Marcus rubbed the back of his neck, feeling the tension corded there. The hallway felt suddenly very small, the air thick with the scent of soap and the 'can't be ignored' presence of a wet, nearly naked elf woman.
"Because," he said helplessly, gesturing vaguely with the hand holding the hat. "Where I come from, it's polite to knock before walking in on a naked woman. It's about boundaries. Respect." He paused, his gaze involuntarily flickering down to where the towel clung to the curve of her hip before snapping back to her eyes. "And because if I stand here and tell you I didn't like what I saw, I'd be lying. Badly."
Her lips curved. It was a slow, satisfied expression, like a cat watching a mouse trap snap shut.
"So you liked what you saw," she said, stating it as a fact, checking a box on some internal clipboard. "Good. But you did not stay and stare like a creeping hunter. You closed the door. You denied your eyes."
"Yeah," he said, his voice rough. "That was me, being a gentleman in the middle of a full system crash."
She seemed to weigh that concept, tilting her head so that a heavy droplet of water fell from her earlobe to her clavicle.
"You are not imposing," she said finally, her tone softening into something intimate. "You are my special person, Marcus. My anchor. If I did not want you to see me, I would have locked the door with a thread of light and maybe a heavy chair."
He choked out a startled laugh. "You can do that? You can just… magic the door shut?"
"I can do many things," she said, a playful glint entering her eyes. "You have seen only booms and pie. You have not seen the quiet weaves."
She shifted her weight, adjusting the towel with one hand. The movement was utterly unselfconscious, but it drew the terrycloth tight across her breasts, outlining the heaviness of them, the dark shadow of her nipples against the white fabric.
"In my world," she continued, "warriors bathe in rivers together after battles. We wash the blood from each other's backs. No one apologizes for having skin. No one hides the vessel that carried them through the fight. But if this makes your head spin too fast, I will learn your knocking ritual."
He exhaled a long breath, feeling the coil of panic in his chest loosen just a fraction. "My head is doing fine," he lied smoothly. "It just wasn't expecting… that. It's been a long time since I've had a roommate, let alone one who looks like you."
Her gaze softened, losing the analytical edge. "Do not be sorry you have eyes, Marcus," she whispered. "Just be sorry if you use them like a thief."
He met her green eyes, holding the stare. "I wasn't stealing anything," he said quietly. "Promise."
"Good," she said.
For a moment, the world narrowed down to the two of them—her in the doorway, framed in billowing steam and damp white cotton, him in the cramped, peeling hallway, trying very hard to focus above the neckline. The air between them hummed with a static charge that had nothing to do with magic and everything to do with biology.
Then her eyes dropped to his hand. She noticed the old Fedora hat still hanging from his fingers, forgotten in the chaos.
"What is that?" she asked.
Marcus blinked, looking down at the felt brim. It wasn't the ball cap he'd meant to grab. It was an old fedora he'd picked up at a thrift store years ago and never worn.
"Head armor," he said, recovering quickly. "For you. To hide your ears from nosy humans."
Her eyes lit up with understanding. "Ah. A cave hat. Like Liri's."
He smiled, a crooked lifting of the corner of his mouth. "Something like that. Wrong style, but it'll work for now."
She reached out. Water was still beading on her forearm, catching the hallway light like diamonds. She took the hat from him, her fingers brushing against his. Her skin was cool from the air but radiant with underlying heat. The contact sent a jolt up his arm that settled heavy in his gut.
"Leave it on my bed," she instructed, handing it back. "I will put it on when I am less…" She hunted for the word, frowning slightly, then grinned—a flash of white teeth that was dazzling. "Less waterfall."
"Yeah," he said, his voice dropping an octave. "I can work with that."
She gripped the edge of the door, preparing to close it. She pulled it halfway shut, obscuring her body, then paused.
"Marcus?" she said softly.
"Yeah?"
She met his gaze through the gap in the door. Her expression was serious now, stripped of the playful teasing. It was the look of a woman who knew exactly what she was offering.
"If you wish to see me," she said, her voice a husky murmur, "you do not have to break doors. You just have to ask."
Heat hit him harder than the steam ever could. It flushed up his neck, burning his ears. The implication hung in the air, heavy and sweet and dangerous.
He swallowed hard, his throat clicking. "I'll keep that in mind," he managed to say. "For the very distant, totally hypothetical future."
A small, satisfied smile curved her mouth. "Good," she said.
The door shut gently with a soft click.
Marcus stood there for a full second, staring at the chipped paint of the doorframe. He felt like he'd just run a sprint. He leaned his head back, thunking it lightly against the wall behind him.
"Okay," he muttered to himself, closing his eyes. "New house rule. Always knock. Knock twice. Maybe yell 'fire' first."
He turned and headed back toward the diner proper, forcing his legs to move, trying to get his heartbeat under control before he had to face Liri and her innocent, devastating questions about why his face looked like he'd just run a marathon without moving an inch.
As he walked, the coin warm against his chest, he decided something else, too.
Hunters and Slipgates were one kind of danger—lethal, external, loud. Eira in his cave was another kind entirely. Silent, internal, and pervasive.
He was in deep trouble with both.
Customers
By late morning, The Slipgate had transformed. The lingering scent of ozone and ancient forests had been scrubbed away, replaced by the holy trinity of diner smells: dark roast coffee, sizzling bacon, and onions hitting the hot flat-top grill.
A sunbeam cut across the checkered tile floor, picking out dust motes that danced in the air. For a second, Marcus stared at them, his heart skipping a beat as they looked almost like the glowing gold pollen he had seen drifting in the black forest.
Almost. But these were just Texas dust.
Eira and Liri stood in the middle of the empty dining room, turning slow circles, taking in the chrome and red vinyl like tourists in a museum of the mundane.
"Alright," Marcus said, clapping his hands once to break his own trance. "Orientation time. Welcome to Restaurant 101. If we're going to hide in plain sight, you need to know how the camouflage works."
Liri straightened immediately. She was wearing the oversized THE SLIPGATE ball cap he'd found, pulled down low. Her ears were safely tucked away, though the brim sat slightly crooked. Eira had tied her damp, golden hair back with a rubber band and slipped into one of his extra-large gray T-shirts over her own green skirt. The shirt hung off her shoulder, and she held the new fedora in her hand, turning it over thoughtfully.
"This," Marcus said, walking over to the nearest booth and tapping the laminate surface, "is a table."
Liri blinked, looking at it seriously. "We know table," she said, nodding. "Flat friend where food sits. We have these."
"Good," he said. "And these are chairs."
He pulled one out, the metal legs scraping against the floor. He tapped the backrest.
"You sit on them," he instructed. "Not on the table. Not on the counter. And definitely not on the customers, no matter how comfortable they look."
Liri opened her mouth to argue, then closed it with a snap. "So many rules already," she muttered under her breath.
Eira's lips twitched, fighting a smile.
Marcus grabbed a damp rag from his apron pocket. "When someone leaves, you wipe the table like this."
He demonstrated, running the cloth across the surface in smooth, circular, practiced strokes, collecting invisible crumbs.
"No crumbs. No sticky spots. People do not like sitting in someone else's syrup. It makes them think about the person who was there before them, and diners are all about pretending you're the first person to ever discover the booth."
Liri made a face, wrinkling her nose. "We do not like sitting in someone else's blood either," she said matter-of-factly. "So that rule makes sense. Sticky is bad."
Marcus paused mid-wipe. He looked at her innocent face.
"Let's not talk about blood in the dining room," he said gently. "New rule. Generally, we try to keep the concepts of 'food' and 'blood' very separate in the customers' minds."
She nodded solemnly. "No blood talk near food. Understood."
He set the rag aside and picked up one of the laminated menus. He handed it to Eira.
"This is a menu," he said. "It tells people what I can cook for them and how much coin it costs."
Eira took it, her hands careful, treating the plastic sheet like a delicate scroll. She studied the pictures of eggs and burgers, then the words. Her lips moved silently as she matched the magical language scan she'd performed on him to the ink on the page.
"Pan-cakes," she read slowly, sounding out the syllables. "Om-e-lette. Steak. Texas... Trash... Pie."
Her eyes flicked up at him when she read the last one, a spark of recognition lighting them.
"Special," she added, pointing to the clipped card on the front. "What is special?"
"Special is what I'm pushing harder because it needs to sell before it goes bad," he said honestly. "Or because I feel like showing off what I can do."
"So..." Eira mused, tilting her head. "Brag page."
Marcus laughed. "Yeah. That's one way to put it. The Brag Page."