Sheila accepts the admittedly cryptic answer, hands him two red cups of ice water, and retreats back into the kitchen. Mal still hasn’t told Sheila anything about their relationship, so he’s not willing to divulge anything more to her without Mal’s knowledge.

He returns to the table, slides into the booth across from Mal and nudges the cup of water toward him.

“Thanks,” Mal mumbles, immediately burying his face in the cup.

Rowan studies him. Tries to analyze every move he makes in the hope that it will shed some light into what Mal’s thinking. What he’s feeling. There has to be something, right? Some reason for Mal falling into him like he had and for whimpering when Rowan had pulled away and put a stop to it. But he doesn’t know if that something is going to be something he wants to hear.

When their food comes, Rowan lets his sit until Mal starts eating. He’ll let him get some food into his system before he brings anything up.

They eat in silence save for the mellow song playing on the jukebox and the scraping of Mal’s fork against his plate. Rowan watches as he tears off chunks of banana pancake with the side of his fork, spearing each little wedge and swirling it around the extra syrup on the plate before actually eating it. There’s none of his usual eagerness in his movements, everything slow and cautious. Like he’s been fucking sedated or something.

Rowan’s own food is surely delicious, but he barely tastes it, only eating half his sandwich and a handful of the fries it came with.

It isn’t until Mal’s completely finished with his banana pancakes, little else on his plate touched, that Rowan speaks.

“Can we talk about it, Mal?”

Mal sighs before leaning back and fixing Rowan with an emotionless look. He works his mouth like he’s testing out how to form the words before he actually says anything.

For a moment, Rowan’s worried Mal’s going to pull a Talk about what? but what he actually says is worse.

“It was a mistake, Red. Just deep in it, y’know?”

Rowan feels himself nodding despite the hollow that’s growing in his chest, making him want to collapse in on himself like a black hole. “Yeah. No biggie.”

It is a biggie. A very big biggie that Rowan’s gonna daydream about for the rest of however long he gets to be with Mal—in whatever capacity—like a goddamn loser.

But really, what had Rowan been hoping for? Some grand confession or declaration from the guy he’s only been fucking for a few weeks?

“I’m sorry,” Mal says abruptly, so softly that it makes Rowan pause his distracted sip of water mid-gulp.

“For…?”