I close my mouth.
"Robin, listen to me." Sarah is five foot two and she's looking up at me and her eyes are fierce and wet. "This has been getting worse. The yelling, the throwing, the schedule changes. Last month it was whisks. Last week it was a cutting board. Today it's a pan. What's next?"
"It was an accident."
"It's a pattern."
I look at the bruise. It's going purple at the edges now, yellowing in the center. Pan-handle-shaped. Specific. Not the kind of bruise you get from bumping a shelf.
"I need this job," I say, and my voice sounds far away. "I don't have savings, Sarah. I don't have another reference. If I leave, I'm starting from nothing."
"You have skills. You have a culinary degree. You have people who—"
"I have a brother's room and a boyfriend who doesn't know I come home shaking three nights a week." The wordboyfriendlands strange in my mouth. I've never said it out loud before. "I can't be the guy who needs rescuing. Not again."
Sarah looks at me for a long time. Then she hugs me — careful of the arm — and says, "At least let me take a picture. In case."
"In case what?"
"In case it gets worse."
I let her photograph the bruise. I don't think about why. I can't think about why, because thinking about why means accepting that my workplace has become the kind of place where you document injuries, and I'm not ready for that.
I finish the shift. Long sleeves. Smile in place. Performance locked and loaded.
The bar is warm and loud and smells like Jason's cooking. I slide onto my usual stool and accept the beer Knox pours without being asked. Vaughn is in the garage — I can hear him working, the clank of tools, music playing low.
I'm fine. I'm completely fine. The bruise is covered and the beer is cold and I'm going to have a normal evening with normal people and not think about the sound a pan makes when it connects with human bone.
Vaughn comes in wiping his hands on a rag. He sees me, and his whole face changes — the gruff default softening into something warm and specific that's only for me. He crosses the room and wraps his arms around me from behind, chin on my shoulder.
"Hey," he says against my ear.
"Hey yourself." I lean back into him. Let his warmth seep through my clothes. His arms tighten — comfortable, familiar, the thing I've been counting down to all day.
His forearm presses against my bruise.
I flinch.
One flinch. Tiny. A fraction of a second. If Vaughn were anyone else, it would've passed unnoticed, absorbed into the noise of the bar.
Vaughn goes still.
Not the sudden, dramatic stillness of alarm. The careful, controlled stillness of a man who just felt something wrong and is deciding what to do about it. His arms loosen. His chin lifts from my shoulder.
"You okay?"
"Fine. Your arm was just at a weird angle." I smile. Bright, easy, convincing. "Come sit. Tell me about the bike."
He sits beside me. We drink. We talk. He tells me about the Sportster rebuild and I tell him about the latest event — the safe version— and for twenty minutes it's normal.
Then Vaughn puts his hand on my arm.
Casual. The way he always touches me — warm palm, gentle grip, thumb stroking circles. Except his hand lands directly on the bruise and I hiss before I can catch it.
His hand freezes.
"Let me see," he says.