Disclaimer: Not mine.

Author's note: There's a lot I could say about this story, but I won't. I will tell you, however, that the completion of it took me almost two years (though I almost felt like I needed longer somehow haha), so it feels like quite an accomplishment to finally be done. I know it's sort of a simple, low-key story, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless. :) The cover art was done by the wonderful Eisschirmchen, who was an honor to work with! I also had the honor of working with the artist jumpupanddown. Their art will be posted today along with the posting of this story, so please check it out! It's all beautiful ;-;

Enjoy!

There is a small town tucked in by sand at day and sea at night. She's known it all her life. She can tell where each star and constellation is from any part of the beach, in any season. Her father used to say she's that particular shade of blonde because she used to lay down on the sand so often as a kid that the color of it stuck permanently to her hair.

Now she can't ever leave, she figures. There's sea glass in her eyes and an extra layer of salt on her skin. She's as much a part of this place as the shore is. As is the crackle of frying bacon, the sticking aroma of maple syrup, and Ox Ford sobbing in a mass heap on the ground by the dumpsters, after Kim shoved him out there during their most recent disagreement.

She leans heavy against the slumping door frame while he wails, runs a rough hand over her face until she's positive she's rubbed all the frustration right out of her head. "Please come back inside, Ox. We're very busy and we need you-"

"But she doesn't need me! She never even wanted me."

"Look, I know love is really complicated but I think you can still manage to work for one more day."

"Oh, please, Maka! What would you know about love's complications?"

She steps closer to him in the shaded alley and tries to contain the emotional papercut from the comment from surfacing in her deadly expression. "Excuse me? That was totally unnecessary to say! Keep up this disrespectful behavior and I will not hesitate to fire you!"

He laughs and gets up from the cobblestone, unties his apron and shoves it in her direction, and they both watch it flutter to the ground at her feet. "Don't worry about it. Consider this my letter of resignation." He dusts off his pants and glares from beneath thick lenses. "I can't be in this terrible place another year. All you women are too cold; and you, especially. Best of luck. Maybe one day you will understand and when you do, you'll leave your tears by the trash, too."

She rolls her eyes at his typical, unnecessary melodrama as he walks away, back hunched and hands trapped in ravine-deep pockets.

Maka picks up the small ebony apron and crumples it until it's balled up like a used tissue. She didn't even get the last word. She didn't get to say that she's been a victim of love's complications as well – that most people, even the "cold" ones have been (and is probably the reason they are so chilled to the soul deep beneath the skin)- and that she prefers to put her tears into their ocean so they just meld with the swirling waves, her heart-fracture so small and meaningless compared to a vast sea. She likes it over an alley floor coated in grease-trap residue where they stand out, where they might accidentally make a permanent mark.

Liz puts her head on Maka's shoulder and they both watch him shuffle around the corner and out of sight, like he's disintegrated in the sheer force of an early-summer sun.

"Yeesh. It's like a kicked puppy. It kind of makes me sick," her friend murmurs.

Maka tosses the apron into the dumpster with a sigh. "Liz, what do we have around here for booze?"

She feels her friend smile. "We've got rum, which I believe if mixed right will taste great in some coffee or iced tea."

"Make me your favorite, and your strongest. Then please have Kim put up the help wanted sign. It's going to be a long day."

"I'll make it two drinks, then."

She's never been happier to have the healing power of her head waitress on her side.

"Maka?" Liz pokes her head into the kitchen. "I found a potential cook."

She pours pancake batter into a frying pan and winces as she watches some of it drizzle over the edge. Her head spins from the second drink and it's a challenge to focus on the meals she makes. It has been a while since she has had any alcohol - she realizes too late - and now she feels as if the entire restaurant is on a tilt. She wonders what would happen if it were to just collapse; if the weight on her chest would fall with it. She considers phoning for backup but isn't sure who could fill her shoes for the next two hours before closing. If anyone would even want to. She sighs, and ventures another sip with a grimace.

"Um, Maka?"

She shakes her head and peers up from her slanted focus. "Sorry. Just tell him to take an empty booth and I'll be out in a minute."

Liz nods, and places a peppermint in Maka's hand. "You might need this, by the way. And when you go to find him, he'll be easy to spot in the crowd."

She groans and accepts it with a resigned crunch. She manages to neatly stack the pancakes and hand them to Kim on her way out the swinging door.

Liz is right: she notices him instantly in the usual family-oriented crowd. His hair is alabaster, and her stomach churns a little as she is reminded of their atrocious winter from the color. And his eyes are a hue she is entirely unfamiliar with: red, like the stripes on the peppermint melting down in her mouth; young wine; a hummingbird's throat. They are jewel-edged traps in her swaying mind. He sits at a booth by the window, and slouches as he soaks in the room.

When he catches her gaze, she sucks in a sharp breath and tries not to stumble. She stands just a smidgeon taller and slides into the seat across from him. "Hello," she murmurs with a faint smile. She can't remember the last time she has had to conduct an interview, or even the last time she has been face to face with some startlingly handsome stranger, especially in her tiny town full of familiar faces. Maka's hands fidget under the table as her stomach acid swirls again and burns up the storm of butterflies.

He remains slouched but throws her a lopsided, serrated grin and she thinks of the shark tooth necklaces in the gift shop just a half a mile away. "So, you're the boss?"

She quirks a brow. "You sound kind of surprised?"

"You just seem young. And… short." Their eyes stay linked, but hers narrow.

"Excuse me? This is how you're going to start an interview?" She half stands in the booth, and shuffles to the side slightly against her will. "Who do you think you are?"

He backs away, but stays smiling. "One of the best cooks you could hire. Oh, and Soul."

"If that's the case," she hisses as she grabs him by the collar of his shirt, "then come with me to the kitchen right now and prove it."

He shudders in her grasp, and nods. He swallows his smirk.

She sits at the edge of the sink, legs dangling after she hands him the grease-coated spatula. Maka crosses her arms, and silently her ego grows the longer she keeps balance. She takes another sip of her drink and stares him down as he stands by the grill and assesses his surroundings, his available ingredients.

Patty slides him an order with a sly grin and wink and he reads it before he reaches for the eggs in the fridge, and sets to work on the simple customer request. He works in complete silence, and with a skill that surpasses Ox, and maybe even herself (maybe – it has been an awful day, she figures). She's transfixed by the intensity that drowns his ruby eyes, his swift fingers. He has the meal ready and organized on the plate in under ten minutes, and it is like a small work of art the way none of the food touches but still somehow melds together. He hands it to Patty and turns to Maka, his smirk back in place.

Before she has a chance to compliment him, Kim slides him a large order and he sets right to work.

"We're open another hour," she says, "think you can keep it up?"

He nods, his simper more serious.

She nods and smiles in return. "Just let me know if you need help."

And then she slips to her office to finish her paperwork, after she dumps the remainder of her sour beverage down the drain.

"We're all cleaned up and closed out front," Liz shouts.

"Ok!" Maka yells back. "You can all leave."

She sighs as she starts to record some of the numbers for their day, and jumps as the mystery cook slips into a seat across from her desk. She had somehow forgotten; he had blended right in.

"What about me?" he asks.

"Oh," she murmurs. She extends a hand and he shakes it; she's shocked by how porcelain-smooth his hands are, considering how he had bragged about his chef skills. "Maka, by the way. Thank you for your help. As much as I hate to admit it, you were perfect out there."

He nods. "I told you."

She rolls her emerald eyes and huffs at his arrogance. "Yeah, and you also told me I was short."

He scratches the back of his neck. "Can I let you in on a secret?"

Maka places her pen down to indicate her full attention.

"Your waitress told me the best way to get your interest in me as an employee was to get you riled up. Basically, that you like challenges. And also, you hate when people call you short. So I put it all together, and it did work."

She groans and puts her head in her hands. "I'm going to kill Liz," she says, muffled by her fingers. "But," she continues and lifts her head up, "it's probably a good thing we met." She clasps her hands on her desk and leans forward with a polite smile. "How about we have an actual interview now?"

"Sure."

She thinks for a moment. "Where are you from?"

He shifts in his seat. "New York City."

Her eyes widen. "Then what are you doing all the way down here?"

"Just taking a… summer break. And a personal break."

"So this would be a summer job?"

"Pretty much."

Maka hesitates. "Ok. Where are you living for now? And your age?"

"I'll be living temporarily at Sandy Heights. And I'm twenty four."

"The apartment complex? That's where I live, actually," she says, ignores the sinking feeling as she realizes she is a year older. "Anyway, what is your previous cooking and job experience?"

He crosses his legs and puts his arms behind his head. "I learned to cook at home. I was a musician my whole life and that was it. Pianist." There's a dullness that sits in his eyes as he admits his profession, and it unsettles her.

She purses her lips; it explains the smoothness in his hands, like the keys he once played. "Then how did you learn to cook so well?"

"My parents are very busy people. As I grew up, I just had to cook for myself. And sometimes, my older brother. And he enjoyed it. And I enjoyed it. So I got good at it."

"I'll give you a shot. Can you start tomorrow morning at around five a.m.?"

"Yeah. Sounds cool."

She laughs. "All right. Any questions for me?"

The fan on the ceiling whirs and squeaks restlessly over their heads. She takes a quick glance around her dingy office and an internal sigh squeezes out. The ceiling appears like it could crumble at any second from the amount of golden-brown water stains that drench it. The fake wooden panel walls have not been replaced since the restaurant opened years ago and stick out in a few places, knobbed and splintered like ancient tree limbs. There are certificates on the wall in old frames that the restaurant won, and licenses to serve dairy, to serve meat. The chairs they both sit in are tattered, picked up at separate yard sales.

And there is an old picture on her desk of her mother and father standing outside the place the morning it first opened, her father holding her pregnant mother like she is something easily broken, and both overjoyed at their prospect of a successful future in a small town setting. It is a constant reminder to Maka that this place was never meant to be hers. This office - this entire restaurant - was meant to be for her parents. Not for her. That she took it because she had no choice and now her present, and her future, were permanently warped by an incident that made the picture appear fake, like a snapshot from a pipe dream. She never got to take a picture like that, she thinks. She never stood on the threshold of an achieved dream.

She never got to have her future. She got the one her parents deserved but never got to live.

"Actually," he says after a long silence, "I do have one question."

Maka waits.

"Have you been drunk all day?"

Red paints her from the neck up; she has been caught despite her best efforts to sheathe it. She's never been a skilled drunk. "Um, look… I don't normally drink. Ever. It is just that our cook abruptly quit on us this morning and Memorial Day weekend is next week so I was stressed, really stressed and Liz makes great drinks, actually but I'm just buzzed now I think-"

"Hey, it's fine." He chuckles. "I was just wondering if you were lookin' to sober up, because I could really use a tour of the town since I just settled in here yesterday."

"Um-"

"And I felt that we needed a fresh start. Since we'll be working together and all."

She smiles at his unexpected kind words; maybe he is not so bad. "Sounds like a deal. I hope from today on we'll be good partners."

"So," she says as she fumbles with the main door's lock, "do you need anything in particular out of this tour?" She sucks in a quiet, humid breath of ocean air, all mixed with a lingering winter chill. It settles uncomfortably in her stomach; she itches for solid warmth and not the in-between, the uncertain.

He shrugs. "Not really. But Liz also told me if I wanted a good tour, to go to you for it."

She glances at him from the corners of her eyes. "Did she give a reason for that?"

Soul laughs. "Actually, no."

She huffs, suspicious. "If you say so." She throws on her lightest jacket and leads the way down a side-street to their right filled with house after house, some so close it is almost as if it's just one grand mansion. They walk a while in silence, and she observes as his eyes wander every so often, from the dried-grass yards to the flapping shutters.

"It's quiet here," he says.

"In a few weeks it'll be the complete opposite. No one's really on summer vacation yet, so the only people here for the most part are those that live here year-round."

"Like you?"

She nods. "My whole life." Her voice falters.

He shoves his hands in his pockets and does not bother to press further on the subject. She is glad for the return of the quiet as they pass her mother's old house, where only her father strides now in slippered feet on the splintered floors that used to be as smooth as polished stone. The house is winter-wind-painted and aching and she has to close her eyes to avoid soaking in more images of the paint chips and crumbling porch foundations, of slanted window panes. She leads them away from the residential section and toward the beach.

She takes him down sandy stairs and onto the partly-cold sand. The beach is as vacant as the streets of summer houses, and the only sound is the tiny waves and the occasional fishing boat. She walks toward an empty wooden lifeguard seat. Maka throws her shoes off at the front of it and starts to climb.

He laughs as she settles right into the chair cross legged, like she has been built into it. "I guess you do this a lot?"

She smiles back. "Only when the beach is closed for the season, and at night."

He hesitates at the bottom. "Good view?"

She raises an eyebrow. "Not gonna see for yourself? I thought you wanted the good tour." She holds out a hand for him as he struggles to climb up to the top.

He takes her hand and marvels at her strength as she single-handedly pulls him up to the seat beside her. He drinks in a sweet and sea-salted breath so unlike the air of a big city.

It is her favorite chair: the center of the three large, wooden lifeguard seats that stretch across the shore. She reached up and touched a seagull as a child the first time she ever sat here with her mother, and she has been attached to it ever since. She cannot think of a better place to view the town and also its natural elements: the gray-blue ocean, the widest expanse of sky. Wind curls the tips of her pigtails, frizzes the hair on her scalp. She comes here to read, to think, to reminisce. To escape.

"Ok," she says as she turns to him, "let me give you a brief tour.

"Where we came from was the main residential area, filled with a lot of rental houses and apartments that go on for miles and miles. There are a couple of sections of town like that, and they are mainly on the outskirts. I didn't feel like I had to show you all of them."

"Sure."

"In front of us is the ocean." She glares as he rolls his eyes. "Past the ocean is another city. But that's fancy-pants town; it's where the ritziest people live. Yachts, mansions, and private marinas." She takes a deep breath, and looks to the left. "That parking lot is for the beach-goers in the summer. In the parking lot – in that gray building - is the harbormaster's office. I'll take you there after this. Across the street from the parking lot is the center of town. It's where our apartments are, obviously. It's where the gift shops are, the famous pizza place, the convenience store. In the park that we can see from our apartment balconies is a stage where all the musical festivals and Shakespeare festivals take place."

She shrugs. "I mean, this place isn't too big, and you really don't need to know much about it. You won't be able to get what you need here unless you're on vacation, and since you're not, you're going to have to know about the bigger city to survive."

He grins. "So is there a part two of this tour?"

"I can't drive you anywhere today, but sure." She stretches and leans back, closes her eyes. He mimics her.

The sun is warm on their exposed skin, but not charring yet. As if there's still a layer of winter on it, slowly melting away.

She's envious of the things that can melt their chill, of things that can take in light and make the best of it.

Maka is still barefoot as they step into the parking lot she pointed to earlier. She avoids pieces of broken beer bottles without looking down; she knows where the regulars sneak drinks by the dock, where they shatter the evidence before the bike police can catch them. The fragments glitter amber in the clouded light like sharpened, hardened drops of tree sap. Pebbles stick to her feet, and the crackled pavement rubs her heels a little raw.

"I think you and my friend might get along," she murmurs as they reach the harbormaster's main door.

"Why's that?"

She laughs. "Call it a hunch."

She knocks three times in rapid succession and her blue-haired friend opens the door with a frown. "Yes?"

His voice sounds rubbed-raw with gravel. Maka resists chiding him for falling asleep on the job again. She clears her throat instead. "There's someone I'd like you to meet." She steps to the side to reveal a curious Soul. "This is Soul, our new cook."

He cracks his neck. "What happened to baldy?"

"Kim kicked him to the curb and he didn't take it so well," she says with a feathered sigh. "Anyway, Black Star, this is Soul, and Soul, this is Black Star, our town's head harbormaster. Somehow."

Soul extends a hand but Black Star refuses it and instead says, "Your hair is white. And your name is weird."

His red eyes turn to slits. "Your name is Black Star and you have blue hair." He drops his hand from the harbormaster's reach.

Black Star erupts into a raucous bout of laughter. "I like this guy, Maka. Ford was a prude, anyway." He steps forward and hugs Soul with such a strong pat on his back he nearly falls over. "Welcome to the town. Oh, and Maka, you guys are both cordially invited to a beach bonfire tonight. We're getting in at least one this year before the tourists trash the shit out of the beach. Bring your own beer."

Her stomach twirls. "Um, I'm good for alcohol, but all right, thanks." She smiles. "We'll be there."

Soul rubs his lower back as they walk away. "Yikes," he groans as a crooked pain sets in.

"Told you he'd like you and you'd get along," she says with a light laugh.

"If this is what it means to get along with him, though, I'm gonna need a back brace by the end of the summer."

The fire is small, but the crackle of it is strong as she steps closer. She stands by it and lets the heat sink into her skin in place of the earlier chill. She grins as she watches Black Star try to get a perfect roasted marshmallow for Tsubaki and fails over and over. The grin softens as she takes the branch gently from him and gets it right on the first try. They sit as close as possible on their weatherworn log, and she pushes back some jealousy. There are a lot of couples here tonight. Some small part of her yearns for a warmth that comes from another person, and not a sharp-crackle summer fire.

Maka startles when she feels a tug on her sleeve, but eases up when she turns to Marie sitting alone on her own log. The older woman pats the spot next to her and she winces when a branch sticks into her thigh like the prick of a needle.

"Black Star found these logs for us," Marie says with a knowing smile.

Maka grins back and picks at the jutting twigs. "Figures."

Marie takes a swig of water and slouches the slightest bit. "So, Maka, how are you?"

She wiggles her toes in the ground and relishes the sensation of smooth-ridged shell halves and wind-cooled sand. "I'm all right. A little stressed since Ox quit on me this morning, but better since I found a new employee that's much better than he ever was."

Her golden eyes glance around until they land on the new cook who sits by himself, far from the fire. "He's quite a looker. Is he single?" She turns to Maka with a wiggle of her eyebrows.

She puffs out her cheeks and kicks a pebble into the flames. "I don't care if he is, Marie. You know I don't have the time or urge to date."

The older woman places her water bottle down and pats her small hand. "You know," she says with a bittersweet sigh, "your mother used to say that to me, and you know what happened?"

She shakes her head and stays quiet.

Marie's grip tightens. "She met your father, and she had you. I'm not saying you should force yourself to date if you don't want to – absolutely not - but if love finds you, you should give it a chance. But only if it's love, because otherwise it's just a waste of time. It's gotta be the right person, or you may as well just marry a toilet."

Maka turns to Tsubaki and Black Star while Marie drones on and on about heated seats, who are enjoying their s'mores in companionable silence; she eats his burnt marshmallow, and he eats her perfectly-browned one. Her gaze pivots to another couple off to the side, and she observes as the man absentmindedly rubs his spouse's knuckles. She wonders what it might be like to be so familiar with someone, to be so comfortable with those unspoken touches and gestures. She remembers how her father used to play with the ends of her mother's hair when they would have their family movie nights, how he only stopped when he fell asleep.

She gets up and stretches to shift the thoughts from her mind. "I'll take what you said to heart, Marie. I promise."

She winks, and tosses her a plaid blanket. "That's my girl. Now go sit with your new hot chef. He looks very lonely in that corner."

Maka rolls her eyes but finds herself at his side, though she misses sizzle of the fire as they shiver in the shadows. "Hey," she says with a shy simper as she plops down beside him. Without another word, she stretches the blanket across their laps but does not move any closer.

"Hey," he replies before he takes another sip of his beer.

"Why are you all alone over here? You could have joined us by the fire, you know?"

Soul twists his beer into a stable spot in the sand. "I've… never really been a big fan of crowds. Or a lot of noise. I guess I've always liked the quiet, if that makes sense."

She nods. "It does. Honestly, I prefer the quiet, too." She leans back and smiles. "I love my friends, but I do also like an occasional dose of isolation with a good book and an open window."

He laughs and shifts just the slightest bit closer to her. "You're a real bookworm, aren't you? I can tell. Nerd."

Maka shoves him. "There is nothing wrong with loving books. Jerk. Knowledge is power."

His smile stays. "You're right. I know. I'm just messing with you."

She snorts and looks away.

"You're pretty easy to piss off."

She can feel his smirk on the back of her neck. "So what? I like books and I have a short-temper. It's who I am."

"Hey," he says with a hand on her shoulder, and she looks back. She flushes against her will as their eyes meet and his are crimson and drenched in intensity. "It's cool. I think you're cool. I think we'll get along really well. Good partners as we already agreed we would be."

She crosses her arms, but her glare softens.

"I can picture it," he continues, "you reading, and me listening to music next to you. Open window."

They both blush at the undercurrent of the romantic in the imagery, but she tries to keep her head above water. "And every once in a while," she responds with a slight embarrassed stutter, "you say something rude to me, and I kick your ass out of my apartment."

"And I just laugh," he says, "because I probably deserve it."

They break their unified gaze and sink into a comfortable quiet. She tries to focus on paling her ruddy cheeks, but it remains difficult with the way her mind runs back and back again to the idea of them sharing warmth, on the thought of being able to put her head in his lap without asking - and without having to - because he'll be so used to it he will expect it.

After another hour the blaze starts to die out. The silver tendrils of smoke thicken and fold into the pinprick stars. She watches a few other couples and friends leave and then rises.

"Well," she says as she rips the blanket from him, "since we're neighbors, we may as well walk home together."

Soul shivers without the blanket (and without her nearness). "True." He grabs his empty beer bottle and they shuffle through the sand together.

Maka is cautious as they walk down the second floor hall, avoids every squeaky floorboard and rusted nail. She can maneuver through any part of town blindfolded, and she is not sure how to feel about it. She stops at her door: 203. She turns around to face him. "Well, this is my stop. Have a good night, Soul. See you bright and early in the morning."

He restrains a chuckle. "You will absolutely see me bright and early." He shuffles to his door: 205. "I'm your neighbor I guess. Lucky you."

She nearly chokes. "Yeah. Lucky me." Without another word she unlocks her door, rushes in, and slams it behind her. She lets out a deep breath as she slides to her floor with her back still against the door. "Lucky me," she murmurs. "Lucky me."

A salt-sweetened breeze slides in from her open window.