Page 14

“Unfortunately.”

She gets to work without another question. Expertly slapping together my precise order: a café latte, cream—no milk—honey drizzled slowly with a careful pinch of cinnamon on top. I know it’s a dietary nightmare. Sugar stacked on fat, stacked on caffeine, stacked on bad decisions, but tonight isn’t about health. It’s about endurance.

Emily sets the cups down gently, like she’s afraid to startle the wind. “You’ll get it done,” she says, quiet but certain. “I know you will.” Her copper eyes drop to the cups swiftly, retrieving a holder. All to make my life easier, I guess.

I nod, fingers curling at the base of the holder.

The café filled while I wasn’t looking. Chairs scraped closer together, voices layered and overlapping, laughter popping too loud, too close, and that’s my cue to leave. I’m halfway to the door when Emily’s voice catches me. “Adrian, wait.”

I stop and turn back slowly. She’s leaning over the counter, hands wrapped around a rag she isn’t really using. Her smile is smaller now, careful around the edges. “I just wanted to say… you look tired. More than usual.”

There it is. The last thing. The human concern I don’t have the energy to hold. “I’m fine,” I say, forcing the corners of my mouth up. “Just buried in work.”

She nods, but her eyes linger, searching for something I don’t intend to give. “Well,” she says softly, “don’t forget to sleep. Or eat. Or—” She stops herself, laughs under her breath. “Sorry. I’m nagging.”

“It’s okay,” I lie. “I appreciate it.” My face is a practiced mask of politeness despite my teeth clenching down on one another.

Emily blushes as the noise presses in from all sides, a swarm of sound and motion and heat. My skin tightens. My apartment flashes through my mind with its locked door, drawn curtains, and silence I can control.

She finally steps back. “See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, maybe,” I say, even though tomorrow is a concept I no longer trust. I turn before she can add anything else and push through the door. Cold air hits my face before warming from the unexpected sunrays. The café door swings shut behind me, a soft chime trailing after as I balance the cup holder with two coffees in one hand, the other gripping the laptop bag tight against my side.

I turn toward the street and crash straight into someone.

Coffee sloshes dangerously close to the brim, contained only by their lids. “Shit!” I mutter, steadying the cups before they spill completely, but in the chaos of rebalancing the holder, my laptop slips. The strap burns against my collarbone as the weight shifts, and for half a second I register the drop before a hand catches it.

“Whoa, easy there,” the stranger says, laughing under his breath. His voice is warm, his tone somewhere between teasing and kind. The strap is lifted and looped back over my shoulder. Like he knows exactly how much weight it carries. “Careful,” he continues with ease.

I look up, and that’s my first mistake. Because fuck me. What a view.

He’s taller than me. All broad-shouldered and impeccably toned arms as if carved from marble themself. Loose strands of sandy-blonde hair fall across his brow effortlessly, sweeping to the sides as they catch the warm autumn light like silk threads. His skin carries a faint golden undertone, smooth and untouched by sleeplessness.

Along the side of his neck, crimson roses bleed into the ink-dark scales of snakes, the two twined like beauty and danger as they travel down the side of his body. Or at least I imagine that’s how far down it goes. I mean, he has a shirt on.

“Didn’t mean to block the door,” he says, smiling easily. “Guess I should watch where I’m going.”

Shit, how long have I been staring? And he’s so close… too fucking close and inside my space. Close enough that I can see a faint scar cutting through his eyebrow and the calm focus in his chocolate brown eyes that doesn’t waver when he realizes I’m staring back just as hard.

“Watch where you’re going,” I snap, shrugging the strap higher on my shoulder. I expect irritation. Or attitude. Or at least defensiveness, but he’s giving me nothing. Instead, his mouth curves, and he steps back half a pace, granting space without yielding it.

“My fault,” he claims casually.

“It’s fine,” I manage, and unexpectedly so, my voice coming out quieter than intended. “Could’ve been worse,” I add, trying to regain composure.

He glances down at the cups. “Hot?”

“Scalding.”

“Then yeah,” he chuckles, “definitely could’ve been worse.”

I stand suspended in the moment when something brushes my leg. I glance down and freeze.

A dog.

A golden retriever sits obediently at his heel with its tongue out and tail wagging, with no leash tension and no restless movement. Just a steady, assessing stare that mirrors his owner’s.

The dog doesn’t bark. Doesn’t even growl. It just sits there, watching me precariously. “You train him?” I ask, the question slipping out before I can stop it. I don’t ask strangers questions. Ever.