So does Cap.
This is a dinner party straight from hell.
Jonathan teeters in his seat; I wish he’d fall over and pass out on the floor.
“My favorite in the city,” Nash says, thanking the waitress for his beer before continuing. “Lot of fun stories there, but my favorite is about?—”
“No, no, no, no,” Jonathan cuts him off. “Let me guess, let me guess.”
Nash and he look at each other and a volatile shift occurs.
“You have a guess about the Sword Gate House?” Nash asks, pausing when our food arrives.
When a burger is set in front of me, I realize I must have ordered a burger.
I have no desire to eat it.
Despite the fact I haven’t eaten since this morning, I have no desire to eat anything. I want to flee from this building like it’s on fire and never see any of these people again.
“Here’s what I think happens,” Jonathan continues, cutting into his piece of grilled chicken like he’s using a machete. “I think in this Gate Knife House?—”
“Sword Gate,” Nash corrects.
“That.” Jonathan points his fork at him. “I think an immature man lived there who fell in love with a woman, but when he didn’t want to take care of his obligations, he ran away.”
Oh, God.
“That doesn’t sound like a very fun story,” Nash says before taking a bite of his food. “And nothing like?—”
“Well—” Jonathan cuts him off, and there’s something about thatwellthat makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and the world feel quiet. The doomed kind of quiet that happens in old war movies when the pin has been pulled from the grenade but before it’s launched to the scene where it will annihilate everything around it. “I can only hope the beloved hero in your story doesn’t skip out on his responsibilities the way you have.”
The table goes silent—what I wouldn’t give for Sunny to shouthoney childat me right now or for Cap to start coughing or for someone at a nearby table to pull out a gun and rob us all.
“Jonathan,” I whisper, gripping his arm. “Please. Don’t. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The hell is that supposed to mean?” Nash asks, looking from Jonathan to me as the foot he’s been pressing down on mine under the table pulls away.
“You don’t know?” Jonathan almost sobers, looking from Nash to me. “Rue?”
Sunny cocks her head and bares her teeth. “You bes’ shut your mouth, biker boy.”
“Know what?” Nash demands. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Cap grunts. “Means nothing.”
“Nothing?” Jonathan scoffs then gapes at me, and I feel everything start to crumble. “That what we call Bennie?”
“Bennie?” Nash is lost.
“Uh.”Shit.“Bennie is Bee’s name,” I explain. “My daughter.”
“Yourdaughter,” Johnathan repeats. Then to Nash: “Yourdaughter. Who doesn’t know her dad because he got married when someone didn’t show up then left his wife when she got pregnant.”
Jonathan shrugs like a bomb didn’t just go off. Like the meaning of his words doesn’t make a sound so loud it creates a high-pitched, deafening ring in my ears.
“She’s a good kid though.” He takes another sloppy bite of his food. “Funny.”
I have no choice but to look at Nash, and when I do, there’s pure devastation. His hurt might as well be one of his tattoos.
