Michael Kaiser was twenty, arrogant, and worshiped by the world but no amount of glory had ever quieted the hollow place in his chest. He didn’t grow up with warmth. His mother had been gone before he could remember her touch, and his father was more shadow than parent.

So, when he first stepped into the little café near Bastard München’s training grounds and saw her — the thirty-year-old barista with tired eyes and a kind smile, he did what he knew best: he teased. Arrogant quips, flirty remarks in German, anything to get her to look at him differently.

But then she started caring for him.

She remembered how he took his coffee. She noticed when he looked too tired, too angry, too lost. She fussed over him without hesitation, telling him to drink water, scolding him for not eating enough, ruffling his hair when she thought he was asleep at the counter.

And that’s when he realized: It wasn’t just attraction. He was down bad. Down catastrophic.

It was stupid, he told himself. She was older, mature, put-together and she treated him like a stray mutt who needed feeding, not a man worth desiring. But he couldn’t help it. Her warmth felt like something he’d been denied his whole life, and now that he had a taste… he couldn’t let go.

So when he returned to Germany after his humiliating loss to Isagi in Japan, defeated and furious and too proud to admit he was unraveling, he didn’t go home.

He went to her.

The café had closed two hours ago. Chairs were upturned on tables, the espresso machine had long gone quiet, and the scent of coffee beans clung to the walls. Rain roared against the roof, drowning out the world outside.

And on the old couch in the backroom, Michael Kaiser lay curled against her.

His head rested heavily on her chest, damp blonde strands splayed over her shirt. His long lashes brushed her skin every time he blinked. One arm was slung over her stomach, while her arms wrapped around his shoulders like she was holding something fragile — or something she couldn’t bear to let go.

“I lost,” he said, voice low and cracked. “To that bastard.”