Fuse's Force (Gravel Kings #5)

Nora

The espresso machine screams. I love that sound.

It means the line's out the door. It means I don't have time to think about anything except foam ratios and exact change.

"Two oat milk lattes, one with an extra shot." Marcy slides the cups down the counter. I scrawl the names in marker, fast. A thousand names, same scrawl. The shop smells like burnt sugar and dark roast. I inhale it in.

Under the noise, Rose narrates from her table by the window. She does this every morning. Hosts her own little show for an audience of nobody.

Friday mornings run the same way. Contractors first, loud and rushed. Then the moms dropping kids at the preschool two doors down. Then the retirees who'll camp out with the crossword until lunch.

I built this rhythm one cup at a time. One bad month after another. Two years, and the bank finally stopped calling.

I'm proud of every hour it took.

A retiree at the corner table waves for a refill. I top off his cup, take his nod as thanks, move on. This is the job. Small kindnesses, muffins from scratch, the same five faces every morning who'll never know how close I came to losing this place twice in the first year.

"Leatherman is here," Rose announces.

I don't look up. Six months now. Same time, same order, same quiet way he fills the whole doorway before he steps through it.

"Hi, Rose." Easy. Warm. Doesn't match a man that size.

"Hi." She kicks her feet under the table, dead serious. "Your arms are really big, Leatherman."

"That so."

"My daddy's arms were big like that."

The shop doesn't stop. The machine keeps screaming. Marcy keeps calling names. A stroller wheel squeaks by the door. But for me, everything narrows to that one sentence.

I'm at the table before I decide to move.

"Rosie. Help me with the napkins." Not a request. I've got her hand and she's half out of the chair before she can argue. She twists to look at him the whole way to the counter.

"Sorry." It comes out clipped. More wall than apology. "She talks to everyone."

"She's fine." He means it. Doesn't blink at being compared to a dead man. "Smart kid."

"She's five." Like that explains anything.

I don't look at the patch on the back of his cut. I've gotten good at that. Good at not flinching when a bike idles outside. Good at hearing an engine and not feeling my stomach drop.

Three years of practice. Doesn't work today.

Gravel Kings. Gold thread, worn soft at the edges. I think they run the tattoo shop down the street.

My body clocks him a half-second before my brain catches up to what that patch means. The width of his shoulders. The way he fills a doorway without trying. Heat low in my stomach that has no business being there, not with that patch two feet from my daughter.

I hate the lag. Hate that fear and want show up together and I can't always tell which one got there first.

I know what that patch means. I buried a man who wore one too, different letters, same weight. Same trouble. They're all the same animal in different fur.

"Have a good one." He leaves a five in the tip jar for a four-dollar coffee. Same as always. Walks out into the sun, no idea what he just handed my daughter.

I watch him go. I don't mean to.

The counter doesn't need wiping but I wipe it anyway, eyes tracking him across the lot. The easy way he swings his leg over the bike. Shoulders built for holding things up.

He glances back before he starts the engine. Catches me looking.

I spin around so fast I nearly take out the napkin dispenser.

"Mommy." Rose has abandoned the napkins. She’s at her window table again, chin on both hands, watching me with the kind of focus only kids manage. "How come you don't like Leatherman?"

"I never said I didn't like him."

"You get the mad face. Every time."

"I don't have a mad face."

"You do. Right here." Two fingers between her own eyebrows. The gesture's hers and somehow exactly mine, and my stomach drops a full inch watching it.

I crouch to her eye level. This conversation needs eye level, when I don't have a real answer.

"It's complicated, baby."

"What's complicated mean?"

"It means I don't know how to explain it to a five-year-old in a way that you would understand."

She accepts that the way she accepts most things. A shrug, a pivot to the muffin crumbs on her plate. Already onto the next thing in her parade of things that matter.

I envy that. The way a kid can hold a question for four seconds and let it go. No residue. No ghost left behind.

I don't have that. Never did, before Butch. I hold on. Turn things over until the edges go smooth, until I've worn a groove in my own brain.

She doesn't remember him. Barely two when he died. Too young to remember the actual weight of his arms, the sound of his laugh.

Whatever she's holding is a photograph and a handful of stories I told her. Stitched together into a memory good enough to compare to a stranger pouring creamer into a paper cup.

I straighten, grab the rag, return to wiping a counter that's already clean. Marcy gives me a look over the espresso machine. The kind that says she clocked the whole thing and won't bring it up unless I do.

I don't.

The bell rings twice in a row. Good. Work's the one thing I can count on to fill the space where thinking too hard would live instead.

Through the window, his bike pulls onto the road. Engine settling into a slow, steady idle. I tell myself the sound doesn't mean anything.

Tell myself I didn't clock that it's a weekday, and weekdays mean him. Tell myself I'm not already doing the math on whether he'll beat the contractors in tomorrow.

I've gotten good at lying to myself. Three years of practice does that too.