There was a beat as Davy poked at a lump of egg substitute on the plate with the tines of his fork. It resisted being pierced.
“They’re better if you don’t think of them as eggs,” he said.
Trudy shook her head. The legs of the chair scraped against the tiled floor as she scooted back in and picked up her abandoned knife and fork.
“You used to love eggs,” she said. “Then…I swear, you turned vegan just to avoid them.”
Davy watched with mild envy as she tucked into her Eggs Benedict. It was probably cold by now, but still better than his plate of beetroot, negs (not-eggs, it wasn’t as cute as the menu thought), and fried potato.
The potatowasOK, but Davy wasn’t going to give much credit for that. It was hard to fuck up a potato.
“So,” Trudy said. She took a bite of a dripping bit of muffin and looked at Davy curiously. “You’re going to show your face at your stepdad’s Christmas party?”
One of Davy’s tentacles responded to his envy and snuck up over the edge of the table. It squirmed between her glass and plate and dipped itself into the hollandaise sauce. Technically, it wasn’t touching it, but it still made Davy’s mouth twitch.
He’d grown up hungry enough, often enough, that he didn’t like to fuck with people’s food.
“I just…I’ve been thinking about Dad a lot recently,” Davy said. He gave the tentacle a kick to knock it off the table and ignored the offended slither of it to back around his feet. His heel caught the leg of the table as he pulled it back, and he couldn’t tell ifTrudy’s frown was a reaction to that or to what he’d said. “When he was my age…”
He trailed off to give himself a chance to do some quick math in his head. Numbers had never been his strong suit, and after a while, he’d lost track of the years in the Beyond. But he was fairly sure that when Albie Rosen had been around Hill’s age, he’d already buried a man in the foundations of a starter house and had a son.
Trudy mistook his attempt at adding up for some sort of feeling. She put her fork down neatly on the side of her plate and reached over to cover her hand with his. Davy’s elbow twitched at the contact as he resisted the urge to pull away.
“What is it?” she nudged him. “You know you can always talk to me.”
The rest of Davy’s body—Hill’s body—felt like it had gone numb as all sensation crowded down past his wrist to focus on the sweaty weight of her hand on his. His eyelid twitched as he tried to focus on where he wanted the conversation to go.
The food wasn’t good, and he’d decided not to kill Trudy, so if he wanted to get anything out of the last hour, he needed it to be making Fraser’s domestic environment uncomfortable.
“He didn’t know it, but he’d lived most of his life,” he said. “And when he died, what was left behind?”
Trudy looked confused, but after a breath she squeezed Davy’s hand and said gently, “You?”
“And what will I leave behind?” Davy asked and waited for Trudy’s expression to soften with pity before he jabbed. “I don’t even have a best friend to marry my widow and take over my life.”
That caught Trudy by surprise. Her eyes widened and she drew back.
Something in Davy’s gut—the muscle memory of filial duty, he supposed—felt queasy at hurting her. Mostly, though, he was glad to have his hand back.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he lied. “I know that you—”
Trudy shook it off. “I know. It’s OK,” she said. That was a lie too. “You aren’t like your dad, Davy. Your life isn’t half over, and you aren’t going to kill yourself.”
Wait. What?
Davy had to hesitate as his brain record scratched off track to take in that information. Albie hadwhat-the-fuckedhimself? Before he could pry for more details, there was an insistentbzztfrom Trudy’s coat pocket.
“Oh, for…” she muttered in annoyance as she twisted in her chair to hunt through her pockets. She finally produced the phone from an inner breast pocket and sighed at the screen. “It’s Fraser. Give me a second, sweetheart, it’s probably something to do with the party. Every year it’s like he’s forgotten we’ve ever thrown one before. If he suggests we save money on catering and make the sandwiches, I…I’m not going to be responsible for what I say.”
She swiped her thumb over the phone and lifted it to her ear.
“Fraser, what—” she started to ask, then paused with a frown as she was interrupted. The volume was too low to pick up words, but from the sharp tones Fraser wasn’t in a good mood. She heard him out as a confused frown knit her eyebrows together. “Our accountant? I don’t know. If he’s not answering his phone, it’s probably because he’s on holiday. He’s not at his house?Fraser, you can’t go by the man’s house to doorstep him on the holidays. I’m not going to call his wife, either. She’s…Fraser.Fraser!Fine. Fine. I don’t think I have her number, but Jo might. Yes. Now. Fine!”
Tax man or mafia don, Davy wondered as he listened in. He raked a chunk of fried beetroot in the crust of salt on the side of the plate before he ate it. The food here really wasn’t that bad.
She hung up and pulled an apologetic face at Hill over the table.
“I have to go,” she said as she pushed her chair back. “Our accountant isn’t answering the phone a few days before Christmas, and obviously, the only reason for that is he’s dead in a ditch with his whole family.”
