“No? Okay.” Owen leaned back, pressing into the deep padding of the backrest to get his wallet from his pocket. He took out a $100 bill. “Tell you what, Courtney. You’ve been an angel. Go ahead and close out the check. No need to bring it to the table. Or any refills. And keep the change, of course. We’ll just need a little time to talk.”

Courtney took the money, mumbled a thank-you, and fled.

“Think she’ll remember us?” asked Owen.

“What the fuck was that?”

“You seriously need to calm down.”

“And you seriously need to stop saying things like that,” Jonathan said, baring more capped and polished teeth than Owen was sure he was even aware of. Feisty.

People who defied Owen fascinated him. Everyone else made sense. This guy was all loose cork and short fuse. And better teeth than he’d had four years ago.

“Jonathan, let me give you a tip—when I stop saying things like that, you’ve run out of time to try to get it right.” Owen took a sip of his coffee before it went too cool to enjoy. It was delicious. Just about perfect. Transporting, even.

Owen, for everything else he was, had decided a long time ago to be a man of simple pleasures. It soothed him, which made everyone safer. He thought a little kindlier of the silly place. “The waitress won’t forget us anytime soon, and that’s good news for you. I’m just trying to set you at ease.”

“By doing that? And after pulling that bullshit—showing up at my house?”

Owen drank more coffee. A glance over the rim of the cup seemed to dry up Jonathan’s next comment. Owen set the cup down, watching it the whole way, slow and precise, into the ring of the saucer. No clatter.

Owen let a nod stand in for any more warnings. “I know you want to grab this conversation by the scruff of the neck. You’re just squirming to be in charge. And I might let you—if you can give me a good answer to just exactly what the fuck you’re going to do if I get up and walk out right now? As far as I can tell, you’ll be left holding a very expensive, yet functionally worthless bit of paint on wood and looking over your shoulder for as long as you have a shoulder attached to your . . . looker.”

“There are other people who would buy it.”

“And that would solve half your problem.”

Jonathan readjusted his face and his ease in the seat. He wasn’t bad at it. Erratic, but convincing a good bit of the time. He was obviously a practiced chameleon, taking on the look not of his surroundings but of his own desperate will.

“Fine,” Jonathan said. “So you came here to threaten to leave? That’s a lot of work for a hundred-dollar cup of coffee.”