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He put his napkin on the table and stood. “But my bladder is clearly not as happy as I am. I’m going to run to the bathroom—order me another Stella if the waitress comes back.”
“Will do,” I said, leaning back into my seat, resting my leg against Matt’s.
“Well… that was easy,” he said, kissing my hand. “There, now no one can pull us apart.”
“No one.” I agreed with him. It was all going to be smooth sailing from here on out. We were destined to be, and we were going to ride out that destiny no matter what.
The rotating doors opened and dumped out two new diners. They caught my eye, only because we’d been talking with one of them about the other just yesterday.
“Look,” I said to Matt, nudging him under the table. “Is that Byron and his brother? I haven’t seen him around at all.”
“I think so.”
The hostess walked them down the checkerboard path, toward a table not far from us. In fact, the two had to pass our booth, and that’s when I decided to wave. Neither of them noticed at first, so I stood and threw out a “Hey!”, making it so that there was no way of ignoring me.
“Oh, hey, Jason.” Byron gave a slanted smile and went to keep walking.
“Is this your brother?” I asked to both of their backs.
“He is, yeah. This is Derrick.” They turned around, and I could see the family resemblance between them. They had the same rounded nose and similarly blunt chins, but that was about it for similarities. Derrick was much taller and wider, his arms and neck corded with muscle, his shoulders practically tearing through the fabric of his V-neck T-shirt.
“Nice to meet you, Derrick. Welcome to town.”
He nodded and shook my hand, crushing my fingers with his tight grip. “You guys have a busy day?” I asked.
“Nope. Just getting some food and possibly spending the day working on a project together. Sibling bonding and all that jazz,” Byron said.
There was clearly a “goodbye” in his words. He leaned toward the hostess, as if he wanted her to grab him by the arm and pull him away.
“All right, well, it was great meeting you. Talk later.”
I sat back down, Matt having watched all of that. He cocked a brow at me. “What was that about?”
“I don’t know,” I said, glancing over my shoulder at Derrick. His void-black eyes caught mine, and I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. “Let’s look into him after our lunch.”
There was something wrong. I couldn’t quite place it, but it simmered in the air like the stench of rotting potatoes creeping out through the cupboard. I tried shaking it off but kept shooting glances back at Derrick, even as Harry was telling us all about his shotgun wedding and Costa Rican honeymoon.
28
MATTHEW HALE
“What’s wrong?” I asked Jason as we walked out of Juno Pine’s diner, bellies full and hands locked together. “That went great.”
And it had. Telling Harry about us had been a moment in the making for the last six or seven years now. I wish we had done it much sooner, but at least everything was now out in the open and neither of us had to worry about hurting someone we both loved by being together.
But something was going on with Jason. Midway through his double-stacked diner burger, Jason set his food down and stopped eating. That wasn’t like him. Jace never left a plate empty, and I could tell it was because he was getting worried, but about what?
“I’m just tossing things around in my head right now. About the case… you saw Derrick and Byron, right?”
“Of course I did. You stopped them right next to our table when they were walking in.”
Jason started to bite his nails as we walked down the tree-lined path, heading in a direction away from our cars. I didn’t point that out since Jason clearly had something on his mind and a good walk could help with that.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Derrick’s relatively new to town. He moved back about a year ago, and he hasn’t been seen around much at all. He’s laid low, even though he’s the mayor’s son. He’s built like a linebacker mixed with a wrestler mixed with a tiger, and he—” Jason cut himself off, his expression twisting with frustration as he tried piecing his thoughts together.
I cut straight to the chase. “You’re thinking there’s a chance he could be our guy?”
Jason didn’t even look my way, but the nod he gave was perceptible. We stopped at a crosswalk, the donut shop across the street sending off waves of sweet-smelling scents, its bright pink exterior dotted with colorful sprinkles and made specifically for social media pics. I took out my phone and decided to search for Derrick online.
