Nine-Tenths

Thirty-Five

"Because it's, uh, kinda against some big dragon taboo," I answer.

"So you roasted beans for a joke, but it was good, and now you've been doing them all this way?" Hadi asks, starting to put the pieces together. "Why?"

Dav draws himself up like a soldier preparing for reprimand. "Because I like feeling useful. No, because I wanted to," Dav corrects, rueful and cowed. "I truly did not anticipate there would be any side effects. I'll stop immediately."

I shoot him a sharp glance, but he isn't looking at me.

Because he wanted to?

More like, because I asked.

Shit.

"Wait, hold up, I never said I was mad about it," Hadi says. She sucks in a deep breath, shakes out her shoulders, rolls her head back and forth. "I'm confused."

"I'm happy to sit down and explain it more thoroughly," Dav says, which surprises me. "But for now, you must send that young lady away empty handed."

He looks pained as he says it, and I inch around Hadi to snag his pinkie finger with mine. The touch of skin-on-skin has an immediate effect on him. He lets out a deep breath and leans into me. I'm happy to be there to hold him up.

Anytime, I think, and then swallow hard when that thought is followed by a fervent, All the time. For the rest of time.

Dammit. I am in much deeper than I thought. But the honest truth of it is: I wasn't lying when I said that whatever shit Dav is in, I would rather help him wade through it, than to leave him to drown alone. Dav squeezes my finger, pulling my whole arm against his, and it's a staggeringly intimate thing for Dav to do in public.

"You can stop looking like I'm about to shoot you." Hadi's back to being the kind, no-bullshit-allowed Hadi again. "I'm not greedy enough to demand that you keep roasting our beans when it's clearly gonna get you in shit."

Next to me, Dav shudders in a breath, and lets it go slowly.

"You wouldn't be disappointed?" he asks slowly. "Your business has never been better."

Hadi shrugs. "Roasts change. We tell everyone we were experimenting with a technique that was ultimately unsustainable, and we move on."

"Or maybe we find a way to replicate the dragonsfire in the machine," I suggest.

"It will melt it," Dav says. "Again."

"We can hash this out later." Hadi gestures at the cauldron. "Finish that one, we'll use it for taste testing. Then I'm kicking you out for the day. Starting tomorrow, you use the machine. Got it?"

Dav nods, relief washing off him in waves so palpable that I can practically feel them.

"Thank you," Dav says.

"For what? You're not my employee."

"For not being angry," Dav says softly.

Hadi scoffs. "Listen, I don't know how dragons see it, but right now, you're the one doing me a favor. And while you didn't do it the way I expected, and the results are not what I was banking on, you've done my business good and I can't be pissed about that. Thank you for even being here."

"It's the least I could do, considering," Dav says, some of his teasing humor coming back.

"Yeah, yeah," Hadi says, and heads out to the front.

Before the door has swung closed, Dav and I are already reaching, mouths magnetized. When I let him up for air, Dav ducks down and kisses my shirt over the five round scars on my arm.

"That went better than I thought it might," I say. Dav buries his face in my neck and wraps his arms around me so tight my ribs creak. "Okay, ow a little. Ease up. What's eating you?"

"I don't know," Dav confesses, voice muffled and breath hot. "I thought I would have to leave, or you would hate me or—"

"Why would I hate you?" I cup his face, meet his sunflower eyes. He looks away instead of answering, and I let him get away with it for now. "C'mon—let's get a cup of the good stuff before it's gone. It's limited edition now."

Dav lets me take him by the hand and lead him out into the café. We slide over to the espresso machine just as Hadi shouts: "You what?"

Min-soo flinches. "I told her the name of our bean supplier and gave her a take-away cup of the whole roasted beans. Isn't that what you asked me to do?"

"No, I—" Hadi stops, and then scrubs at her face. "Yeah, okay, I could have phrased that better. Shit."

That's when I register it: Pedra's gone.

Dav presses himself back against the wall, hands over his mouth, every part of him trembling. "They'll never forgive me," Dav whimpers, as he blinks hard, over and over. "I've done it again."

If you're enjoying this story, please remember to vote and comment!