“I’m sorry. I didn’t see you. I was trying not to drop it. I’m really sorry.”
Bryce stared at the shoe as if he had been injured.
“You serious?”
Caleb swallowed. “I can get a napkin.”
“You can get three hundred dollars. That’s what these cost.”
The boy blinked. He had never owned anything worth three hundred dollars except, perhaps, his bicycle, and even that had been bought secondhand.
“I don’t have that.”
“Then somebody’s going to pay for it.”
Devin’s phone drifted closer. The gimbal held Bryce in perfect focus. Behind the camera, Kayla gave a small, uncertain laugh, the kind people make when they hope a situation is a joke and do not want to be the first to discover otherwise.
Bryce spread his hands.
“Look at this. Three-hundred-dollar shoes. Some kid just dumps mustard all over them.”
Simone stepped toward him. “Bryce. It’s mustard. We can clean it.”
“Don’t start.”
“I’m not starting anything. He said he was sorry.”
The boy’s face had turned pale. His lower lip trembled. The remaining corn dog tray shook in his hands. That was the part Owen noticed first: not the stain, not Bryce’s bulk, but the involuntary movement of a frightened child trying to keep from crying.
Owen approached without hurrying. He slid between Bryce and Caleb and rested one hand lightly behind the boy’s shoulder.
“Easy,” he said. “It was an accident. He’s nine.”
Bryce looked him over: silver hair, inexpensive sunglasses, gray shirt, cargo shorts, worn hiking shoes. An average-sized older man with a little softness around his stomach. Owen’s left hand was visible for a moment, two fingers absent.
Bryce registered the injury only as evidence that this was not someone he needed to fear.
“Your kid ruined my shoes.”
“My grandson,” Owen corrected, “and he didn’t ruin them. He spilled mustard. We’ll get you napkins.”
“I said three hundred.”
“Then you’ve said it.”
The quiet reply disturbed Bryce more than an insult would have. A few people had turned toward them. He could feel the audience gathering, felt the magnetic pull of the camera near his shoulder.
“You think you get to tell me what happens?”
“No,” Owen said. “I’m telling you we aren’t giving you three hundred dollars for a washable accident.”
“That’s your best offer?”
“My offer is an apology. You got one.”
Grace came around the cart carrying a stack of napkins and a bottle of water. “Sir, I can clean that up for you.”
Bryce did not even glance at her.
Owen had seen this kind of anger before, though not always in men so young. Anger that had stopped responding to the thing that supposedly caused it. Anger that had found a stage and now needed a conclusion worthy of an audience.
