Page 9 of Fate, Interrupted

She walks me to the door. Outside, the evening is cooling, the grip of July heat released, the street quieter than when I arrived. The lunch crowd is gone, the dinner crowd not yet arrived, the in-between texture of a city block waiting for the next wave of activity.

I stop on the sidewalk and look back.

She’s already turned away, back to the counter, back to whatever comes next in her evening. She doesn’t watch me go. Noted.

I stand there for a moment longer than is necessary.

Then I start walking.

My feet take me to Elmwood without deciding it.

The Coulter Cleaners on Elmwood runs the evening shift until nine, meaning the floor will be half full and Rory will be at the folding table. One of the oversized dryers has been making a sound for three days, and I’ve been meaning to look at it.

I hear it the second I step through the door.

A knock—faint, irregular, dropping out of rhythm with the other machines. Rory hears it too. His shoulders drop a fraction. The small change of a man who’s already identified the issue and doesn’t need it named.

He’s at the folding table near the counter, working through a stack of pressed shirts with the same method he’s used since before I was old enough to be in this building unsupervised. Palms flat first, smoothing the fabric into submission, then clean, exact folds that turn a wrinkled shirt into a clean, finished fold.

“Back bearing,” I say, nodding toward the machine.

“Already put in the request.” He doesn’t look up.

“I saw it.”

“Then you know it’s handled.”

There’s an edge in his tone. Mild. Aimed at the world, not at me. Rory doesn’t like things slipping. Doesn’t like the suggestion that something under his watch could fail before he fixes it. I know the feeling well enough not to push.

“I’ll have someone out tomorrow,” I say. “No point letting it run worse.”

He exhales through his nose, somewhere between agreement and don’t make a thing of this and goes back to the shirts.

The floor is half full, as I expected—regulars running their loads, a few people who want a level of anonymity in their weekly task. A woman near the front window watches her washer like it might eat her clothes if she looks away. A kid against the wall with headphones in, foot tapping against the tile in time with something only he can hear.

Everything is moving. Everything is working.

That’s what matters.

I watch Rory, taking in the small compensations he makes when he thinks no one’s paying attention. The slight lean to his left side. How his shoulders tighten and release between movements.

I’m always paying attention.

“How’s the back?” I ask.

“Fine.”

“Rory.”

“It’s a back,” he says, lifting the next shirt. “It aches. That’s what backs do.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the one I’ve got.”

I let a beat pass. “I ordered you a chair.”

He stops. Enough that the rhythm breaks. From Rory, that’s the equivalent of dropping everything and staring.