I stab a piece of lettuce, roll my eyes. “Can I maybe eat my lunch before everyone starts jumping down my throat? This is the first real meal I’ve had since I got shot.”
“No one is jumping down your throat.” Castle frowns. “And I thought Nouria said the normal dining hours went back into effect yesterday morning.”
“They did,” I say.
“But you were shot three days ago,” Winston says. “Which means—”
“All right, okay, calm down, Detective Winston. Can we change the subject, please?” I take another bite of lettuce. “I don’t like this one.”
Brendan puts down his knife and fork. Hard.
I straighten.
“Go talk to him,” he says again, this time with an air of finality that surprises me.
I swallow my food. Too fast. Nearly choke.
“I’m serious,” Brendan says, frowning as I cough up a lung. “This is a wretched time for all of us, and you’ve more of a connection with him than anyone else here. Which means you have a moral responsibility to find out what he’s thinking.”
“A moral responsibility?” My cough turns into a laugh.
“Yes. A moral responsibility. And Winston agrees with me.”
I look up, raising my eyebrows at Winston. “I bet he does. I bet Winston agrees with you all the time.”
Winston adjusts his glasses. He stabs blindly at his food and mutters, “I hate you,” under his breath.
“Oh yeah?” I gesture between Winston and Brendan with my fork. “What the hell is going on here? This energy is super weird.”
When no one answers me I kick Winston under the table. He turns away, mumbling nonsense before taking a long pull from his water glass.
“Okay,” I say slowly. I pick up my own water glass. Take a sip. “Seriously. What’s going on? You two playing footsie under the table or someshit?”
Winston goes full tomato.
Brendan picks up his utensils and, looking down at his plate, says, “Go ahead. Tell him.”
“Tell me what?” I say, glancing between the two of them. When no one responds, I look over at Ian like,What the hell?
Ian only shrugs.
Ian’s been quieter than usual. He and Lily have been spending a lot more time together lately, which is understandable, but it also means I haven’t really seen him much in the last couple of days.
Castle suddenly stands.
He claps me on the back. “Talk to Mr. Warner,” he says. “He’s vulnerable right now, and he needs his friends.”
“Are you—?” I make a show of looking around, over my shoulders. “I’m sorry, which friends are you referring to? Because as far as I know, Warner doesn’t have any.”
Castle narrows his eyes at me. “Don’t do this,” he says. “Don’t deny your own emotional intelligence in favor of petty grievances. You know better. Be better. If you care about him at all, you will sacrifice your pride to reach out to him. Make sure he’s okay.”
“Why do you have to make it sound so dramatic?” I say, looking away. “It’s not that big of a deal. He’ll survive.”
Castle rests his hand on my shoulder. Forces me to meet his eyes. “No,” he says to me. “He might not.”
I wait until Castle is gone before I finally set down my fork. I’m irritated, but I know he’s right. I mumble a general good-bye to my friends as I push away from the table, but not before I notice Brendan smiling triumphantly in my direction. I’m about to give him shit for it, but then I notice, with a start, that Winston has turned a shade of pink so magnificent you could probably see it from space.
And then, there it is: Brendan is holding Winston’s hand under the table.
