The takeout place Eryx picked wasn’t one of his. It was a hole-in-the-wall joint three blocks away that stayed open obscenely late and didn’t ask questions. Fluorescent lights, plastic chairs, a greasy menu above the counter. The air smelled like soy sauce and chili and burnt sugar.
They sat side by side at a small metal table by the window. Eryx had bought enough food for three people; Alex’s eyes had gone wide when the bags arrived, but he’d stopped protesting after the first bite.
“You always feed people you hit?” Alex asked around a mouthful of noodles.
“Only the ones I didn’t mean to hit.” Eryx picked up a dumpling with his chopsticks and dipped it in sauce. “The others get less pleasant follow-ups.”
Alex made a face. “Right. Mafia stuff.”
One eyebrow rose. “You say that like you’re talking about the weather.”
Alex shrugged one shoulder. “You think everyone who works at that restaurant doesn’t know who pays the bills? Half the staff’s on some kind of retainer. The rest at least know not to look surprised when certain people show up with certain…friends.”
Eryx considered him anew. “And you? Which half are you in?”
“The I-just-want-my-paycheck-and-to-go-home half.” Alex poked his food. “And the please-don’t-kill-me-for-spilling-wine-on-your-date half. Still working on that one.”
Eryx huffed, almost amused. “I don’t kill people for wine stains.”
“What do you kill them for?”
The question came out too fast, like a reflex. Alex winced. “Sorry. That was…wow. That was not my inside voice.”
Eryx studied him. “You’re not the first person to ask,” he said. “You might be the first to ask while I’m buying them dinner.”
Alex let it drop, wisely.
They ate in companionable almost-silence for a few minutes. Outside, the city’s late-night traffic flowed past, ignoring them.
After a while, Alex asked, “So…you hit like that a lot? Reflex or not.”
“Yes,” Eryx said, because lying seemed pointless. “I have a temper.”
“Yeah,” Alex said dryly, touching his cheek. “I noticed.”
His fingers lingered there a fraction too long, like they’d learned to shield automatically. Eryx watched, something cold and precise settling in his gut.
“First time?” he asked.
Alex’s hand dropped. He gave a short, humorless breath of a laugh. “No. Not even close.”
“Employer?”
“Sometimes.”
“Family?”
Alex stared at his food. “Sometimes.”
Eryx’s chopsticks paused over the takeout box. The room around them stayed the same—buzzing lights, the hiss of the fryer—but a thread of tension wound through his spine.
He could see it too clearly: a younger Alex, smaller, flinching before the blow even fell. A boss with fast hands and a bad temper. A father with slower ones and a bottle.
“Does it happen a lot?” Eryx asked.
Alex lifted one shoulder again, a shrug that was trying too hard to be casual. “Less than it used to. I’m getting better at not pissing people off.”
“That,” Eryx said evenly, “is not your job.”
Alex looked at him, surprised by the edge in his tone.
“It kind of is,” Alex said. “Customer service and all.”
Eryx forced his grip on the chopsticks to loosen.
He wasn’t a good man. He wasn’t even particularly trying to be. But there was something about the resigned way Alex said it—that bland expectation of being hit as part of the job—that scraped hard against whatever passed for his conscience.
“Your cheek will bruise,” Eryx said quietly. “Tell your manager you slipped in the kitchen and hit the counter. If he argues, tell him to call me. He won’t.”
“Oh.” Alex toyed with a napkin. “Is that…a perk of being slapped by the boss’s boss’s boss?”
“Consider it hazard pay,” Eryx said.
A slow, reluctant smile tugged at Alex’s mouth. It softened his whole face, made him look closer to twenty than twenty-two.
They finished the food. Eryx insisted on packing the leftovers into a second bag and handing it to Alex. “For tomorrow,” he said. “Or tonight, if you wake up hungry.”
“Do you always overcompensate this hard?” Alex asked, taking it.
“Only when I’m wrong,” Eryx admitted.
Alex glanced at him, like he was trying to decide if that made Eryx better or worse.
The drive to Alex’s apartment was quiet.
Alex gave an address in a part of town Eryx owned in all the ways that mattered—run-down, cheap, half-gentrified. He cataloged the route automatically, noting cross streets and blind corners.
From the back seat, he watched Alex’s reflection in the window. The kid sat with the takeout bag in his lap, hands wrapped loosely around the handles, like he wasn’t entirely sure he was allowed to relax.
At a red light, Eryx said, “Give me your phone.”
Alex blinked. “You really don’t waste time with foreplay, do you?”
Eryx’s mouth curved. “Relax. I told you I heard your ‘no.’ I’m not going to reopen negotiations.” He held out his hand. “Phone, Alex.”
After a second’s hesitation, Alex handed it over. The screen was scuffed, the case cracked in one corner.
Eryx added his number under a name that wasn’t his real one. Just an initial and a symbol. Handed it back.
“If your cheek gives you trouble,” he said, “or your manager does, call me.”
Alex looked down at the contact. “What, you’ll sue the restaurant on my behalf?”
“Something like that.”
Alex huffed. “Well, now I have a mafia emergency contact. My therapist is going to love that.”
“You have a therapist?” That did surprise him.
“Yes,” Alex said. “Shockingly, getting hit a lot doesn’t make you well-adjusted.” Then, catching himself, “That was a joke. Kind of.”
Eryx took his own phone out, handed it over. “Your turn.”
Alex’s eyes widened. “You’re giving me your number?”
“You gave me yours. Fair’s fair.”
Alex stared at the blank contact page waiting for him. “Do I put ‘Boss’s boss’s boss’ or…?”
“Put whatever you like,” Eryx said. “As long as you remember who picks up if you dial it.”
Alex bit his lip, thinking. Then he typed something, very deliberately, and passed the phone back without letting Eryx see the screen.
“Don’t peek until I’m out of the car,” he said.
They pulled up outside a narrow brick building with barred windows and a flickering lobby light. Eryx’s driver scanned the street, then nodded—clear enough.
The car stopped. The engine idled.
Alex shifted, fingers worrying the paper handles of the takeout bag. “So, uh…thanks. For the food. And for not…you know. Insisting.”
“If I have to insist, it’s not worth having,” Eryx said.
Alex opened the door, then paused, half in, half out. “You’re really not as scary as people say.”
“You met me on a good night,” Eryx said.
He waited until Alex had one foot on the curb before he checked the entry in his phone.
The contact name Alex had saved was: “Bad Habit?”
A question mark.
Eryx laughed, soft and unexpected. It tugged something in his chest he hadn’t realized was knotted.
Alex flushed. “Too much?”
“It’s accurate,” Eryx said. “I’ll allow it.”
Alex shook his head like he couldn’t believe this conversation was happening. He stepped fully out of the car, clutching the food and his phone.
“Goodnight, then,” he said.
Eryx leaned back, let his eyes travel over him one last time. The too-big hoodie. The bruised cheek. The wary, stubborn line of his mouth.
“Goodnight, Green,” he said.
Alex blinked. “Green?”
“Your eyes,” Eryx said. “They’re green. You didn’t notice?”
Alex ducked his head, suddenly self-conscious. “No one’s ever… Anyway. That’s a weird nickname.”
“It’s mine,” Eryx said. “You don’t have to like it.”
The corner of Alex’s mouth lifted. “See you around, I guess.”
He shut the door gently and headed toward the building, shoulders hunched against the late-night chill. Halfway to the entrance, he turned and glanced back.
Eryx was still watching.
He lifted a hand—half wave, half acknowledgment. Alex mirrored it, then disappeared inside.
The driver cleared his throat quietly from the front. “Home, sir?”
Eryx looked down at his phone again, at the contact labeled Bad Habit?
“Not yet,” he said. “Drive.”
As the car pulled away, he caught one last glimpse of the building in the rearview mirror and the faint outline of a third-floor window flicking on.
He shouldn’t have cared.
But the image of Alex on the balcony, bracing for the hit before it landed, replayed itself, overlaying the light in that window.
Eryx let his head rest back against the seat, eyes on the city blurring past, and wondered when—exactly—this particular bad habit had started.
Their Chemistry will fire up in the upcoming chapters
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