"You can't avoid me forever, Nyx, It's a small town." Gus's voice drifted down from somewhere above me while I stood in the restaurant kitchen, glaring at the ancient industrial oven that had decided today was the perfect day to die. Three days after the funeral and pretending the man living upstairs didn't exist, and now the universe was forcing my hand. "Watch me try," I called back, kicking the oven door for good measure. His footsteps creaked across the ceiling, then down the stairs. I didn't turn around when he entered the kitchen, didn't acknowledge his presence even though I could feel him taking up space behind me. "That model stopped being manufactured in 1987," he said. "You're not going to fix it by assaulting it." "I wasn't asking for your help." "I know. You've made that very clear." He moved past me, crouching down to examine the oven's wiring. "But unless you want to explain to your customers why there's no food today, you might want to let me look." I
Last Updated : 2026-04-12 Read more