Elara's fingers curled around the crisp bill as if it might bite. The ink on the hundred-dollar note felt raised beneath her touch, each digit burning into her palm like a brand. Through the diner window, rain streaked the glass in silver ribbons, blurring the neon "OPEN" sign until it looked like a watercolor smudge.
"Please," Damien repeated. His thumb brushed the back of her hand, calloused from what—golf swings? Clenched fists?She didn't know, but the rough warmth of it seeped through her thin uniform sleeve.
Mabel's spatula clanged against the grill. "Honey, when a man like that offers you a tip, you take it. Might be the only time life hands you something without strings." The cook's eyes flicked to Damien, then back to Elara, a knowing glint in their depths.
Elara's throat tightened. She'd spent three weeks calculating every nickel— 12.99 for the generic cereal that left her stomach gnawing by noon, $450 rent looming like a storm cloud on the calendar. This single bill could erase three days of scrubbing grease traps and enduring leering truckers.
Yet she found herself hesitating. Not out of pride, but something sharper—fear of what accepting it might mean. That this moment, this connection that crackled between them like static electricity, would calcify into something transactional.
Damien must have read the conflict in her eyes. "Think of it as... advance payment." He leaned closer, voice dropping to a rasp that ruffled the fine hairs on her ear. "For when I need your expertise."
"My expertise?" She almost laughed. Her art history degree was gathering dust in a storage unit, buried under Ethan's old textbooks and wedding china she couldn't bear to look at.
"Your eye." His gaze drifted to the chipped coffee mug she'd been tracing earlier, now sitting beside the register. "You notice things others miss."
Before she could respond, the bell jangled. A trio of construction workers tromped in, boots squealing on linoleum, their laughter loud enough to rattle the salt shakers. Damien stepped back, smoothing the lapels of his suit as if resetting some invisible boundary.
"Keep it," he said, already turning toward the door. "I'll see you tomorrow."
The door swung shut behind him, leaving Elara clutching the hundred-dollar bill like a lifeline. Mabel sidled over, wiping her hands on her apron. "You know, my Tommy—God rest his soul—used to say a man's character is in how he handles small kindnesses. That one doesn't flinch when he gives."
Elara unfolded the bill, staring at the portrait of Benjamin Franklin. "What if he expects something in return?"
"Then you'll cross that bridge when you come to it." Mabel clucked her tongue, nodding at the money. "For now, go cash that. Buy yourself something nice. A hot meal that doesn't come in a can. Maybe some decent sleep."
That night, Elara did buy a hot meal—vegetable soup from the deli down the block, still steaming in its paper cup. She ate it at her kitchen table, surrounded by moving boxes she hadn't unpacked since Ethan left. The apartment felt colder than usual, the radiators rattling weakly against the February chill.
She counted out 60 she hid in an old teacup on the top shelf of the cupboard, where Ethan had never bothered to look. It wasn't much, but for the first time in weeks, her bank account wouldn't hit zero before payday.
Sleep came easier that night. When she dreamed, it wasn't of Ethan's note or empty side of the bed. It was of storm-gray eyes and a voice saying, You notice things others miss.