Now that he didn’t have a ball cap to hide anything, his hair was unfurled—longish, dark, silvery around the ears, although it fell awkwardly. Constrained. Like it had been in a man-bun only moments ago. (I was sure there were health code rules about that.) His chin, meanwhile, was a mystery beneath his beard.

He had Wynonna’s cheekbones. Or, I guess, it was the other way around.

“Is this okay?” I said. “I’m not going to get you fired, am I?”

“Huh? Oh, no. Theo’s filling in for me while we talk. He said to take as much time as I need.”

“The manager?”

“Uh. Yeah? He’s actually a really good chef. He worked in the kitchen before he became manager.”

“He seems like he’s having a bad day.”

Roscoe chuckled sadly. “His husband left him.”

“Oh damn,” I said.

“They have two kids. A boy and girl. Four and six years old. He left all of them.”

“Oh shit,” I said. “That’s awful.”

Roscoe nodded in a light-headed sort of way. “Yeah. It is. Plus, the servers here are a bunch of unprofessional shits. Theo gives them a little slack, and they walk all over him.”

We were quiet for a moment. Roscoe looked like he was either waiting for permission to talk, or he was wondering if this was all just a lucid dream he might be waking up from soon.

“Can we talk about the accident?” I said.

Roscoe’s breath stopped short. He ran out of breath like a vehicle running out of road at a dead end.

Still, he managed a stiff nod.

“Okay,” I said. “You start.”

I was determined to make Roscoe put forth all the effort here. First, I needed to know for sure this guy wasn’t a total piece of shit.

Already, Roscoe looked like he was about to cry. His eyes were glossy, and red, and weary from existence. But every ounce of testosterone in his Spartanic vessel forbid him from shedding tears. So he blinked, and kept blinking, until his tear ducts slurped the moisture back in and redistributed it to manlier locations, like his pits.

“Okay,” he said, nodding. “Yeah. Well, it happened. And it was bad. Every bit as bad as it sounds. And there’s nothing I can do to take back what I’ve done. My time in prison doesn’t even begin to make up the difference. Your mother was irreplaceable, and I’m a pathetic substitute for the parent you should have had. And I’m sorry. Even though I know sorry doesn’t even begin to cover it. Also, um, I know it doesn’t change anything, but I’ve been sober for seven years now.”

“Seven years?” I said, trying hard not to sound impressed.