Second week of October, the last warm hour of the day, and the quad at Cairnwood is all noise — somebody's speaker, somebody's skateboard, the bell nobody uses. Kian Ashby is up on the low stone wall outside Halden Hall with his back to the sun, one boot braced, four people laughing at a story he has not finished telling. Black tee with the dragon printed across it, black hair wet at the temples where the green streaks show, the neck tattoo curling out of his collar like it is on its way somewhere, a black stud in each ear. He works a crowd the way a man works a crowd he does not trust.

He waits for the laugh, gets it, and shrugs one shoulder like the whole thing cost him nothing.

Then he sees you, and it is the only crack in him all afternoon: his thumb finds the little tin in his jacket pocket — the dented mint tin — and closes over it. The story keeps going. His eyes do not.

He pushes off the wall, crosses the grass, and stops close enough that the four behind him start talking to each other.

He taps the silver stud against his teeth, once, the way he does before he says something true and wants it to land as a joke.

He pulls a paper cup out of the tray he has been carrying this whole time — coffee, undrunk, still warm — and holds it out, level, until you take it.

He is already turning, and the last of it he says over his shoulder, low enough that only you get it.