The two men stared at each other across the ice cream display.

  “Who are you?” Ever asked.

  “I should ask the same of you,” the man standing on the serving side of the ice cream display said, “but I know who you are, Ever.”

  Ever didn’t get the sense that he was dangerous, so he relaxed his fists. There was a familiarity in the way he tilted his head ever so slightly as he regarded Ever, as well as the hint of the smile that seemed to challenge him - then he saw the long coat he had on.

  “You’re that customer who came in a couple weeks back.”

  The hint of a smile became a broad smile. He came across to the front, took a chair off the top of the table and leant on the back rest.

  “You got it. Doing a bit of mystery shopping, making sure that the people that my niece hired were up to scratch, you know the drill.”

  “Wait…” Ever said slowly, the pieces falling into place. “‘Niece?’ You’re Taylor’s uncle?”

  The man extended a hand towards Ever. “Logan Pagoto.”

  —--

  Ever had gone through the motions of setting up the ice cream store dozens of times. He was three months into the role for Zeus’ sake. So why was he making rookie mistakes like mixing up the pistachio and hazelnut ice creams like it was his first week? It might have had something to do with Logan sitting on a customer chair watching him unblinkingly through the glass.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Ever hurriedly switched them back, flicked on the light switches and turned on the radio. Before a single bar of pop music could play, Logan strode across to the audio system.

  “Hold on, let me put on my playlist instead.” The boss of the ice cream store pulled out a cable, connected his phone, scrolled a few times then confirmed. Moments later, Nirvana started playing. “What music are you into?”

  “Ummm…” Ever stammered. He stared at the digital audio system screen, almost willing it to give him an answer. Oh wait! “Anything with death growls.”

  “Ah yeah? Lamb of God?” Logan suggested.

  “Yep,” Ever agreed. He hoped that he was nodding fast enough to communicate mutual interest, not but too fast that Logan expected him to put forward more bands that were proponents of death growls.

  “Nice. Anyway, I’ve come back from my trip to spend some time here. See what else we could be doing to improve the business, you know.”

  Ever noticed his shoulders were tense. “Yeah, sounds good,” he replied, pushing his shoulder downwards. “Do you know if Taylor’s going to be coming in today?”

  “Nah, she’s busy with exams and stuff,” Logan said. He raked a hand through his mostly silver-grey hair. “She told me that she told you guys.”

  “Right, just didn’t know when she was going to be done with them, that’s all.”

  There was something about the way Logan looked at him that made Ever feel uncomfortable. It wasn’t the same discombobulating feeling Chaos gave, with the hundreds and thousands of vertigo-inducing eyes piercing into his soul from every angle. Right now though, that’s what he would have preferred.

  “Mmm. Yeah, she might be in and out. I think she’s busy applying for university subjects abroad or something like that.”

  Ding! Ding!

  Ever looked up as a delivery man came in, gesturing for his colleague to bring in some stock. It was going to be a long day.