“What about you?” Leo said before Dawson could ask. “Three brothers, same garage. That’s a lot of Mercers in one place.”
“Works out fine.”
“You ever want to do something else?”
Dawson considered this for longer than most people would. “No,” he said, and it sounded like the truth.
Their knees were still touching. Neither of them had moved since they sat down, and Leo had lost the thread of what he was about to say twice now because Dawson had shifted his weight, and the pressure of his leg against Leo’s changed. Warmer when he leaned in to reach for his water. Gone for half a second when he sat back, long enough for Leo’s breath to catch before the contact returned. Leo picked up his beer to give his hands something to do and took a drink he didn’t taste.
The pizza came. The Full Pull was enormous, an overloaded disk of meat and vegetables and cheese that hung off the plate. Leo stared at it.
“You said you were hungry,” Dawson said.
“I said I was hungry, not that I was feeding a family of six.”
Dawson pulled a slice and folded it. Leo grabbed a slice and tried the same fold. Toppings slid. He caught a sausage round before it hit the table.
“You fold it, or you wear it,” Dawson said.
“Thank you for that wisdom.”
“Anytime.”
They ate. Leo put away two slices and started a third before he admitted the Full Pull might have been ambitious. Dawson was on his fourth and showed no signs of slowing down.
“At The Penalty Box,” Leo said, leaning back. “Every time I’ve been in there, you’ve got a book.”
Dawson glanced up. “Yeah.”
“What do you read?”
Dawson wiped his hands on a napkin. Took his time with it. “Crime stuff. Thrillers.”
“Like what, Grisham?”
“Connelly. Michael Connelly.”
“I don’t know him.”
“Not surprised.”
Leo raised an eyebrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It wasn’t a jab at you. He’s just one of those not many people know about.” Dawson’s mouth did the almost-smile thing again, and Leo caught it this time—the dry humor that lived underneath the silence, surfacing in small, unexpected flashes. “He writes about a detective in LA. Guy works cold cases. Methodical, patient, pulls everything apart until it makes sense.”
“And you like that.”
Dawson shrugged. “I like when problems have answers.”
It was such a specific thing to say that Leo stopped chewing. He’d expected a brush-off or a one-word answer, and instead Dawson had handed him a piece of himself without seeming to notice he’d done it. Leo wanted to push, to ask what problems didn’t have answers in Dawson’s life, but he could feel the boundary sitting there between them, clear as glass.
“I read on planes,” Leo offered. “Mostly whatever’s on the bestseller rack at the airport.”
“That’s not reading. That’s killing time.”
“Wow. Okay.”
Dawson’s eyes warmed. The shift was small, just the corners crinkling, but Leo felt it the way he’d felt the knee contact—disproportionate, too big for the gesture. “I’ll lend you one,” Dawson said. “If you want.”
