Chapter 7 #2
We spend the next twenty minutes hammering out a revised contract with Patterson—better terms for both parties, secured delivery schedules, explicit exclusivity clauses that will prevent Ashworth from making another play for our supply chain.
By the time we finish, Patterson is shaking Knox's hand with genuine enthusiasm, and I'm fighting the urge to collapse against the nearest solid surface and sleep for approximately seventeen hours.
Instead, I find myself following Knox out of the convention center and into the bright afternoon sunlight.
The city sprawls around us in all its chaotic glory—honking taxis, rushing pedestrians, the ever-present hum of commerce and competition that forms the heartbeat of this concrete jungle.
I should be focused on next steps, on leveraging this victory into momentum for our larger campaign, on the seventeen items still unchecked on my strategic to-do list.
Instead, I'm acutely aware of Knox walking beside me, his frame casting a shadow that swallows mine entirely, his presence radiating satisfaction and something else I can't quite name.
"You require sustenance."
I blink up at him, startled out of my tactical ruminations. "What?"
"Food. You have not eaten since the protein bar you consumed at 6:47 this morning, and that was insufficient nutrition for the battles you have fought today.
" He steers me toward a street food cart on the corner, where a middle-aged man in a grease-stained apron is serving up some of the most aggressively unhealthy-looking hot dogs I have ever seen.
"Come. We celebrate this victory as warriors should—with meat and fire. "
I should protest. I should point out that we have work to do, that Ashworth is already regrouping, that every minute we spend not strategizing is a minute our enemies could use against us.
But Knox is already ordering as he requests four of your finest meat tubes, liberally anointed with all available condiments, and the vendor is staring up at him.
We end up perched on a low concrete wall near a tiny urban park, surrounded by pigeons who have clearly learned that humans near food carts are a reliable source of dropped crumbs.
Knox holds his hot dogs like they're sacred relics, examining the arrangement of mustard and relish and onions with the focused intensity of a general studying terrain maps before a battle.
I take a bite of my own and nearly moan at the combination of salt and grease and processed meat that floods my taste buds with pure, uncomplicated joy.
"This," Knox declares around a mouthful of hot dog, "is magnificent. Why have I been eating at those sterile establishments with their tiny portions and their confusing arrangements of silverware? This is food as it should be—simple, hearty, consumed with hands as the ancestors intended."
"I think your ancestors probably intended for food to be consumed after being personally hunted and killed, not purchased from a guy named Tony for three dollars and fifty cents."
Knox waves a dismissive hand, inadvertently sending a blob of mustard flying toward an opportunistic pigeon who dodges with admirable reflexes.
"The spirit of the hunt is present. Tony has sourced his ingredients, prepared them with skill, offered them to hungry warriors in exchange for coin.
It is commerce, which is simply hunting with different weapons. "
I shake my head, but I'm smiling, and the warmth spreading through me has nothing to do with the food settling in my stomach. "You have a way of making everything sound like an epic saga."
"Everything is an epic saga, First Mate. We simply forget to notice because we are too busy living it."
We sit in companionable silence for a few minutes, working through our hot dogs while the city flows around us in its endless rhythm.
I should be anxious. I should be running through worst-case scenarios and contingency plans and all the things that could still go wrong despite our victory today.
But Knox's presence beside me is like a warm blanket of certainty, a reminder that whatever challenges await us, I will not be facing them alone.
The first raindrop lands on my nose without warning.
I look up at the sky, which has transformed from clear blue to ominous gray. Another drop hits my cheek, then my shoulder, then my tablet screen.
"Knox—"
The sky opens up.
There is no graceful transition, no gradual increase in precipitation that might allow us to seek shelter in an orderly fashion.
One moment we are sitting on a concrete wall enjoying post-victory hot dogs, and the next moment we are being absolutely pummeled by a torrential downpour.
I yelp and grab my tablet, trying to shield it with my body, while Knox lets out a string of Orcish words that I'm fairly certain translate to something extremely profane about weather deities and their parentage.
"This way!" He grabs my elbow and hauls me toward the nearest building.
We duck into a narrow doorway—some kind of service entrance for the building next to the park, recessed just enough from the street to provide marginal protection from the rain.
It's barely big enough for one person to stand comfortably, which means two people—especially when one of those people is a six-foot-eight Orc with shoulders like a mountain range—have to press together so tightly that personal space becomes an abstract concept rather than a practical reality.
Knox's back is to the rain, his body forming a wall between me and the elements, and I find myself wedged into the corner of the doorway with his body approximately three inches from my face.
His suit is soaked through, the expensive fabric clinging to muscles that I am absolutely not cataloging in inappropriate detail, and water streams down his tusks and drips from the ends of his braids in a way that should look ridiculous but somehow just looks. .. devastating.
The doorway is too small, the rain is too heavy, and Knox is too big, his presence filling every available inch of space. My back presses against the cold metal of the door, and I shiver—from the temperature differential, I tell myself firmly, not from anything else.
"Are you cold?"
He is staring at my lips like a starving man staring at a feast, like a warrior staring at the spoils of a hard-won battle, like—
The rain hammers against his back, streaming around us in silver curtains that blur the rest of the world into insignificance.
We are trapped in this tiny pocket of almost-dry space, pressed so close together that I can feel the rise and fall of his breath, can smell the rain and something deeper beneath it, something warm and wild and utterly, unmistakably him.
His hand rises slowly, giving me every opportunity to pull away, and his fingers brush a strand of wet hair from my cheek with a gentleness that seems impossible for someone his size.
"Cypress." My name in his mouth sounds like a prayer, like a battle cry, like something sacred and dangerous all at once. "Tell me to stop."
I open my mouth to respond, but no words come out.
My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat, my fingertips, the soles of my feet.
Every rational thought I've ever had about professional boundaries and workplace relationships and the absolute insanity of getting involved with my terrifying Orc boss has fled my brain entirely, replaced by the singular, overwhelming awareness of his mouth inches from mine and the hunger burning in his eyes.
The rain keeps falling. The city keeps moving. And Knox Bloodaxe keeps staring at my lips like they hold the answer to a question he's been asking his whole life.