Page 50 of Mane Brew

“The difference is wine, and we both know it.” She winks. “Good luck with your... inefficiency problem.”

She’s gone before I can throw anything at her.

The silence she leaves behind is thick with things neither of us is saying.

“Eat.” Rhodes gestures at the food without looking at me. “The bread is from Moonpetal. Sunny said to tell you that Biscuit approves of recent developments.”

“What recent developments?”

“She didn’t specify.” He moves to the next shelf. “I assume she means the reconstruction progress.”

We both know that’s not what she means.

I sit. Eat the food he brought—good bread, perfectly seasoned vegetables, exactly the kind of meal I’d skip in favor of checking fermentation levels for the fourteenth time.

He continues organizing while I watch, and the silence shifts from thick to almost comfortable.

In the middle of my lunch, a courier arrives and hands Rhodes a thick packet. He stops his organizing long enough to tell me he’ll be at the Den for a while. Not sure why he tells me that, but the Den is nearly empty when I push through the heavy oak door after I close shop.

The exposed beams cast long shadows across tables that have seen decades of shifter gatherings.

Rhodes sits alone in the back corner.

Where else would the man who never stops working be—I check the clock behind the bar—almost midnight on a Wednesday.

Papers spread across his table in careful stacks. Reports, schedules, maps marked with the meticulous precision of someone who considers organization an art form. His jacket is draped over the back of his chair. His sleeves are rolled to his elbows, revealing forearms corded with muscle and covered in dark hair.

He looks tired. Focused. Beautiful in the way that solid, steady things are beautiful—not flashy, not demanding attention, just present and reliable and exactly what they appear to be.

My pulse stutters.

I cross the room before I can talk myself out of it.

“You need to sleep.”

He looks up. Surprise flickers across his features—brief, quickly contained behind the mask of formal restraint. But I saw it. That moment of unguarded reaction when he registered my presence.

“So do you.”

“I was just out walking.” I pull out the chair across from him. Sit without waiting for invitation. “What’s all this?”

“Intelligence analysis. The documents from the warehouse raid. It’s what I received while at your place during lunch.” He gestures at the stacks. “I’m cross-referencing the Architect’s movements with known Network schedules. Looking for patterns in the information leaks.”

“At midnight?”

“Patterns don’t respect business hours.”

“Neither do chaos witches, apparently.” I reach across the table. Grab the nearest file. Start reading before he can protest.

“That’s classified⁠—”

“I’m helping.” I look up, daring him to argue. “You said you’d need foundation. Structure. Well, I’m chaotic. Maybe chaos can spot patterns order would miss.”

He studies me for a long moment. The firelight plays across his features, catching the angles of his face. I see him calculating—weighing protocol against practicality, rules against results.

“Your reading comprehension is adequate.”

I grin. “High praise from the man himself.”