Chapter 173: She Was Done Selling Tiny Things

The new shelf cost eight hundred and fifty normal coins and one hundred and sixty Favor. Dove read both prices twice, then informed Sprout that it had developed expensive tastes without developing manners.

"Expanded Merchant Stock supports larger household needs," it replied. "The two balances cover separate unlock requirements. This is not a currency exchange."

"I asked why I have to pay extra to stop selling things in doll portions," Dove said. "Look at the size of my customers. Edrik ate three sandwiches while you were speaking."

"Two and a half," he said, holding the evidence. Then he ate the remaining half while maintaining eye contact.

Thorne laughed. Dove pointed at him before he could help himself to another sandwich. "You’re supposed to be helping me decide whether we can afford this, not demonstrating why we need it."

Sprout showed her a full meal tray beside one of the smaller packs she had been selling. Dove leaned closer. That looked like dinner for people who expected seconds, with room on the next shelf for shirts she could sell by the pack. She wanted to stop watching a pleased customer ask for more and having to tell him that was all she had.

"And if nobody wants today’s larger meal?" she asked.

"Four Favor to keep a unit. One normal coin to return it. Daily quantities remain limited."

So she still had to choose carefully. Nor would the new shelf cool their ordinary groceries. She checked the meal picture again anyway. This was enough food to make people glad they had stopped at her shop.

"Bigger portions, same annoying fees," Dove said. "You could have led with that."

She asked for more examples. Sprout showed a folding chair beside the food and shirts. The chair interested her nearly as much as the meals. Customers could carry it home themselves, without trying to include one of her husbands in the trade.

"I already choose the category. What am I buying?"

"Larger stock units and a wider range within that category. Your daily selection remains unchanged."

"So if I choose food, I get enough to feed people instead of apologize to them?" The preview showed family trays and bulk snack boxes, but no promised menu. Dove could work with that. She refused to charge customers for a surprise even when her supplier enjoyed doing it to her.

The day was nearly over, and she wasn’t making a major decision while tired. She checked the remaining Day Eighty-Nine tasks instead. The hotel soap sales had earned their reward, the road work covered exercise, and the storage goal had been exceeded many times. Favor from the hotel, her men, and the afternoon’s ordinary reactions left her at one hundred and forty-two.

She was eighteen short. For once, waiting until tomorrow wasn’t laziness. It was the only honest option.

They carried dinner through the shop to the bedroom behind the curtain. The washroom opened off its right side, leaving the opposite wall for the cooling unit, safely away from their bed. Dove wanted cold drinks within reach, not a hot motor breathing into her pillow.

A bent metal lip stopped the unit from sitting flat on its stand. Thorne pressed his thumb against it, and the metal slowly curled back under his power. He stopped before the nearby hinge moved, checked the gap, then tried again with less force. Edrik kept his palm on the stand, reinforcing it while they settled the weight. Once its ordinary bolts were tight, he released his power and checked it again.

"That was better," Thorne said, flexing his fingers. "I barely moved the hinge."

"Very sexy," Dove told him. "Please remember that trick when my drawers start sticking."

Edrik glanced at her. "Which drawers?"

She pointed him toward dinner before her smile ruined the order. During the power window, they tested the cooler empty. The small carved fox and her lake postcard stayed beside the bed, where she could see them without moving anything useful out of the way.

Thorne noticed her checking them. "Still glad you kept them?"

"Ask again when I’m rich enough to buy things that don’t do chores."

He kissed her temple, then sat down with his meal. Edrik joined them without finding another job first. Dove tucked her foot beneath his thigh and listened to the cooler hum. She wanted evenings like this badly enough that she was beginning to make plans around them.

In the morning, Day Ninety, she brought out pond water, washed, ate, and practiced before opening. Edrik kept the lesson simple: balance, distance, a safe turn, and stopping when she lost the position. She didn’t need a new trick every day. She needed the first one to work more often when she was tired.

She chose household goods: thick dish towels, five sales for fifty-four normal coins. The cabinet handled approved purchases while she demonstrated a sample beside the recovered racks. Customers could decide whether they wanted the towels without her giving a speech about them.

One customer bought a rack and immediately asked whether her husbands owned the goods. Dove smiled at him until he looked uncomfortable.

"You watched me choose the price, take the payment, and tell them where to put it. What part needed a man?"

Thorne bent over the counter trying not to laugh. Edrik didn’t bother trying. The customer corrected himself, paid her, and left with a better rack and a worse afternoon.

Sprout’s reaction tally moved through amusement, surprise, and interest. Dove closed it until the rush was over. She had customers to serve and a cup of coffee her husband had brought before she remembered wanting one.

The day’s twelve fresh Favor arrived through those exchanges. Five more came from her men’s reactions to her successful lesson and the counter argument, and the one daily mate extra brought the balance to exactly one hundred and sixty.

Her normal balance had reached seventeen hundred and fifty-nine after the day’s sales and exercise. She could afford the shelf, keep a reserve, and still hate the price.

"Show me the confirmation," she told Sprout after closing.

It did. She read the terms one last time and paid. Nine hundred and nine normal coins remained. Her Favor dropped to zero.

Edrik watched her face as she confirmed the purchase. "How much did that hurt?"

"Enough that tomorrow’s food had better be good," she said, leaning into the arm he slipped around her. The empty Favor balance bothered her, but she’d chosen what she wanted it to buy.

Thorne came to look at the preview she described aloud. Tomorrow’s larger stock included proper meal bundles, useful household goods, and quantities that might finally suit a customer built like a refrigerator.

Dove started smiling before she could stop herself. For the first expanded delivery, Sprout showed two previews before she made tomorrow’s usual category choice.

One was household equipment. The other showed hot barbecue buns packed in trays large enough to make both her husbands stop pretending they weren’t listening.