“I appreciate it, but Campbells always pay their debts.” He pauses, thinking back to the diner last week when she’d asked his last name, and rolls his eyes. “Hank excluded, obviously.”

She huffs a laugh at the last bit, clearly knowing it to be true somehow, but nonetheless seems to relent and pulls out her order pad to scribble down their orders before sliding him the slip across the counter. Exactly like Mal had said, the total inked at the bottom is $28.50, tax included. Something a lot like admiration sparks in Rowan’s chest. This feeling, he doesn’t try to push away.

He hands Sheila two twenties and decides to ask one of the two main questions he has right now. “Can I ask why you don’t charge us? Or… Mal, I guess.”

Her connection to Hank can wait, far less intriguing than her connection to Mal.

Her lips pull back into a closed-lip smile, though the kindness never leaves her eyes. “Mal’s done a lot for me,” she says, plugging their order into the surprisingly modern-looking register and slotting Rowan’s bills inside. “I’ll spare you the details, but he’s a good boy. One’a these days I’ll get him to stop payin’ me again.”

She holds out several bills and coins to take as change, but Rowan waves her off. Rowan doesn’t really know what Mal’s idea of a good tip is, but he only has forty bucks in cash on him, so that’ll have to suffice. It’s over twenty-five percent anyway. With a grateful smile, she stuffs the cash in the lidded tip jar that’s surprisingly full.

“I doubt that,” Rowan tells her, getting the sense that Mal wouldn’t take any kind of charity from her—or anyone, for that matter—unless he was truly desperate. Kind of like Rowan. He wonders if Mal’s Southie too.

His brain finally catches up, dwells on the again in her last statement, and wonders if there was a time when Mal was truly desperate and sought out Sheila’s help. He figures if Mal ever wants him to know whether that’s true, it’ll have to come from the man himself and not from Sheila.

Sheila chuckles through her nose. “Me too, Rowan. Have a good night, okay?”

“You too.”

Rowan exits the diner into the humid night and sees Mal leaning against the window, cigarette dangling loosely down by his side, eyes fixed on the light-polluted sky. The fluorescent neon glow from the signs hanging in the window illuminates his profile in a pretty collage of red and blue, melding into purple across his temple. Briefly, Rowan’s taken aback by the sight of him, practically glowing like he had been when he first saw him tonight, and he’s frozen in place, drinking in the view.