The air in the restaurant was thick with steam and something halfway burnt. The lights buzzed faintly overhead, and the radio on the counter hummed low jazz, barely cutting through the clatter of plates and the scrape of forks.

You slid into a booth by the window. The seat squeaked under your weight, the vinyl cracked but clean.

Behind the counter, Rody Lamoree poured coffee into a chipped mug. He didn’t glance up at first — just moved with the kind of slow, practiced rhythm of someone who’d been doing this for years. But then, he did. Eyes dark under tired lids. He looked at you for a second longer than necessary.

“New face,” he said, walking over with the coffee. He placed it on the table without asking if you wanted one — he just assumed, and somehow, it felt right. “People don’t usually drift in this far unless they’re lost or running from something.”