Kass screwed up his mouth and eyes in a quick, tight, childish moue that spoke volumes, more of a flinch than exasperation. He clearly didn’t want to tell her what happened. There was something other than his merely feeling like an idiot going on here, and the beginning of it was a nasty little thread that threatened to unravel an entire circus-tent-sized sweater of… fuckitude, for want of a better word. Still, she’d asked… and she was the reason he was out here, not in there.
His pathological wariness got the better of him. He hunched his shoulders in his coat and squinted up the shabby little parade of stores. Everything was closed, apart from a small all-hours diner, a couple of vehicles in the spaces out front. He let out his breath in a resigned puff.
“Let’s take this off the street.”
The diner was a quiet thing, especially this early in the morning. Most of the booths and chairs were empty, save for one or two people seated far from each other at the counter. A waitress leaned against the hostess table, penning in what might have been a crossword or a sudoku.
“Okay,” May said, nursing the mug of tea she’d ordered as they’d been escorted to the booth by the window. Her spoon clinked softly against the edges of the glass, and then at its rim as she set it aside. “Take your time. Walk me through the night at your own pace.”
It was no secret that Kass was, well, secretive. There had been plenty of evenings where she had hardly seen him, and nights she knew he was not home by the time she went to bed. That was fine--it wasn’t any of her business. But maybe she should have been keeping a closer eye on the ex-agent. Maybe it would have prevented this.
Live and learn. She slipped her glasses off, folded the frames, and scrubbed the space underneath her eyes. “Thank god I have tomorrow off,” she muttered to nobody in particular, staring at the loops in the wood on the varnished table, before glancing up again.
tangentwithtanner
ellievsbear
snowghoul
