Page 65 of Animal Tamer
“Hi,” she whispers, dazed.
The laugh comes up out of the deepest part of me.
“Hi,” I say back. “I'm building you a bigger bed.”
23
WREN
The area around the cantina smells like bacon and burnt coffee, and every eye swings to us when Rowe walks into the mess area with me.
“Don't panic,” he murmurs. “They already like you.”
“They like me because I stabbed someone,” I say without moving my lips.
“That's how affection works here.”
The family has claimed two picnic tables pushed together near the serving line. Jules waves me over with a fork. Nova pats the bench beside her. Cole is straddling the end of the table backward, spinning a butter knife, and Logan is arguing with Jonah about something involving a winch. Elias sits at the head with his coffee, Teddy across from him reading something on his phone, Marek at the far corner shuffling cards next to a plate he hasn't touched.
I slide onto the bench, and Rowe settles across from me—close enough that his knees bracket mine under the table without ever touching.
I'm still finding my breath from this morning. Every time I shift my weight, the ache between my thighsreminds me exactly where he's been, twice, and I have to stare very hard at the saltshaker.
“Doc.” A shadow falls over me. The cook—Deke, big forearms, apron that looks like it's seen wars—sets a plate down in front of me. Eggs, bacon, biscuits split and buttered, a mug of coffee that's actually fresh. He did it himself. Carried it from the line with his own hands.
The whole table goes quiet.
Cole whistles, long and low. “Well, I'll be damned.”
“Shut up, Pike,” Deke growls, already retreating.
“Ten years, Deke. Ten years I've been getting my own tray like a peasant. Elias gets served.Elias.Nobody else. And now?—”
“She fixed Cujo's ear the other day without being asked.” Deke jabs a spatula in Cole's direction from behind the line. “You want table service, grow a medical degree.”
Heat floods my face all the way to my ears. I duck over my plate and shovel in eggs so I don't have to respond, and Rowe is looking at me like I hung the moon over the Big Top.
“It was a hematoma,” I mumble around a biscuit. “It took ten minutes.”
“You've dethroned Elias,” Jules stage-whispers. “There will be consequences.”
“There will be pancakes,” Elias says mildly, not looking up from his coffee. “I find I don't mind the company.”
Three younger workers move behind the serving line—a girl with a messy braid refilling the coffee urn, a broad-shouldered boy stacking trays, a lanky one wiping the counter with more force than any counter requires. The lanky one keeps glancing at the girl. The girl keeps glancing at the tray-stacker. The tray-stacker is glancing atabsolutely no one with the rigid determination of a man who knows he's being glanced at.
The triangle. It has to be. Jules mentioned it last night—the love triangle in the cafeteria—and never finished the story.
I look at Jules. Jules looks at me. Then Nova leans past my shoulder, follows my sightline, and makes a small, knowing sound into her orange juice.
“Braid girl,” she murmurs.
“No,” Jules whispers back. “Tray boy. Watch his ears when she walks past.”
The girl walks past. The boy's ears go scarlet.
The three of us dissolve into giggles, and the lanky one drops his rag, and Teddy looks up from his phone with the expression of a man who has learned not to ask.
As we finish up eating, Silas waits until the last fork goes down.
