Page 69 of Something Worth Keeping
“Come on, Ethan. One drink. I waited through your whole shift.” The suit leaned closer, alcohol thick on his breath. “Don’t be a tease.”
“I wasn’t teasing. I was working. Serving drinks is literally my job description.”
“You smiled at me.”
“I smiled at everyone. That’s also my job description.”
Rook stopped three feet away, hands in his jacket pockets. “Problem?”
The suit glanced over, irritated. “Private conversation, buddy. Move along.”
“Didn’t sound private. Sounded like harassment.” Rook kept his voice pleasant, but let his human disguise slip just slightly at the edges. Nothing obvious. Just a suggestion of wrongness in his proportions, a hint of too many teeth when he smiled. “He asked you to move.”
Ethan’s eyes darted to Rook, widening slightly. Recognition flickered there - not of Rook specifically, but of danger. The prey-animal instinct said the new arrival was potentially worse than the first threat. He was clearly smart.
The suit puffed up, trying to salvage his dignity. “This is between me and Ethan. We know each other.”
“We don’t.” Ethan pushed against the man’s chest. “You come to the theater. That’s not knowing someone. That’s being a customer.”
“After all the drinks I’ve bought from you?”
“Which I served. As part. Of my job.” Each word came out precisely and clipped. Frustrated. Like he’d explained this concept multiple times, and it still wasn’t penetrating. “You’re conflating professional courtesy with personal interest. They’re not the same thing.”
Oh.
Oh, that wasinteresting.
Rook’s attention sharpened. Most humans would’ve gone with a soft no, a made-up boyfriend, some socially acceptable excuse. But Ethan was breaking down the logical fallacy like he was teaching a particularly dim undergraduate.
The suit’s face darkened. “You little…”
Rook moved.
One moment, he was standing casually with his hands in his pockets. Next, he had the suit’s wrist locked in a grip that made bones creak.
“Walk away,” Rook suggested quietly. “Right now. While your joints still bend in the correct directions.”
The suit stared at him, drunk enough to be stupid but not so drunk he missed the threat in Rook’s voice.It’s not a threat, buddy, it’s a promise.
He wrenched his hand free and stumbled backward. “Crazy people. Both of you.”
They watched him weave down the sidewalk, muttering. Rook waited until he turned the corner before looking back at Ethan.
Who was staring at Rook with an expression that was definitely not gratitude.
“That was unnecessary,” Ethan said flatly.
Rook blinked. “Sorry?”
“I said it was unnecessary. I had the situation handled.”
“He had you against a wall.”
“He had me against a wall where there are three security cameras covering this entrance, where my coworkers were finishing closing duties thirty feet away, and where I was in the process of explaining whyhis behavior was inappropriate.” Ethan adjusted his glasses with sharp, irritated movements. “Your intervention implied I needed rescuing, which reinforced his existing assumption that I’m helpless, which is going to make the next three months of him coming to the theater even more complicated.”
Rook’s brain stuttered as it tried to process that. “The next three…you’re worried about customer retention?”
“I’m worried about establishing clear boundaries with a patron who has demonstrably poor social awareness and a tendency toward alcohol-influenced decision making.” Ethan pulled his phone from his pocket. “Now he thinks I need protection, which means he’ll either escalate to prove he’s more dangerous than you, or he’ll develop a hero complex and become even more persistent. Either way, you’ve made my job harder.”
