On that rainy night, when he stood drenched and pulled an unfamiliar child from the filthy water, I suddenly found I could no longer understand the man I had once mocked as someone who “didn’t know how hard life could be.”
Three years ago, I gripped his chin and taught him how to charm customers. Three years later, he became my boss, shaping me with one precise instruction after another, turning me from a joke behind the bar into a manager who could stand by his side.
When everyone thought this was an elaborate revenge plot, he pressed a kiss scented with cedar against my ear:
“I taught you to recognize the mire, not so you could sink into it...”
“But so you could learn to become the true queen of this place.”
