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“I poured coffee. Don’t romanticize basic motor skills.”

Too late.

I wrap both hands around the mug because they need somewhere to be. “Thank you.”

His jaw tightens a little, the same way it did last night when I thanked him for stopping.

“You hungry?”

“Yes.”

“You eat eggs?”

“Yes.”

“Burnt toast?”

“I’m Southern. I can eat around tragedy.”

He grunts and turns back to the stove. “Sit down.”

“That sounded like an order.”

“It was an invitation with bad manners.”

“Needs work.”

“So do you.”

I sit at the little table by the window because the smile on my face is getting harder to hide. Outside, I can see part of the cemetery road, south gate, and festival grounds waking after the soft opening last night. Tents flap in the morning breeze. Skull lights hang dark between poles. Somebody has parked a motorcycle with a coffin-shaped sidecar near the workshop, and two prospects are arguing beside it like they can’t decide whether it is art or evidence.

The world outside looks ridiculous. The phone on the counter reminds me it is not safe.

Bitter brings me eggs, bacon, and toast scraped to a color that only lightly suggests arson. He sets the plate in front of me, then leans one hip against the counter with his own balanced in one hand.

“You’re not sitting?”

“Watching the lot.”

“Bitter.”

His eyes cut to mine.

I point at the chair across from me with my fork. “Sit.”

His brows rise. “You ordering me around in my own place?”

“I am inviting you with manners.”

His mouth twitches. For a second, I think he’ll refuse just to prove he can, but instead he sits.

That should not feel like winning something important.

We eat with the morning stretching quiet around us. The silence is not awkward, which surprises me. Razor hated silence unless he caused it. He liked noise, attention, television too loud, engines revving, people laughing at his jokes whether they were funny or not.

Bitter is different. He is loud when he wants to be, sharp when he needs to be, crude enough to make my face heat, but the quiet around him has edges instead of teeth. I don’t feel trapped in it. I feel watched over, and that might be more dangerous.

After breakfast, Bitter takes my plate before I can stand and washes both dishes in the sink. I stare at his back like I have never seen a man use soap before, which is not fair. I have seen men use soap. I have simply never seen one look so mad about caring while doing it.