“I’ll get the bill,” Rowan says when Mal goes to grab the slip. “You paid two times in a row a couple weeks ago.”

Rowan’s half standing and about to slip out of the booth to pay when Mal’s quiet voice stops him.

“She wanted to name me William,” Mal says, apropos of nothing, that same distant look in his eyes from earlier in the evening threatening to bore a hole through his plate. As if sensing Rowan’s confusion without even looking up, he adds, “My mom.”

“Oh.”

He hums absentmindedly, eyebrows raising as if he’d suddenly realized that he’d blurted out something inappropriate. When he looks up at Rowan, his expression melts from worried to neutral, apparently seeing no judgment or shock on Rowan’s own face as he sits fully back down in the booth.

“How did she settle on Malcolm, then?”

“She didn’t,” Mal scoffs. “My old man did. Larry.”

It’s the first time Mal’s mentioned anything about his father since all those weeks ago when Sheila hinted that he wasn’t exactly an upstanding citizen. Something about not judging someone for the sins of their father, she had said. Rowan waits, sensing that Mal has more to say.

“She came home with a blank birth certificate. Course Larry wasn’t at the hospital. Mom said she liked William, and that they could call me Billy for short. Larry said he wasn’t gonna have a son with a bitch name. Said everyone would call me Willy, and that his son wouldn’t be a fag.” He pauses momentarily to shake his head. “Plot-fuckin’-twist, I would’a been one no matter what they called me. But Malcolm was the name of some dead relative or whatever, and he thought it sounded tough, so he made her write that.”

“And Larry isn’t a bitch name?” Rowan jokes, attempting to lighten the mood. Though he files away Mal’s father’s name in the back of his mind in case it ever comes up again.

Another snort from Mal, but he continues talking, easily the most he’s spoken in a single sitting. “He was a fuckin’ idiot.”

Something about the vulnerable half confession makes Rowan want to push, a lingering question in the back of his mind from weeks ago left unanswered by Mal’s story. “So how does using your full name at the club come into play?” Rowan asks, dots still not quite connecting.

“Kind of a… fuck you to him, I guess,” Mal tells him after a minute of semiawkward silence.

Maybe it’s the familiarity of the diner that gives Mal the courage, or maybe it’s the way he’d opened up about his mom, or maybe it’s something he’s been holding back for so long that the dam had to burst at some point, and Rowan’s the unknowing recipient of it.

“Felt like retribution or some shit… goin’ by my full name at the club. Like he’d have a fuckin’ meltdown if he knew his favorite son was gettin’ railed by a bunch of dudes who all only knew him as Malcolm. Just kinda stuck with it after that.”