Page 2 of Protected By the BRATVA Grump

"I caramelized it." I wait, but I can tell he isn’t buying what I’m selling. "Urgh. Fine. It’s burned, but Lemur is partially to blame." I shoot a pointed look at Lemur who is currently flicking his striped tail back and forth in the sunshine.

"I’ll take a slice," he says, and points to the most burnt side.

I plate it without saying anything.

He pays with his phone and carries his coffee to the end of the counter, leaning there instead of sitting, the way he does when he's staying for a while. Eduard says something to him in Russian from his corner. Jasper answers without turning around. Sammie catches my eye across the register, both eyebrows raising about half a millimeter.

I ignore her.

It's Old Bill who breaks the silence that’s rolled in like the fog around us.

"Here," he says, tapping his paper hard enough that Cookie lifts her head and narrows her eyes at him. "Have you two seen this?"

The paper is folded to page five. There's a photograph of the path along the north side of Community Park, the one that runs under the lights past the boat sheds, and a headline about a third assault in five weeks. A woman jogging. Nine in the evening. No leads. The police are asking for witnesses.

"Third one," Bill says. "That’s our local park." He looks at Sammie, then at me, and he isn't doing his usual thing where his eyes are laughing behind it. "So neither of you are to go running about in the dark on your own. I mean it."

I roll my eyes. "Bill—"

"I mean it, Delilah," he snaps, surprising me.

"I'm always careful, and Sammie has never ran a day in her life." I wipe the counter down as I say it, hoping he can see how unworried I am.

"Hey—" Sammie objects, but Bill cuts her off.

"You're not careful. You're lovely, and friendly, and would do anything for anyone. That makes you not as careful as you could be."

Sammie has gone quiet, and I know she's thinking about a night fifteen months ago that we stilldon't talk about directly. I reach over and squeeze her wrist as I pass, and she comes back to herself and takes the paper off Bill to read the article properly.

Jasper hasn't moved. He's still leaning at the end of the counter with the mug of coffee in both hands, chewing the cake lazily. He's looking across at the newspaper with an expression I can't read.

The bell rings again, snapping me back into work mode.

At twelve, I make up a flat white, cut a slice of the good end of the cake, and carry them across the wide street to the gallery.

Kimmie has been here six weeks and has already painted the front of the building in a shade of green that made the town council write her a letter. She's twenty-four, small, and permanently covered in paint or lacquer or something. When I walk through the door, she's up a stepladder with a pencil in her teeth and one shoe dangling off.

"Delilah," she says around the pencil. "Delilah. Is that cake?"

"It's burnt," I mutter, giving up on trying to make it sound better than it is.

"I love burnt cake." She comes down the ladder in a way that makes me want to hold the bottom of it. "Sit. Look at this and tell me honestly, because everyone here is far too nice to me."

The room smells like fresh paint and turpentine, and there's a stack of frames against the far wall with a plan for the opening pinned around them. She talks the whole time I'm there. Six weeks and she already feels like someone I've known for years. I love that about her.

"It looks amazing, Kimmie. Like it was always meant to be exactly there."

She beams. "I’m so glad. It’s by a local artist, and I want people to see it as soon as they walk in and think, yes, that’s how I want to feel every single day."

I ponder the painting for a minute and immediately understand what she means. It doesn’t just fill me with happiness or joy. It makes me feel hopeful that more is just around the corner. Like my heart is being opened wide to all the possibilities of life.

By the time I lock up at six, the fog has come back in off the water, softer than this morning’s version. I walk home the long way because I like the town like this.

I change my clothes and stretch on the rug in my small living room, then put my headphones in. It’s a quarter to eight by the time I head for the park.

Community park is beautiful in the Spring. The lamps are on all the way along the public path, and the trees have fresh growth beginning to fill out their branches. The smell of the cold water is fresh and sharp, and somebody's woodsmoke drifts over from a house on Merrow Street. My legs find their rhythm somewhere around the bandstand. I think about the vanilla sitting on a shelf at the café where I left it, and about the fact that Jasper remembered I needed it when he was busy with work.

My feet thud on the tarmac with every step in rhythm with the music in my ears. I pick up my pace, thinking about which cake recipe I should make in the morning.