
That's when the bell over the door jingles.
I know it's Afon before I even look. The air in the diner boils. Barb, behind the counter, goes very still. The trapper-hat man cranes around.
And Drake, who has no idea what's about to happen to his evening, twists toward the sound with his good teeth still showing.
Afon fills the doorway. Snow on his shoulders, in his beard, melting into the silver. His face is concrete, harder than ever before, except now, beneath that frigid rock is something hot and live. A rage, churning behind the flat brown-green of his eyes.
His gaze goes to Drake.
Then to me.
Wolf slips in at his heel and sits, ears forward, doing his very best impression of a furry exclamation point.
"Hey there, friend," says Drake, who is a dead man and does not know it. "Cold one out there, huh?"
Afon doesn't answer. He does not even appear to register that Drake has produced sound. In a physical sense, he crosses the room, but from where I'm sitting, it feels more like he drags the entire room closer to him.
"Caroline," he growls. "Time to go."
"We were just talking," I protest.
I don't like that it comes out a little defensive, a littlewhat's it to you,because what is it to him? We're not together. He said so himself. He carved it into the chopping block not twenty minutes ago.
"I can see that." His eyes flick to Drake and stay there. "Who's your friend?"
"Drake," says Drake, extending a hand across the table. "Drake Pruitt. I do plowing and?—"
"I didn't ask what you do." Afon ignores the hand. "I asked who the fuck you are."
Drake's smile fades slowly. He withdraws the hand. He looks at me, then back at Afon, then starts figuring out some things that he really should've figured out before he ever sat down.
"Hey, no trouble," he says, sliding out of the booth, hands up. "Didn't realize the lady was spoken for."
"She's not," says Afon, at the exact same moment that I say, "I'm not."
We glare at each other across the table. Drake, sensing correctly that he has wandered into the crossfire of a really hairy domestic situation, edges toward the counter. "I'll just— Er, yeah. You folks have a good night."
He's gone, back to wherever Drakes go. In his absence, the diner is suddenly very quiet. Barb is studiously polishing the same six inches of countertop she's been polishing for the last five minutes, and Wolf is looking between Afon and me with growing concern.
"Get your coat," Afon says.
I don't move. "I wastalkingto him, you know."
"You were talking to a man you've never met in a town crawling with people who want me dead." He grits his teeth. "Get your coat, Caroline."
I want to argue. God, I want to argue. If I had it my way, I'd stand on this booth and deliver a speech about autonomy and human connection and the fundamental right of a woman to flirt mildly with a Drake if she so chooses.
But the look in Afon's eyes says I'd better not fucking dare.
And after everything he's done for me, I can't do that to him.
So I get my coat.
