Page 7 of Alien Warrior Chef… With Benefits
“I don’t know. Most Vakutan don’t eat baked goods. Let aloneEarthbaked goods.”
“I’m not most Vakutan.”
That earns me a smile—small, secret. A gift.
We fall into the morning rhythm then. Customers come and go, a blur of faces and languages. She greets each one with the same warmth, the same unguarded joy, but her eyes keep returning to me. Not always directly—sometimes just a glance, a quick check to make sure I haven’t vanished—but it’s enough.
We talk, as always.
“Got another shipment of that spice you like,” she says, leaning against the prep counter with a towel draped over her shoulder. “From the Tovax system. Lyrie says it smells like feet, but she eats raw kelmar so what does she know.”
“Kardeth spice?” I ask, surprised.
“Mmhmm.” She opens a small jar and tips it toward me. The scent wafts up—cinnamon’s darker, meaner cousin, all heat and smoke. “I was thinking of doing a cinnamon roll hybrid. Earth technique, alien kick.”
“You’ll start a war.”
“Pfft. I’ll start a line out the door.”
“You already have one.”
She shrugs, unbothered. “Maybe I want a longer one.”
“Maybe you should expand.”
She stills for a second. Just a beat. But I catch it.
“No,” she says at last, softer. “This place is enough.”
I don’t press. I never do.
The silence that stretches between us isn’t awkward. It’s weighted, maybe, but not uncomfortable. She turns and starts restocking the pastry case. I sip the last of my espresso, watching her fingers as they trail over glass and paper and metal, wondering—again—what they’d feel like curled around my jaw, pressed to my chest, gripping my shoulders in something far more primal than friendship.
I shift on the stool, discomfort tightening my spine. Not from her presence. From everything I can’t say.
She treats me like I’m normal. Like I’mwhole.
She doesn’t flinch from the scar that rakes across my cheek, doesn’t ask about the cybernetic eye glowing red in my face. Most people do. Some are subtle—furtive glances, questions coated in curiosity—but others are blatant. Children point. Tourists whisper. Sometimes I hear them.
Ruby never has.
She looks at me like I’m a man. Just a man. And that terrifies me.
Because I’m not.
I’m a weapon half-sheathed. I’m war wrapped in skin. And I want her. Badly. Recklessly. So much that it makes it hard to breathe.
But I can’t have her.
I grip the ceramic mug a little too tightly, the faint crack of stress echoing across the counter. She looks up, brow furrowed.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
She doesn’t believe me, but she lets it go. Another kindness I don’t deserve.
Eventually, I finish the muffin. The taste lingers, sharp with sugar and regret. I rise from the stool and place the empty plate on the far edge of the counter.
