“Well, can you blame me?” I wondered, and he grinned.
“So.” He glanced around himself, wiggling his brows before speaking from the corner of his mouth. “Was it just a kiss or did he bend you over his desk?”
“Rhys!”
He didn’t even flinch, just took another slow sip like he hadn’t said something completely unhinged in the middle of a diner.
“What?” He set the cup down with exaggerated care. “I’m asking clarifying questions.”
“You’re being insufferable.”
“I’m being thorough,” he corrected, eyes lighting up again. “There’s a difference.”
I dragged a hand down my face, but it didn’t do anything to hide the heat creeping up my neck.
“It was a kiss,” I said. “Just a… really fucking good one.”
Understatement of the century.
Rhys made a low, skeptical sound, leaning back in his seat like he’d just been handed the worst lie of his life. “Arch.”
“It was,” I insisted.
“Right,” he said slowly. “And I’m the Queen of Sweden.”
The bell over the door chimed. My head lifted on instinct. Otto was at the counter, leaning in just enough to hear thewaitress over the noise. He turned a fraction, gaze catching on me as a big grin split his face. “Hey, kid!”
“Hey,” I called back, already sliding out of the booth.
Otto always looked a little more worn than I remembered—like the world had taken its swings and he’d let it.
He had dark hair that was pushed back without much care and a mustache that should’ve made him look older than he did. His jacket was the same one he wore when I was a kid—the kind that looked better the more it got beaten up by weather and time.
Rain clung to the fabric, small droplets catching along the shoulders, darkening the brown just enough to notice. He didn’t seem bothered by it.
He never really seemed bothered by much.
His hands were already moving by the time I reached him, tugging at a pair of worn leather gloves like he’d been in the middle of something before he came in. “You’re out early.”
He finished pulling the glove, smoothing the leather down at the wrist with his thumb before finally glancing up. “You eat?”
I jerked my thumb over my shoulder toward the booth. Plates piled high with pancakes covered our table. Rhys had already demolished half a stack, both cheeks full when he caught Otto’s attention and grinned like an idiot.
“Mr. Keller!” he called around the bite. “What’s up?”
Otto’s mouth hooked faintly, the creases at the corners cutting deeper as he glanced over. “Hey, Rhys.”
“How’s my mom?” I blurted.
My fingers dragged across the sticky laminate until they caught an abandoned sugar packet. It rolled between my thumb and forefinger, folding, then flattening, then repeating.
Otto watched that instead of my face. “She’s alright.”
Alright.
Not good.
But not falling apart either.
