"The machine. The brand. The store's image of who buys professional equipment. Which one were you guarding when you told me it wasn't for casual customers?"
Liam's hands flattened on the table. "I — I thought I was being helpful. Steering. We get people who come in just to touch things they aren't going to buy, and it ties up demos, and—" He stopped. The sentence had begun to dig a hole, and even he could hear the shovel.
Priya closed her eyes for half a second. Brett's smile died politely.
Franklin nodded once, not in agreement, in recognition. "So you sorted me into a category that made your day easier. Casual. Not serious. Not the buyer. Not the person the expensive thing is for."
"I didn't mean—"
"You meant what you said," Franklin said. "Meaning is not the same as later regret. I am not interested in humiliating you, Mr. Croft. I am interested in whether you understand that your helpfulness had a shape, and the shape had a history older than this store."
Silence pooled. Outside the glass, an elevator chimed.
Liam swallowed. "I understand it was racist."
The word sat on the table like a tool nobody wanted to pick up with bare hands.
Franklin did not rush to cuddle it or throw it back. He let it be true in the room. "It was an assumption with a racial pattern," he said. "You looked at me and decided professional belonged to someone else. Whether you think of yourself as a racist is a separate hobby. What you did is the thing we can work with."
Brett tried to reclaim air. "We'd like to make this right publicly — a statement on the floor, perhaps, and if you're willing, a brief photo acknowledging the correction, so partners see we take—"
Franklin's gaze cut to him, mild and absolute. "No photo."
Brett's hands opened. "Understood. Completely. Then perhaps a written—"
"I will decide what written looks like," Franklin said. "Not today as a press object. Today as a process object."
Priya nodded quickly, grateful for any rail she could grab. "What would be useful to you, Mr. Cole?"
Franklin looked at Liam again. The boy — and he was a boy in the ways that mattered, even at whatever age the smartwatch claimed — sat with his apology still wet on him, waiting to be graded.
"Three things," Franklin said. "First: documentation. A clear incident record that does not vanish into a soft verbal coaching note. Second: a training draft — not a vibes workshop, a draft with scenarios, including this one, reviewed by someone outside the store's marketing comfort. Third: the complaint stays held open for ninety days while I see whether the training is theater or change. If it's theater, I escalate to the partner channel in writing. If it's change, I close it myself."
Brett looked pained. "Held open can complicate—"