That earns a flicker of a smile from Evan, and for some reason, my insides feel warm for an entirely different reason than the coffee in my hand.
He studies me for a beat.
“You’re new.”
I clear my throat. “Is that your professional assessment?”
“Haven’t seen you before, is all,” he says.
“True,” I reply. “I’d remember this level of interrogation.”
Mason grins like he’s just been handed front row tickets. There’s a faint shift at the corner of Evan’s mouth, but it disappears as quickly as it arrived.
“So you just got here?” he asks me.
“Just,” I confirm. “Still finding my bearings.”
“That’d be north,” Mason offers, pointing vaguely out the window.
“Thank you,” I say dryly. “Invaluable navigation skills.”
A quiet ripple of amusement moves through the others, but Evan doesn’t look away. There’s something in the way he holds eye contact, as though he’s cataloguing details without meaning to.
He reaches into his pocket, pulling out his wallet to pay Rose, and something slips free. A coin hits the tiles and spins once before settling near the leg of my stool. He mutters something under his breath and starts to move, but I’m already bending down.
“Hang on.” I pick it up and hold it between my fingers. “You dropped your penny.”
“It’s a nickel,” the tall guy at the back says, who's name I think is Ghost.
“I know,” I say, turning it over slowly. “I’m being nostalgic.”
Evan steps forward to take it, but I don’t pass it back right away.
“When I was little,” I continue, because apparently my mouth has decided we’re sharing family memories now, “my dad used to call me his lucky penny.”
I smile without meaning to, and Evan’s hand pauses.
“Every morning before he left for work, he’d say, ‘Find my Penny, pick her up, all day long I’ll have good luck.’” I shake my head slightly. “He never walked out the door without doing it. If he forgot, he’d come back in and pretend he’d left something.”
The warmth of the memory sits in my chest for a second, but then I realize I’m still holding the coin. And still talking.
I reach forward and place it back in Evan’s warm palm.
“Sorry,” I say lightly, suddenly aware of my heartbeat drumming in my chest. “Occupational hazard of being named Penelope. You get a lot of coin-based anecdotes.”
His fingers close around it, brushing mine gently.
“Guess that makes you lucky, then,” he says.
I huff lightly. “Depends who you ask.”
Definitely not my stepmother.
He studies me for a moment, then slips the nickel into his pocket without another comment. I tuck my hands back around my coffee and look down at it, suddenly very interested in the foam.
I always do this. It starts out simple and somehow ends up as a complete overshare. I force a small breath through my nose and lift my head again before the quiet stretches too long.
“So, uh, you’re looking for someone for your daughter?”
