Page 70 of What We Bury
“Spicy,” I say automatically, because apparently my survival instinct has clocked out for lunch.
His whole face lights up. “Excellent answer, full marks. I knew we’d be a perfect match.” He taps the counter twice, triumphant. “How about squirrels?”
“What?”
“Squirrels. Opinions? Thoughts? Facts? Don’t think, just speak.”
He’s wearing a well-worn jacket and a T-shirt that’s been washed so many times the color is more of a suggestion than anything else. His hair is dark, curly, and chaotic. There’s a piece of it falling into his eye that he isn’t bothering to push back. He’s unshaven, his scruff deliciously perfect against his tanned skin. The jacket is dark olive, and beat up at the cuffs. His eyes are brown and far lighter than I would have guessed.
He is, I’m realizing with a kind of slow horror, cute.
Distractingly so. Seriously? How are they ALL attractive???
I pour him a mug then set the coffee pot down very carefully on the warmer.
“I am so confused right now.”
“Squirrels, Sage. Are you pro? Anti? Neutral?” He leans in closer. “This is a vibe check, I need to know who I’m dealing with.”
This guy is the human equivalent of whiplash. I’m not sure I can keep up.
“Pro,” I say, because the alternative is silence, and silence is clearly going to make this worse. “I guess. They’re fine. They’re?—”
“Pro squirrels!” He smacks the counter hard enough that the napkin dispenser jumps. Frank, four stools down, just bites into his patty melt like nothing is happening. “Outstanding. Truly, that’s the right answer, we’re going to get along. Last one, last one, then I’ll order, I promise—if you had to commit a crime and get away with it, what would it be?”
The breath I’d been about to take stops somewhere in my chest.
It’s the most careful question I’ve ever heard, slipped into the run of nonsense like a card palmed into a magician’s deck. Same cadence as the squirrels. No pause, no weight on it. The only reason I notice it at all is because of how violently my body reacted to it.
Because this is a man who watched me commit a crime under a jetty. Who helped clean it up so I’d get away with it. And here he is asking it again over a lunch counter like it’s small talk.
Milo can be a lot,Micah had said. I’m starting to think that was him being kind.
“I’m sorry,what?”
“Small crimes, Sage. No one gets hurt. Misdemeanor at worst. Quick.”
The sick pressure in my gut lightens a little.
“Milo, I’m not?—”
“Oh my god. Kitten!” The grin he gives me is the most delighted thing I have ever seen on a human face. It’s the kind of grin you’d give a dog who has just learned to shake.
I blink at him.
I have no fucking clue what’s going on.
“Hallelujah, she knows my name!” He spreads his arms, taking up about three stools’ worth of space in the process. “Thisis the best day of my life, I want you to know that. This is going in the journal!”
“You journal?”
He doesn’t strike me as the contemplative type.
“Yep. It’s important to have a clear and focused mind so you can manifest what you want.” He leans in, dropping his voice to a whisper. “Even if that includes unaliving a bunch of grape-ists.”
Whatever protocol exists for serving men like this—and there must be one somewhere, in some manual the diner hasn’t provided me—I haven’t been trained for it. The goal at this point is to give him coffee and a menu and hope that’ll make his mouth so full he sits in silence and looks at his phone like a normal customer.
Though I can already tell he has the kind of energy that requires medication before silence can even enter the building.
