“Someone you know was sick in the diner?” Gideon stopped on the steps and gripped the railing, his glove sticking to the ice there.
“Uh-huh, Kevin, my big brother, the one with the…that’s for later.” He opened the door and a rush of warmth had Gideon instinctively stepping inside, unsure if he should walk straight back out as the gorgeous scent of burgers and bacon hit him. “It’s my fault really. Mom was ill then so she and Momo stayed in the car with the babies and gave us the money for food. I dared Kevin to drink each flavor of milkshake, and he got halfway through and was so sick it was projectile—”
Gideon covered Rowan’s mouth with his gloved hand. “No more.”
Rowan wrinkled his nose and pulled back from the hand then shrugged off his coat and hung it on a hook.
“Hi,” Rowan called to someone as Gideon hung his coat.
“Hey back, choose a table, honey, I’ll be right over!” The waitress was old enough to be Gideon’s grandma, steel hair short in a bob, laughter lines, and a ready smile. Her badge read Jen, but how likely was it that this diner, which seemed a relic of the fifties, actually belonged to Jen, this very waitress?
Rowan headed through the train car to the back corner, patting the vinyl topped table and then sliding into the booth.
“The family table,” he murmured almost reverently.
“This isn’t the one that Ken got sick all over?” Gideon looked at the immaculate area with a dubious eye.
“Kev, and no, I told you, it reached the—”
“Tell me something else about Kev?” Gideon was very good at changing the subject when it came to any and all explanations of childhood vomiting.
“The black sheep of the family,” Rowan deadpanned. “Criminal record and everything.” The waitress came over with water and menus.
“Back in a bit,” she said and hummed to herself as she cleared the table across from them.
“What criminal record?”
Rowan blinked at him and then picked up the menu and hid behind it. “It’s worse than mine,” he admitted and glanced over the top of the menu briefly.
“Wait, what?”
Gideon knew enough about Rowan to have employed him.
At the interview he’d asked point blank about a criminal record with the addendum that hiring was based on his answer. “No, but my brother Kevin? He’s the one you want to watch out for.” That had been Rowan’s answer, nothing about a criminal life that Rowan had somehow hidden because of course, Gideon had done a background check, which Rowan cleared with flying colors, and he’d assigned the name Kevin to the pile of things he didn’t need worry about.
“Well, when I was ten, we borrowed a car. Legitimate borrowed,” he added with passion as if that was vitally important. “Kev was driving, when suddenly, car met tree in spectacular fashion, and bam, one lengthy criminal record later…”
“How can you smile about that? In the interview, you told me that—”
“I’m teasing, jeez, you’re not going to come over as a good friend if you freak out like that when I make a joke.” Rowan shook his head as if he was disappointed in Gideon, but…what the hell?
Gideon very carefully laid his menu on the table. He already knew he wanted a burger, hold everything but ketchup, and fries and add the blackest of black coffees to the order. Anyway, he had questions now.
“Do you, Rowan Phillips, have a criminal record or not?”
“No.” The duh on the end was implied. Where had his respectful PA gone?
“And your brother? Ken?”
“Kev. Kevin. No, not unless you can get arrested for projectile vomiting in an open space—”
Rowan was messing with his head, making jokes that weren’t jokes, driving across multiple highway lanes to get burgers, and something was seriously off because Gideon couldn’t handle it.
“Let’s start this again. I’m here for the next four days, as a friend, and I have to get used to this new and frankly weird sense of humor of yours that is going straight over my head.”
“What can I get you guys?” Thank God for the waitress.
“Thank you. I’ll have a burger, plain, ketchup on the side, fries, and a black coffee,” Gideon summarized, and she gave him a smile before turning to Rowan.
“Right,” he said and sat back, patting his belly. “I’ll take the Jen’s special, add three onion rings, a spoon of extra relish, one pickle on the side, and I’d like an Oreo Christmas mint milkshake, a coffee, extra cream, and a side order of fries with cheese.”
“Got it,” she said and didn’t comment once on that convoluted order.
He leaned forward as if he was sharing a secret, and Gideon couldn’t help but lean in as well. “Last Christmas,” Rowan faux whispered. “I stopped in and they’d run out of the relish. It wasn’t the same. Summer before that, the A/C was on the fritz, but the burger they gave me,” he smacked his lips, “it was intense and worth sitting in the heat to eat it.”
“So this is a thing then, every time you go north you stop off here?” Gideon asked.
“Not every time.” He lifted his T-shirt and patted his flat belly. Gideon refused to look. “Need to keep trim,” he added. “Anyway, I thought I should show my friend the best spots between the Big Apple and Maine.”
“We drove straight past Boston,” Gideon pointed out.
“Boston doesn’t have a Jen’s Place.”
That seemed to be conversation over. However, an awkward silence was something that Rowan never let happen in the office, and it appeared to be the same outside of that space as well.
“So, Kevin is the oldest of us. He’s a lawyer, has a wife, Esther, and two kids. He went full white picket fence, apple pie life once he moved out.” Rowan rested his chin in his hand and stared out the window.
Gideon tilted his head. Rowan had a weird expression, and he couldn’t work out if Rowan was happy or sad talking about his foster brother.
“Then there would be Sarah and me. We’re the same age, and Mom and Momo took us on at about the same time. Sarah’s a beautician. Her partner is Jamie, and they are currently fostering twins, Bella and Jacob, whose birth mom must have had a thing for shifters.”
“Huh?” Rowan did this all the time, threw in random things and then looked at Gideon expectantly as if he should know what Rowan meant.
“Go Team! Jacob? Twilight? Vampires?”
“Oh.” Gideon knew about Twilight, had seen posters for the movies, and that was about the extent of his knowledge.
“And then there’s Ava who, apparently, is bringing her boyfriend along with her this year, some guy named Lloyd.” He quirked his eyebrow and pouted.
“Is that why—”
“Now I’m not judging but let’s just say Ava can be a bit loose and free when it comes to life and people.” He bit his lip. “She dances at a club and is a terrible flirty drunk, so you should watch yourself.” Rowan chuckled.
“And she’ll be there at your moms’ for Christmas?”
“Yes.”
“With her boyfriend?”
“Once a flirt always a flirt.”
Gideon sighed.