Page 2 of Soft Serve

"That's exceptional," he says, and for some reason, his reaction makes me proud.

"I know," I say, pleasantly. "That'll be three fifty."

He pays without blinking, folds his wallet away, but doesn't move toward the door.

I wait.

"You're Paloma Reyes," he says without asking.

My fingers are still on the counter. I didn't introduce myself, and behind me, I can feel Rosie trying extremely hard to look busy with something that does not require her full attention.

"I am," I say carefully. "And you are?"

"Charles Whitaker."

He says it the way people say names they've said ten thousand times in rooms full of people who already know it. He’s not being arrogant; it’s just a matter of fact.

The name lands with a dull thud somewhere in the back of my memory. Whitaker. Whitaker Creamery Group. I've seen it in trade publications, in the kind of industry newsletters my grandmother used to leave on the kitchen table. I now read them with a glass of wine and a creeping anxiety I prefer not to examine.

He has national reach and an aggressive acquisition history. It’s the kind of company that turns beloved local institutions into branded content.

"Well," I say, and my voice comes out admirably steady, "that's not a name I expected to see walk through my door alone."

"I prefer to do my own reconnaissance," he says.

"Reconnaissance," I repeat. "That's an interesting word choice for a man who came in for ice cream."

"I came in for both," he reminds me.

I study him across the counter, this man who arrived in my shop without a team, without a pitch, without anything except a quality that makes the room tilt slightly in his direction. I take stock of exactly what I'm dealing with.

He isn't fidgeting. He isn't filling the silence with pleasantries or pivoting to the sell. He's just standing there, eating my ice cream, watching me work out what he is.

And he looks, infuriatingly, like he's enjoying himself.

"What do you want, Charles Whitaker?" I ask.

"Right now?" He considers the cone in his hand with what appears to be genuine appreciation. "To finish this before it melts. Texas in July doesn't give you a lot of time." He smiles at his small quip.

"And after that."

His gaze lifts back to mine, steady and direct. "To have a conversation."

"About."

"Your shop."

There it is.

I feel it land in my chest, the way I always do when something threatens this place. It’s a kind of cold tightening that has nothing to do with the freezers and everything to do with what it cost to keep the lights on after my grandmother died. What it still costs. All the mornings I'm here before dawn, and the nights I'm closing down alone. All the time I am running numbers in my head that don't always cooperate, telling myself it's worth it because it is, because she built this and I promised her I'd keep it open.

"My shop," I say, "is not for sale."

"I'm not here to buy it," he says.

"Then what?"

He finishes the last of the cone, and I hate that he makes even that look considered.