Page 1 of Protected By the BRATVA Grump

Delilah

The apple cake comes out of the oven eleven minutes late and about two shades past where I meant to stop it.

I set it on the rack and look at it for a while. The top has gone a deep, glossy brown and the edges have gone somewhere well beyond brown, into a color I would describe as cracked-leather-dry. Behind me, Lemur is sitting in the kitchen doorway with flour on his whiskers and no remorse, which is how I;ll explain the last ten minutes to anyone who asks.

"This is on you," I say, pointing my finger at him.

He blinks once and walks away with his tail up, a creature entirely at peace with his life choices.

It's ten to seven in the morning, and April is doing its thing, where the fog comes off the water and settles in the streets until nine, so the whole town looks like it's being kept somewhere safe. From the kitchen window, I can see the top of the bridge, and past that the smudge of the city six miles north with its lights still on. Nobody here uses the city's name. It's just the city, the place people drive into and complain about, then come home from.

I trim the worst of the edges, dust the top with powdered sugar, and set it in the case at the front where the light is kinder. Sort of. It's a good cake underneath. It just needs someone to give it a chance. Sammie says my problem is that I bake theway other people daydream, and she's right. I gave up defending myself about it seriously sometime last spring.

By quarter past seven, the fog has thinned enough to see across the street. The coffee machine is on, filling Purr and Pour with that perfect scent of coffee, and the cats have all risen from their beds. Rhodes is lounging on the end of the bench, Red has claimed the third table in the window, and Duchess is on the top shelf above the window, watching me fill the pastry cabinet like she has a plan.

Old Bill comes in at nine with his paper folded under his arm the way he has every morning for four years, and takes his table by the pastry display. I have his Danish on a plate before he's finished sitting down.

"That looks like it's been through a trauma," he says, raising an eyebrow at my innocent apple cake.

"It's caramelized," I offer, frowning at the display and wondering if I should move it a half-turn.

Bill lifts his eyes to mine as I place his coffee beside the plate, the disbelief evident.

"It's rustic." I waft my hands a little, like it’s no big deal. "The middle will be fine."

He laughs into his coffee, which is all I want out of any conversation before ten.

The bell rings again at twenty past, and the whole room does that small lift it does, and Lucifer appears to conduct his daily inspection. Sammie is already talking as she comes through the door. Behind her, Eduard is pushing Lilah in the cream pram, a small mobile of cuddly clouds swinging from the hood.

"Good morning, sweetie," I say to Lilah. She turns. She stares at me with her father's exact gray eyes.

"She was awake at four," Sammie says, hanging up her coat. She ties her apron and gives me a look that contains an entire conversation. "Eduard's been up with her every night this week, and he won't admit it's because he likes it."

Eduard says nothing at all and goes to the corner table, which has a laminated reserved sign on it because I made one after his first week of visits as a joke, before he and Sammie officially became a thing. Lucifer is already sitting on it, waiting.

The rush lands at half nine, and for a while, I stop being a person and become a pair of hands. Two oat lattes, a cortado, a hot chocolate with coconut and more flat whites than I can count. Sammie works the register and talks to every single customer like she's been waiting all morning specifically for them. It’s not a technique, it's just what she's like, and it's why this place is full at half nine every morning.

It’s almost eleven when Jasper arrives, his eyes landing on mine before he turns to nod at his cousin. His mug, the large white one shaped like a cat’s smiling face, complete with little pointy black ears, is already in my hand. I bought it after he had been turning up here to meet with Eduard, and his discomfort around the cats was evident. It was clear he had never been around pets when every time Cookie rubbed up against his legs, he would freeze and hold his breath.

Now he is used to the cats and strolls in without hurry, holding the door a moment longer for Mrs. Aldridge, who is leaving with a box of pastries balanced in both hands. Jasper's in dark jeans and a leather jacket, carrying a paper bag in one hand.

"Morning," he says, his voice rough enough to make me believe those are the first words he has uttered today.

"Good morning." I slide the mug across to him.

He sets the paper bag on the counter between us and nods at it, which is how I know it's for me. He's been doing this since just after Sammie and Eduard’s wedding last June. Bringing me things. Well, things for the café, I suppose. But it always feels like they’re just for me.

I open the paper bag. Inside is a bottle of the Madagascar vanilla I mentioned yesterday while I was complaining about a supplier.

There's a thing that happens in my chest when he does this. I've had months to come up with a name for it, and I haven't. Mostly because naming it would require admitting the rest of what I feel.

"Oh wow," I say, pulling the bottle from the bag and turning it in my palm. "You didn't have to do that."

"I saw it and remembered you said you’d run out and were struggling to get hold of more. Figured this would keep you going until your supplier issues are sorted." He is looking at the small bottle in my hands.

"The only place that sells this brand is in the city." I quirk an eyebrow, because if he has found somewhere closer, I need to know.

"I had business." He shrugs, picks up the mug and looks at the apple cake sitting under it’s powdered sugar. "You burned another one?"