Page 80 of Bitter’s Sweet

“You cook?”

“I heat things with confidence.”

“That sounds dangerous.”

“Only to the food.”

I make grilled cheese because it is the one thing in my kitchen I can’t ruin unless distracted by a woman sitting at my small table with her legs crossed and her pink shoes dangling.

I burn the first side anyway.

Sweet tries not to smile.

“Don’t.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were thinking it.”

“I think a lot of things.”

My eyes lift to hers.

The air shifts, and we both know it.

The sandwich smokes between us like an idiot.

I scrape the black off with a knife and put it on a plate with chips. She accepts it like I have served a feast.

“Thank you.”

“It’s grilled cheese.”

“It’s food I didn’t have to make while looking over my shoulder.”

That shuts me up.

We eat at the little table. Outside, the first-night festival noise carries faint through the glass. Music, engines, laughter. The world acting normal because it doesn’t know a monster put his hands on Sweet’s day and left fingerprints.

She eats half the sandwich before speaking again.

“I wasn’t always running.”

I go still but keep my eyes on my plate, because looking too hard might make her stop. “Okay.”

“I had a job. A little apartment. Friends who thought he was exciting.” Her laugh is small. “Razor was exciting at first. Men like that always are. They make boring feel like death and danger feel like being chosen.”

My jaw flexes.

She sees it. “Don’t look like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you want to say I should’ve known better.”

My eyes snap to hers. “I don’t think that.”

She studies me.