Page 642 of End Game

Just us. I know you don't owe me that.

I want to apologize and I don't want Mom making you do it.

That sentence does more to convince me to respond than the first one.

Not the apology.

The last part.

For months, my family has treated the problem Ben created as though it requires complicated scheduling software and emotional diplomacy from everyone else. That has improved, but the pattern remains obvious enough that Ben recognizing it is information.

Not absolution.

Information.

He does not get to roll Persuasion against a boundary I already set.

Ronan

Coffee Thursday. 6:30. Halstead's on Grant.

His reply comes almost immediately.

Ben

I'll be there.

I put my phone down.

Micah, sitting at the opposite end of the couch with a sketchbook balanced against his knee, looks up.

I glance at him. “Your family?”

“You have an irritating ability to identify people by my facial expression.”

“You only look at your phone like that for family or utility companies.”

“That's reductive.”

“Is it wrong?”

“No.”

He waits.

I tell him.

He doesn't ask if I want him to come. He does not remind me that I can cancel.

He simply nods and says, “Okay.”

Then he goes back to drawing.

There are several reasons I love him—that is one of them.

Halstead's is technically a diner, although the menu has been aggressively modernized enough that they sell avocado toast beside chicken-fried steak.

I choose it because the booths are tall, the lighting is tolerable, and nobody in my family has a sentimental association with the place.