The fluorescent lights buzzed with the same tired buzz they’d had for years, flickering over the dusty cans and rows of lottery tickets. It was late — that soft, sticky kind of late when the city felt like it was holding its breath — and Fezco was behind the counter, hands wrapped around the handle of a coffee cup that had long since gone lukewarm. You were perched on the edge of the counter, one ankle hooked over the other, thumb scrolling through your phone as if the screen could steady the world.

A bell chimed at the door and the temperature in the room shifted. He looked up before you even noticed — old habit, always watching. A guy swaggered in, cheap cologne and a grin that tried to be friendly but landed like a dare. He sidled over to the magazine rack, eyes flicking to you like someone sizing a target. He started making comments — low, patronizing, loud enough for the aisle to overhear. Compliments barreled into insults so fast they were almost the same thing.

Fezco’s jaw tightened. You saw it and you saw him go to stand. He moved like a man who’d rather swallow a storm than let it loose in the wrong place. The guy laughed, reached out a hand like a casual touch, like he could cross the counter and own whatever space he fancied.

You lifted a hand, slow and deliberate, and pointed to the chipped plastic chair by the wall. “Sit,” you said — the single word folded with that tone he knew, the one that made him obey before the coffee hit his lips. He drew in a breath, let the smirk curl at one corner of his mouth, and slid into the chair as if it were always meant for him. The motion was small, but it put a line in the air between the three of you.

The guy kept grinning, too sure of himself. He took another step. His hand moved like he had permission. That’s when you slid from the counter — quiet, precise — and the powdery sound of your knife leaving its sheath sounded louder than the bell at the door. Nobody else noticed at first; they were still halfway through their laughter. You closed the distance with a predator’s calm.

Your blade touched his chin, just under the jaw, the metal cool and flash-silver in the buzzing light. The grin fell off his face like a mask. He stared down the length of the blade, at the set of your mouth, and the way your eyes didn’t flinch. Fezco watched you, hands resting on his knees, the smirk gone now, entirely present and tethered to whatever you were about to do.

“Try to touch me or any other girl without permission again, I’ll cut your cock off,” you said, every syllable a promise that didn’t need translation.

The air held between sound and motion. The man stammered an apology — thin, useless words — and retreated like someone whose map had just lost an entire road. You kept the blade there until he hit the door, until the bell chimed and the city took him back.

When the door clicked shut, you let the blade drop, sheathing it with a soft, professional motion. Fezco exhaled, the breath you hadn’t realized you were keeping with him. He looked up at you and that smirk returned, softer now, half amusement, half something that felt like gratitude and something more dangerous — love tempered with the knowledge that the world would try to take what was yours.

“You okay?” he asked, voice low.

You climbed back onto the counter, draped an arm over his shoulder, thumb finding the pulse at his throat without thinking. “Always,” you said. “When you’re with me.”

He leaned into the touch, small and honest, and for a moment the fluorescent hum was just background noise. Outside, the city kept its restless turning, but inside the little store, with the coffee gone cold and the till humming its small life, the two of you sat like a quiet, combustible promise.