I didn't move from that door until I couldn't hear him on the stairs anymore.
Then I opened my fist. No name on it. Just a number in black ink, and a hand that wouldn't stop shaking.
My coat was hanging half off my shoulder, and something cold tapped my collarbone.
A pin I'd never seen before, silver and heavy, with a crest stamped into the metal. He'd hooked it on me in the dark and never said a word.
Mira: You arrogant bastard.
I should have ripped it off and thrown it down the stairwell.
I looked at it instead, and that last soft kiss on my mouth came back to me, and my chest went tight and stupid.
He never asked. He just marked me.
I didn't sleep. At seven I carried my mother's machine to the shop with the pin still on my collar.
I told myself I forgot it was there.
The woman from the bakery stopped dead on the pavement with her bread in her arms.
She stared at my collar like it was a knife. Her mouth opened and shut and nothing came out.
Two men by the loading bay quit talking when I walked past.
One of them gave me a nod. Not friendly. The kind of nod you give a dog that might bite.
My palms were sweating on the iron by the time I got the door open.
I set the machine down, touched the cold wheel, and took a real breath for the first time all morning.
The bell over the door went.
Teo: Mira. What the fuck is that.
He wasn't looking at the machine. His hood was up and his apron strings were loose, and he was looking at my coat.
Teo: That's a Caldera crest.
Teo: That's the fucking crest, on my sister's coat, inside our shop.
Mira: Keep your voice down.
Teo: Half the street saw you get out of a black car this morning. Delphine already called me.
Mira: Delphine is a bitch with too much free time.
Teo: Did you go with him? Just say it out loud.
I didn't answer. My face did the answering for me.
Teo: Shit. Shit, Mira.
Teo: Do you know what that name does to people? Do you know what happens to anyone who gets near it?
I knew. I'd watched a whole room drop its voice at the sound of it.
I pulled the pin off my coat, put it on the counter, and dug his card out of my pocket.
Mira: Watch me.
I tore it up. Twice, then again, until it was only paper in my hands.
I dropped the pin in after it. It hit the bottom of the bin with a hard little clink.
Teo: Promise me.
Mira: I promise. I'm done with him.
It came out steady. That scared me more than anything else that morning.
Teo went out back to sort delivery slips, and the shop went quiet.
The man who kissed me on my own doorstep wasn't some tired stranger from a bar. He was a family. A family this whole city steps around.
I put my thumb on the wheel, where my mother wore the iron smooth.
I kept telling myself the ache under my ribs was relief. Then I got to work.