Chapter 4
LANEK
Ifix the window frame first thing that same afternoon, using my own tools and a level I keep in the truck for exactly this kind of precision work.
The metal bent easier than I expected under my grip earlier, and now I take my time reshaping it properly, making sure the mechanism slides smooth and secure.
Quinn watches me from behind her counter with those sharp blue eyes, pretending to organize her display case for the third time in twenty minutes.
She doesn't say anything while I work, but I feel her attention tracking every movement.
It's distracting in a way I'm not used to.
Normally when I'm focused on a task, the rest of the world falls away.
But I'm hyperaware of every shift in her breathing, every small sound she makes as she rearranges pastries that were already perfectly arranged.
"There," I say finally, testing the window's motion. "Good as new. Better, actually."
"Thank you." The words come out stiff, like she's not entirely comfortable expressing gratitude to someone who was her mortal enemy less than an hour ago. She pauses, then adds, "And thank you for the truce."
"You're welcome." I gather my tools, sliding them back into their case with practiced efficiency. "I mean it, Quinn. I'm not trying to make your life difficult."
"Could've fooled me."
I look up at her, catching the faint smile tugging at the corner of her mouth despite her sharp tone.
She's still dirty from our earlier collision, white powder clinging to her strawberry-blonde hair and dusting across her cheeks.
She looks like she's been rolling in fresh snow, soft and frosted and completely at odds with the fire in her voice.
"The bone saw stays on my side of the wall after seven-thirty," I remind her. "But if you need anything—"
"I won't."
"But if you do," I continue, ignoring her interruption, "I'm next door."
Something flickers across her face, too quick for me to identify. "Noted."
I take that as my dismissal and head back to my shop, where an afternoon's worth of work waits.
Custom orders, inventory checks, the endless rhythm of breaking down animals into the precise cuts my customers demand.
It's meditative work normally, the kind that lets my mind go quiet and focused.
But today I keep catching myself pausing, listening for sounds from next door.
The faint chime of her bakery door. The low hum of her commercial ovens.
The bright, clear sound of her voice greeting customers.
I'm being ridiculous.
I focus on trimming a rack of lamb, removing the silver skin with careful precision.
The knife moves like an extension of my hand, the blade sharp enough to glide through the membrane without catching.
This is what I'm good at. This is what I understand.
Not complicated human women who look at meat like it's a personal insult and fight with industrial fans and aggressive pop music.
The work settles me somewhat, and by the time I close up for the evening, I've almost convinced myself that the truce was the right move. Professional. Mature. Exactly what two adult business owners should do when they share a wall.
The next morning, I'm up at four-thirty like always, moving through my opening routine in the pre-dawn darkness.
I deliberately wait until seven-thirty before firing up the bone saw, honoring our agreement even though it throws off my entire workflow.
The saw's absence creates a strange pocket of quiet in my morning, and I find myself working around it, reorganizing tasks to fill the time.
At seven-forty-five, Quinn's lights flick on next door.
I can see the glow spilling into the shared alley through my back windows.
She's later than usual—normally she's here by five, just like me.
I wonder if the disruption to her wedding cake yesterday set her back, if she's scrambling to catch up on orders.
Not my problem, I remind myself. We have a truce. Professional distance. No meat gifts, no territorial overreach.
I make it exactly three hours before I catch myself walking past her front window for the second time, ostensibly heading to my truck for supplies but really just checking to make sure she's there, safe, moving through her bakery with that focused energy I've started to recognize.
This is pathetic.
I'm acting like a juvenile Orc with his first crush, finding excuses to orbit around her space.
My brothers would never let me hear the end of it if they knew.
Especially Grak, who married a human woman himself and spent months insisting he understood the species before finally admitting he had no idea what he was doing.
But Quinn isn't Grak's wife. She's nothing like Sera, who was quiet and bookish and practically gift-wrapped her affection in clear, unmistakable signals.
Quinn fights like breathing, throws meat back in my face, and Googles Orc courtship customs to understand why her neighbor is leaving premium cuts on her doorstep.
She Googled it.
The memory of her furious admission sends a warm satisfaction curling through my chest. She was bothered enough by the gesture to research it. That means something, even if she won't admit it.
"You're staring."
I blink, realizing my assistant Tomas is watching me with poorly concealed amusement. The kid is nineteen, studying culinary arts, and working here to learn proper butchery techniques. He's good with a knife but terrible at subtlety.
"I'm thinking," I correct him.
"About the baker next door?"
"About inventory."
"Right. The inventory that happens to be visible through her front window." Tomas grins, showing the gap between his front teeth. "You know the whole neighborhood is talking about your war, right? Mrs. Appleseed from the tea shop has a betting pool going on how long before one of you snaps."
"There's no war. We have a truce."
"A truce," Tomas repeats, like he's tasting the word. "Is that what we're calling it?"
"We're not calling it anything. Get back to work."
He does, still grinning, and I focus on my own tasks. Custom cuts for the evening rush. A whole pig that needs breaking down for a restaurant order. The familiar, grounding work of reducing an animal to its component parts, honoring every piece, wasting nothing.
But even with my hands occupied, part of my attention stays tuned next door. Listening. Monitoring. Making sure that bright, fierce energy keeps burning exactly where it should.
By the third day of our truce, I've established a new routine.
I shift my heavy equipment work to after seven-thirty, just like I promised.
I fix a wobbly shelf in her alley that was listing dangerously under the weight of her flour deliveries.
I stop three separate groups of teenagers from skateboarding directly in front of her bakery entrance, using nothing but my physical presence and a pointed look.
I'm not trying to court her anymore, I tell myself. I'm just being a good neighbor. Protecting the shared commercial space we both rely on.
It's complete bullshit, and I know it.
On the fourth day, I notice the pattern in her customers.
The morning rush hits between seven and nine, office workers grabbing pastries and coffee before disappearing into the surrounding buildings.
Then a slower midday trickle, followed by another spike around three when the school across the street lets out.
She handles it all with that same bright, competent energy, moving through her space like a choreographed dance.
But there are others too. Ones who linger too long, taking up tables without buying anything.
A group of college students who camp out for hours over a single shared muffin.
And then there's the man in the expensive suit who comes in every afternoon at two, orders a single black coffee, and spends the entire time on his phone making loud, aggressive business calls that I can hear from my shop.
He's disrupting her workflow. Her smile tightens around the edges whenever he walks in, watching her movements become slightly more terse as she navigates around his sprawling presence.
Not my problem.
Except it bothers me more each day, watching this overpriced asshole treat her bakery like his personal office while she's too polite to tell him to leave.
On the fifth day, I'm seriously considering walking over there and suggesting he take his conference calls elsewhere when something worse happens.
A woman walks in just after lunch, dressed in all black with a designer bag and an expression like she's smelling something rotten.
I recognize her immediately, Miranda Long, the food critic for the city's most influential dining magazine.
She's destroyed more restaurants than health inspectors and rising rent combined, and she's built her entire reputation on finding fault with everything.
Quinn doesn't seem to recognize her, greeting her with the same warm professionalism she gives everyone. But I see the way Miranda's eyes narrow as she scans the bakery, already cataloging flaws.
This is going to be bad.
I abandon the ribeye I'm trimming and move closer to my front window, giving myself a clear sightline into Quinn's bakery.
Miranda orders something, I can't hear what, and Quinn boxes it up with her usual care, wrapping the pastry in tissue paper and sliding it into one of those cream-colored bags with her bakery's logo printed in pink script.
Miranda takes the bag outside, sits at one of the two small bistro tables on the sidewalk, and pulls out the pastry. Some kind of Danish, glazed and golden. She takes a bite, and even from here I can see her expression sour.
No.
She takes another bite, then sets it down and pulls out her phone. She's taking notes. Or worse, she's photographing it for one of her scathing social media reviews that go viral within hours.