Jonathan put one hand back onto the table and leaned in, not a full-badass lean-in. Tentative. Out of his league, but fired up. Almost that good. This guy was pinging like crazy, lit, all over the place and clearly not yet done, even though he was perilously close to having gone too far already.

“But you’re not really above it all, are you? Not all of it. That’s your car outside, right? The silver one? If you really didn’t give a shit about anything, you wouldn’t put sweet rims and orange calipers on your bank statement and drive it around for everyone to see and yank me every which way for the sad chance to talk about a woman who died before she could disappoint you.”

Owen’s spit turned acid in his throat. “Obviously, you’ve lost your mind.”

“This is pointless.” Jonathan stepped fully clear of the table.

“Sit. Down.” Owen bit the words like meat.

He was relieved to find that he hadn’t lost complete control of the conversation. Jonathan’s knees buckled him back into the bench as if they were on a string that Owen had pulled.

He had to give Jonathan his moment of insight, even as Owen fought to keep from launching across the table and slamming the fancy teeth out of his mouth. Owen shifted his attention from the knots of his fists, clenched under the table, to the air flowing in and out of his nose. Controlled. Cooling.

Jonathan was an amateur, but not without talent. But instead of enjoying and using it to his advantage, the asshole let it get away from him. Instinct had struck a match and made him desperate to blow something up. Reckless. He would almost certainly burn himself down in the end.

Just look at him. Jonathan was still sputtering sparks when he’d gone and poured gasoline all over himself.

Jonathan dripped sarcasm, also flammable, into his words. “Oh, I thought there was a point to you waving around hundred-dollar bills and working up poor Candi over there just about to the point of tears. I thought I was safe. Or was that just conversation, Owen, something to keep me here to give you someone to talk to?”

“Courtney.”

“What?”

“Her name is Courtney.”

“Okay. Candi, Courtney. Whatever. So fucking what?”

Just as surely as Owen had given himself away moments before, the hole in Jonathan’s soul was right there. They were both unused to being seen for their baselines. They’d traded turns getting knocked onto their back foot.