Chapter 1

I t was going to be a perfect night, just perfect. All the signs had pointed to it and they’d been right: everything was going exactly the way I’d planned. No, it was even better! A beautiful, fluffy layer of snow had fallen across Detroit, covering a little bit of grime and making the whole city seem like a dreamland when I’d woken up this morning and looked out my apartment window. Despite the cold, my car had started, and then I’d had a delicious cup of coffee from my usual café. The woman who made it had drawn a heart in the foam, too, which was so sweet and had seemed like a happy omen.

In comparison to other days, work had been a piece of cake with no tantrums, no throwing stuff, and even a minimum of nasty words. I’d shared a literal piece of cake and a cup of tea with Mina, the housekeeper, to celebrate before I left. She’d remembered that it was my birthday and I’d also gotten messages from all my sisters, even Grace who was sometimes forgetful. Every time I’d snuck into the bathroom to look at my phone, there’d been another nice text or voicemail and I’d been smiling so much that my cheeks were a little sore.

And now, here I was with Briggs at this lovely restaurant, a celebration with my fiery Aries boyfriend. Yes, I did see the obvious problem with his sign. I had also been worried at first about potential issues in our relationship since I was a Capricorn, but Mina and I had worked out his birth chart and it turned out that on the day he was born, the moon had been—

“God damn it. Can’t they get anything right at this place?”

I looked up, concerned. “Is something wrong with your salad?”

“Yes, there’s something wrong. I requested pepper,” Briggs said, his voice taut.

He had, and I’d watched our server turn the grinder over his plate. The little bits of seasoning had floated down onto the bright green leaves. “Didn’t she give you enough?” I asked.

He was already turning his head sharply from side to side, which was one of the first indicators that he was getting angry. It was a mannerism that had lately reminded me of a snapping turtle, although I didn’t like to think of him that way. When I’d been a kid, my family and I had gone up north to visit my mother’s parents at their cottage on Torch Lake and I’d been too terrified to swim because of those animals.

“They’ll leave you alone if you don’t bother them, Addie,” my sister Nicola had told me. She was four years older than I was and (I’d thought at the time) knew everything. I remembered her hiking up our little sister Brenna on her hip and shaking her head, the waves of her auburn hair bouncing around with her vehemence. “I swear that they won’t bite off your toes.” That had been my secret fear—well, not so secret, since I’d told Nicola. But we all told Nicola everything, so that didn’t count.

No, I didn’t like to think of my boyfriend as a snapping turtle, but I couldn’t seem to rid my mind of that image when he got mad like this. He did have a temper but it made total sense if you referred again to his birth chart, where he had Mars in—

“Where is the damn waitress?” Briggs snapped. Like a turtle, I thought again, but I was also moving into calming mode. He had already been mad about our wine service, because first she’d had a hard time uncorking the bottle, and then she hadn’t given it a little twist at the end of the pour so that a few drops had spilled onto the tablecloth below. I’d moved my bread plate over them since it bothered him so much.

“Do you need more? I can go get her,” I suggested. “Why don’t I do that, and I can ask her to bring back that shaker thing for the flakes?”

“The pepper grinder,” he corrected, biting out the words. I did know its name and I’d just been thinking it but sometimes, when he got angry like this, I tended to say really dumb stuff. Words that I normally had at the tips of my fingers seemed to escape me and circumlocution became my best friend.

“Right, the pepper grinder,” I agreed, and tried a smile. Sometimes he thought that it was funny when I couldn’t come up with the right phrasing, but not now. He didn’t smile back.

“Do you know how much I’m going to spend on this dinner?” he asked. “Do you understand what things cost?”

Yes, I did. He wasn’t looking for an answer, though.

“The least they could do is figure out how to serve a glass of wine and properly season the food. To have a job that depends on gratuities and then to perform like this…” He trailed off in disgust. “She must not know how to use that grinder.”

I could see the pepper on his plate right now, because it was thick enough that it hadn’t melted away into the liquid of the dressing. I didn’t mention it, though, since I was pretty sure that it would have led him to say that the salad didn’t have enough dressing, either. “I’ll go get her,” I told him, and he didn’t answer but I took his hostile silence as assent. I hurried to the station at the back, a dark area near the door to the kitchen. Our waitress wasn’t there so I addressed the person who was, a large man wearing an outfit that looked a lot like what the other servers had on: black pants and a white shirt with a tie.

“Excuse me?” I said, and he looked up from the screen of the computer.

“May I help you?” His voice was scratchy, as if he had a sore throat. I had lozenges in my purse, I remembered.

“Yes, please,” I answered. “My boyfriend is having a problem with the pepper on his salad and if you could send our waitress over, I’d really appreciate it.” I pointed at where we were seated and saw that Briggs was pouring his own glass of wine from the bottle. The fact that she hadn’t been there to serve him was going to get him even more worked up.

The big man nodded. “That’s Serafina’s table,” he told me. “I’ll let her know.”

“Thank you.” I smiled like the problem was solved, but really? I knew it wasn’t. I walked back very slowly and reluctantly but eventually, I couldn’t delay my arrival any longer. I sat and smiled again at Briggs. “She’s on her way to fix it.”

He still didn’t answer but he did take a large swallow from his wine glass, nearly finishing it. I saw that the bottle he’d poured from was now empty and I picked up my own glass, my first one, and also took a sip. Now, suddenly, this night didn’t feel anything like perfect, and I remembered how the day hadn’t been, either. The heat in my apartment building wasn’t ever very forceful, but this morning it had been only trickling from the old steam radiator and the temperature outside had dropped a lot after that snow had fallen. I’d shivered as I’d gotten dressed and my fingers, never very adept anyway, had felt big and clumsy.

It was true that when I’d arrived at his house, my employer, Mr. Campbell, hadn’t yelled or thrown things. But he been exactly pleasant to me either, although he had also known that it was my birthday. He’d commented on it, in fact: “Twenty-six today?” he’d asked, and I’d nodded. Then he’d leaned forward, looked at me carefully from head to toe, and frowned as if he’d seen something disappointing or maybe even disgusting. “You already dress like you’re old,” he’d commented. “Some women want to skip ahead to middle-aged spinsterhood.”

I was used to him and remarks like that one shouldn’t have bothered me anymore, but I’d turned away so that he wouldn’t see that I had been upset. It was his goal to annoy me and if he knew that he had, he chortled and pushed even harder. I had looked down at the outfit I’d worn and thought that he might have been right about my clothes. I’d changed to come out tonight and then Briggs had insisted on leaving way too early, so our table hadn’t been ready. He’d gotten angry and stomped back out to his car, but he hadn’t wanted to start the engine and waste gas. I’d been sorry that I’d taken off the warm, middle-aged sweater.

But now our waitress was arriving, walking quickly through the dining room towards our table. “Is there something wrong with the salad?” she asked when she arrived, and she glanced at our untouched plates. Mine was only that way because I hadn’t had a chance to touch it yet, but I’d thought it looked good. I wanted to eat it.

“Yes,” Briggs answered for both of us. “Yes, there is something wrong. Do you remember me asking for pepper?”

“Oh, is there too much? I wondered, because I was really twisting that thing!” she said, nodding. “I can get you a new—”

“You are a truly shitty waitress.”

She was silent for a moment, as if she had to process what he’d said. “What?” she finally asked him.

“I said that you’re a shitty waitress,” he informed her, and smiled faintly. “The only qualifications for your job are arm strength and semi-coherent speech but you still can’t perform adequately.” His head snapped from side to side. “Go get us another bottle of wine.”

I tried to intervene. “Briggs, it’s not that big of a problem. She’ll bring you a new—”

He ignored me. “Did you even notice that our previous bottle is empty?” he continued to the poor girl, and I watched her cheeks splotch with embarrassed, angry color. “You’d already spilled some of what I paid for onto the table. Did you expect me to lick it up?”

“Lick it?” she echoed. “I’m sorry about the drops—”

“Get me a new salad while you’re at it,” he ordered, and finished what was in his glass. “Bring over someone who knows how to open the wine, since using a corkscrew is beyond you.”

She was about my sister Juliet’s age, maybe two years younger than I was. Juliet would have hit him over the head with the empty bottle if he’d talked to her like that, but our waitress only walked away quickly with her shoulders hunched.

“I wish you hadn’t spoken in that way,” I said quietly. “It really wasn’t nice.”

“I’m the customer and I deserve good service.”

“Well, she didn’t deserve to be treated badly,” I answered, but my voice was even softer. Maybe he wouldn’t have heard it.

No, he had. “Do you want to pay for this meal?” he asked. His own voice was a lot louder, and the tone was the one I really didn’t like because it was so condescending, almost hateful. “Do you want the expenses in our relationship to be your responsibility? I’m happy to step away and let you take over, Addie.” He did lean back in the chair and he crossed his arms over his chest.

I looked down at my plate because this really wasn’t the place to argue, and people were already looking over at our table. I didn’t want to fight on my birthday, either. I wanted to have a fun night where we would get along, without me having to pull him back from a mood. It was too late for that, though, because there was no right answer when Briggs got this angry. There was nothing I could have said to cajole him out of it, to get him to see that he was acting rude and ridiculous.

“What’s the problem here?”

That question came from the same man that I’d just spoken to about the pepper, a person who might have been the head server at this restaurant since he was coming to deal with our issues. I understood why our waitress wouldn’t have wanted to return and had sent this guy in her stead. He was blonde, a very light blonde that was almost white, and his hair was pulled back into a thick, short ponytail. He didn’t look like a biker, which was what my dad always said about men with long-ish hair, and he didn’t look girly, like my mom thought about that style. Neither of them were fans, but I didn’t mind…of course, I liked the way Briggs wore his hair much better.

It was what was under my boyfriend’s hair that was the problem—meaning the expression on his face, not his brain. His narrowed eyes and thinned lips told me that he was going to argue, that this was going to turn into one of the verbal battles that he claimed not to enjoy but that he did seem to engage in a lot. He also looked up, pretty far up, because the head waiter was pretty tall. From our places in the chairs, he towered over us, but that didn’t intimidate my boyfriend.

“Yes, there is a prob-lem,” Briggs shot back immediately. He was using the other tone that I didn’t like, the one where he overenunciated the words as if he was speaking to someone who wouldn’t understand without the extra emphasis and separation between the syllables. “There is a prob-lem of poor ser-vice in this es-tab-lish-ment.” His tongue clicked out the final “t” sound.

The other guy didn’t respond to that, not with words of his own. He didn’t make a move, either, like he didn’t step closer or even alter the position of his arms. But I saw a change come over him as my boyfriend spoke. His face and his light blue eyes got even colder. I was immediately aware of a serious threat, but Briggs didn’t seem to notice anything wrong. He kept staring up with the expression that I recognized, the one that asked, “How dumb are you?” without him having to say a word.

The head waiter didn’t get intimidated or flustered, which was the result that Briggs usually achieved when he looked at someone like that. I knew it from personal experience. “Did you swear at your server?” the man asked. His voice sounded rough and hoarse and my eyes flashed to my purse, where I had those throat drops. “Did you say that she was too stupid to use a corkscrew?”

He still hadn’t moved, but he loomed over our table like a bear—that was exactly what he reminded me of, even though he had such light hair and even if he wasn’t covered in thick fur. He was burly like a bear. Not fat, not loose or roly-poly, but in no way would I have said that he was skinny, either. It was more like he was built like a ton of bricks.

Now Briggs stood up, chest puffed out. That was the wrong thing to do, because we needed to defuse this situation and he was only inflaming it—but my boyfriend wasn’t used to defusing. He was used to being the one on the other side, the person who needed calming and handling. It was a skill I’d picked up myself very naturally as (almost) the middle child in my family, through my job dealing with Mr. Campbell, and also by visiting with Briggs’ mom. She knew exactly how to deal with her son and I’d learned a number of tips through observing them together.

But he didn’t have those skills himself so he stood up and confronted the bear man. Snapping turtles were scary because they could bite off your toes, but a bear? It could rip your arms from your body, and maybe Briggs wasn’t aware of it, but they could also run as fast as a horse (for shorter distances, but that was still very intimidating). “I told the girl exactly what I thought,” he announced. “Do you not understand that the customer is always right? I demand to be treated—”

“Time to go. I won’t charge you for the wine and the salads, but I want you out.”

Briggs froze with his mouth open. That hadn’t been what he’d expected, and I hadn’t expected it either. I wasn’t sure what I’d thought would happen, but an outcome where my glib boyfriend stared and gaped? This definitely wasn’t it.

“Out?” he echoed, confused, and the head waiter nodded.

“You’re done,” the bear confirmed. “Miss?” he said to me, and held his hand toward the door to guide us to our exit. His tone had become polite with that last word but I felt my face slightly flush as the heat of shame flowed through my body. We were now the subject of every gaze in the restaurant and I could hear a buzz of whispered conversations. So I stood, too, because I really wanted to leave before things turned even worse.

“Sit your ass down, Addie,” Briggs told me, and he turned back to the waiter, his mouth open and drawing in a breath. But before he could utter a sound, the other guy grabbed his arm. And then, before I had a chance to blink, he had basically picked up my boyfriend and was propelling him toward the front door. I stood frozen for a moment, shock not allowing me to move, before I grabbed my coat, my purse, and Briggs’ coat, too, and I started to run after them.

Briggs didn’t regain his power of speech until he was out on the sidewalk. And then he started swearing and yelling about unlawful detention, the Volstead Act, and First Amendment rights, none of which applied to this situation or made sense in the way he was using them. When the other guy released his arm, my boyfriend lost his balance, stumbled, and almost fell. I gasped and reached out my hands to steady him.

“Fuck off, Addie!” he yelled, his voice high and wavering. I watched his fist clench and I started to speak, to tell him to stop and not to try anything with this bear of a person because…well, anyone could see that it wouldn’t end with Briggs coming home with a win. Yes, I started to say something, but then I thought of how he’d talked to me tonight at my birthday dinner.

I closed my mouth instead. I only watched as he leaned back and threw himself into a big, roundhouse swing that was aimed at the other guy’s chin.

His fist only met air. The waiter stepped back and avoided it, and my boyfriend spun around in a little pirouette as his body weight followed his arm. Then he thudded against the side of the building and wilted down onto the sidewalk. After only a brief moment, though, he jerked himself back up and I thought he would make another run at the waiter.

But that guy spoke before it happened. “You don’t want to fight me.”

I agreed. My youngest sister Grace had done a brief stint of martial arts and I’d taken her to a few lessons. To ease the boredom, I’d watched the advanced fighters and this person reminded me of them in the way he seemed to be so ready, like in how he stood and held himself. I thought that he’d moved even faster than the guys in the dojo.

“Get the hell out of here,” he continued. He wasn’t yelling, maybe because his voice was too hoarse to raise, but he managed to make his meaning crystal clear. “You’re not welcome back. Do you understand?”

“Fuck you,” Briggs told him in that shrill whine, but it didn’t seem to affect the other guy in the least. He just stood there as my boyfriend turned abruptly and lurched off down the sidewalk towards where he’d parked his car.

“Miss?”

I looked at the waiter and held up my hands, with no idea of what to say. “I’m sorry,” I finally stuttered out, and then I also turned and followed my boyfriend.

The snow had melted by the next morning, dripping away into muddy rivulets and exposing the broken pavement and the potholes in the roads and the garbage in the empty lot next to my apartment building. It got colder again throughout the day while I was at work so that by the time I left the Campbell mansion, the mud had re-frozen and the streets were slick and dangerous with black ice. I drove extremely carefully and after I’d parked my car, I also walked carefully on the sidewalk to the front door of the restaurant we’d been booted from the night before.

I’d called, but I’d only gotten a recording thanking me for contacting Amunì Detroit and saying that they were currently closed, but I could make an online reservation. The door was locked and I knocked on it for a while, but no one came. I walked around the block and through an alley, into a parking lot with a sign that said this area was for employees only. Then I knocked on what I thought was the back door. There was a car in the parking lot, a salt-splattered Jeep, which made me hope that someone was here—but no one answered, even when I used my fist and pounded once or twice. I tried the handle and surprisingly, the door wasn’t locked or even fully closed. It swung right open and I hadn’t really pulled on it.

“Hello?” I called, and removed the bouquet of flowers that I’d been protecting inside my coat. I wanted to get them out of the cold and wind and into some water before they got even more bedraggled. “Hello?”

I walked cautiously down a hallway in a half-light and in silence. I could come back later, but they really shouldn’t have left the door unlocked—

“I’m telling you, it’s not going to happen,” I heard someone say, and I recognized him. He spoke in the same husky voice as he had when he’d tossed us out.

Another voice spoke too, higher and louder. “Give me the goddamn money! Open the safe!”

“I already told you that I can’t open it,” the waiter said. “Even if I could, there’s hardly anything in there because we don’t do a lot of cash business. You picked the wrong place to rob, you dumb piece of shit. Put down the gun before I hurt you.”

Give me the money? A place to rob? The gun? What was going on?

“I’ll fucking shoot you!” the other guy yelled. “I want the money!”

“Yeah, and I want a 1956 Thunderbird in Raven Black. I guess we’re both going to be disappointed. Get the fuck out of here.”

Oh, holy Mary. I gripped the flowers tightly in my hand and slowly crept closer to the voices. Then I looked carefully around the corner, and I saw two men facing off, a smaller one versus a much bigger one. The smaller guy held a very scary-looking gun and the larger guy was the waiter from the night before. It was the bear-sized man who’d so easily dodged Briggs’ punch.

“Detroit police headquarters is less than a mile away. Is this your best move, jackoff?” the waiter asked. Why did he keep insulting someone who was pointing a firearm at him? I thought that I saw his eyes flick toward where I was peeking, but it was so fast that I wasn’t sure until he spoke again. “Everybody better leave,” he commanded. “You there, get out now. Go. Yes, I’m talking to you.”

He’d definitely seen me and I definitely got the message: I needed to leave and call the police, the ones who were so close by. Carefully and just as quietly, I backed down the hallway and out through the door, where I dialed 9-1-1 to report what was going on. There was a robbery in progress at the Amunì restaurant and an employee was being held at gunpoint.

“Please hurry,” I said, and then I was just standing there in the cold. I was safe enough but that waiter was stuck with a criminal and he could have been hurt—he could have been killed! I couldn’t just twiddle my thumbs and let that happen. I felt in my purse for my pepper spray, which I’d carried for years but never used. Then I gathered up my courage and I opened the door again.

There was no sound anymore, no voices talking or yelling. I hadn’t heard a shot, but would I have? I didn’t know anything about guns but they’d always seemed to be loud in shows and movies. Maybe the guy had a silencer? Maybe he had naturally quiet bullets? I crept with the pepper spray held out in front of me, ready to deploy, until I got to the corner again. I couldn’t hear anything—no, there was something, the sound of someone breathing in big, heaving gasps! The robber? Holy Mary, he was so close! I listened hard enough that my ears started to ring—

Until I realized that the heavy breather was me; I was hearing myself panting in fear. But I was the only one here, and the waiter guy might have been hurt. I had medical training and he needed my help, and I had to do it. You’re going to do it, I ordered myself. I would go on three. Yes, on three, I’d go. On the count of three, the number that came after one and two and before four. Three. Yes, that was when I’d go. So first I’d think of the number one, and then two…

Come on, Addie.

One. Two. I took a big breath in and as I burst through the opening, I screamed as loud as I could and—

The waiter was sitting calmly on a stool at a long, metal table. He looked over at me and he didn’t even blink. “Did you just say ‘three?’” he asked.

“Where is he?” I gasped.

He inclined his head, and I looked down. There was a man tied up on the floor, eyes closed and immobile. He was definitely bleeding from his nose and mouth but when I looked more carefully, I didn’t spot any bullet holes and I did see that his chest was moving. Ok, he was unconscious and not dead.

“Where’s the gun?” I asked.

The bear man pointed this time, at another table where a black weapon lay with a rectangle thing next to it. “It’s unloaded and he’s not going to be able to use it,” he said. “You can put away the pepper spray.”

I saw that I still held out the canister, so I returned it to my purse.

“I thought I told you to leave,” he said next.

“I did and I called the police. They’re on the way,” I assured him, although the situation seemed to be under control even without their presence. Besides the bloody robber on the floor and the scary gun on the stainless steel counter, everything was calm.

“You left, but you came back,” he pointed out.

“I thought he might have shot you,” I explained. “If that gun was quiet or something.”

“No, you would have heard it. What’s with the flowers?”

“Oh.” I’d forgotten about them, but I realized that I was also holding them out, as if I could have used those against the robber, too. My hand shook and the cellophane around them made little crinkling sounds. “Well, you may not remember me, but I was here last night and my boyfriend…”

“I remember.”

“Yes,” I said, nodding. “He made an impression and I’m very sorry about that. I brought flowers to apologize to our waitress, Serafina. I think that she was crying when she left our table and I feel really bad. It wasn’t her fault at all, and I hope the owner didn’t get upset with her.”

“No, she’s not in trouble. Why are you apologizing? You weren’t the jackoff.”

“Well, I was involved and Briggs was very unkind,” I answered. “He gets like that, and I’m sorry.”

The waiter only nodded slightly.

“How did you do…that?” I asked, and pointed to the man on the floor. “Was it martial arts?”

“He got careless. I can give those to Sera.” He stood up from the stool and took the flowers from me. He seemed so totally composed, even with an unconscious robber right there. He got a glass from a shelf and filled it with water for the bouquet, and I could see that the surface of the liquid was smooth. It wasn’t quaking as it would have been in my own hand.

“Would you please let her know that I apologize and I hope it didn’t ruin her night?” I asked. “I thought she was a very nice waitress. I’ll give her my number, in case she wants to talk about it.” I eyed the unconscious guy as I stepped a little closer to rest my purse on the counter and dig for a pen and a scrap of paper. “Here you go,” I said, and slid it towards him.

“I’ll let her know.”

“Thank you. Also, I’m glad you didn’t get shot,” I mentioned. “I’ve never said that before to anyone.”

“Hopefully, you won’t have to say it again.”

“No, I hope not, too. Well, goodbye.” I picked up my purse and started down the hallway towards the alley and then my car, where I thought I might have to wait a moment before I drove. I was usually a calm person, but coming across this crime situation had shaken me up a lot. I made it to the door but then remembered something and turned back to the man, who was watching me go.

“I have something for you, too,” I said, and dug again into my purse. “Here. My employer uses these and they’re really good.” I held out my hand, which still trembled.

The waiter approached slowly, cautiously. That made sense since he’d just fought off an attempted robbery, but I wasn’t doing anything violent. “What are those?”

“They’re drops for your throat,” I explained, and touched my own to demonstrate. “It sounds like it’s bothering you.”

He hesitated, and then also held out his palm. I dropped the little wrapped disks into it, noticing the calluses there as I did. Clearly, this guy was doing something besides waiting tables.

“Thank you,” he said.

“You’re welcome. They’re all natural and Mr. Campbell really likes them. That’s partially because he’s not allowed to have candy anymore and these are a little sweet, but they also help.”

He nodded. “Thank you for coming back, too. It was a dangerous and risky thing to do but I appreciate it.”

“I knew it wasn’t the smartest move, but I felt just terrible about leaving you there alone. I had to psych myself up and jump in because I didn’t know that you’d be able to do…whatever you did to him.” I tilted my head because I heard a siren in the distance. “I bet they’re coming for the robber.”

“You should go or you’ll get stuck here answering questions,” he said. I nodded and started to leave again. But then he called, “Just a minute.”

I paused with my hand on the door. “Yes?”

“Your reservation last night was under Briggs. Is that you?”

“No, that’s my boyfriend. He’s Briggs, Briggs Skurwysyn.”

“Repeat that?”

I did and spelled it, too. “It’s a hard surname for people to say and he gets annoyed when they mispronounce it, so he always wants to have our reservations under Briggs. But I’m Addie Curran.”

“I’m Granger.” He pocketed the lozenges and held out his empty hand to me, so I shook it. “Thanks again, Addie.”

“Anytime. Although, I hope you won’t be held at gunpoint again. I’m really glad you’re ok.” I paused, but there was only one thing left to say: “Goodbye.”

I left just as the sirens got very loud, and as I emerged from the alley, a police car was turning into it. I stepped to the side and continued to step very carefully back to my car, which started again. That was wonderful.

I hadn’t really helped that man, Granger, but I had tried and it was nice that he appreciated it. I hadn’t stepped in and helped our waitress either, but maybe the flowers would make her feel a little bit better today. It had been an uncomfortable ride in Briggs’ car the night before with him not speaking at all and glaring at me whenever his eyes weren’t on the road. He’d stepped so hard on the brake when we’d arrived at my apartment building that my neck had jerked and my head had bounced against the seat. And getting dropped at my place hadn’t been part of the plan, because I’d thought I would spend the night at his house. I’d even been wearing a new bra and new underwear beneath my dress and those were not at all middle-aged, as Mr. Campbell had suggested about the rest of my clothing.

Anyway, it hadn’t been the best birthday, but that was ok. At least the past twenty-four hours hadn’t been boring. I thought about that man, Granger, and how he’d tied up the would-be robber. How had he managed to get the gun away, and how had he known how to remove the bullets like that? How had he stayed so calm, even taunting the criminal to his face and calling him names?

It was definitely interesting. He was interesting. At first, I felt disloyal to Briggs so I tried to focus on him, but I didn’t want to think about my boyfriend, either. Instead, I let my thoughts drift and they drifted back to the restaurant and a big man with a hoarse voice.

I let them stay there.