Page 35 of God of War

The spoon slips from my fingers. Clatters onto the table. It seems so loud, like dynamite going off, that I’m surprised everyone in the diner isn’t ducking for cover.

“What?”

Ares stills, panicked. “Not about— Fuck, Delaney, I didn’t mean— I told Griff that Sheriff Jackson found us, but not about any of that other shit, okay? I wouldn’t…”

I can’t move. Can’t speak. Humiliation burns under my skin. I stare down at my hands on the table. Ares puts his hand over mine. It’s heavy, calloused and warm. There are letters inked across his knuckles, so fuzzy and faded I can’t make them out. He squeezes my fingers, my hand disappearing in his.

“I wouldn’t,” he says again. “Okay?”

I look at him. At his earnest face, naked pain drawn across it, and it makes something inside me snap. Anger flares up and I slide my hand back and bury it in my lap.

“Right,” I sneer. “As if the Wastelanders wouldn’t love more dirt on Sheriff Jackson. Hey, maybe this is the bargaining chip you need for him to leave you guys alone.”

Ares blinks. “Delaney…”

“I don’t need your pity, okay? I don’t need anything from you.”

Ares retracts his hand and settles back in his seat, his face going cold.

“Except to kill your father, right?”

I say nothing and we let the icy silence frost the space between us. I know I was being too defensive, snapping back at him when he was just trying to help. Ares was just trying to comfort me, reassure me, and isn’t that why I went to him, all those years ago? Because I felt safe?

Tears prick in my eyes.

“More coffee, kids?”

A rail-thin old man offers a full pot of coffee in his trembling hand. His smile is bright and his blue eyes shine behind half-moon glasses. At first I think he’s just an overly friendly customer, but he has a name tag pinned to his button-down shirt.

“Yes, please, Lou,” I say, smiling tightly, and pushing my cup over. His coffee pour is surprisingly steady, despite his shakes. I murmur thanks as I slide my cup, now steaming, towards me.

Lou swivels to fill Ares’ cup, but he covers it with his hand.

“I’m good,” he grunts.

Lou pauses, like a glitching program, then smiles. “Anything else for you kids today?”

I notice his watery eyes move from Ares, to me, and back again. This move, the careful smile, reminds me of Rodney back at the gas station; the way he’d size up a customer, assess whether they were going to give him any trouble.

I suddenly realize what we must look like: both of us sweaty and grimy; me in a dirty tank top and torn jeans; Ares with a perpetual frown, covered head-to-toe in tattoos. At least he doesn’t have his biker cut anymore, having left it back at the trailer (which I can tell he’s not happy about).

“Just the check,” Ares says.

He digs out his phone again, like if he ignores Lou he’ll disappear. But what if Lou stays suspicious? What if, when we leave, he calls the cops just to report that something ‘didn’t feel quite right with those two early-bird customers’?

I plaster on a big, innocent-looking smile and lean over to Lou. “And breakfast was great. The perfect ending to a long sunrise hike.”

Ares looks up at me in surprise. There’s a pause, then Lou chuckles.

“Hike, huh? Was wondering where you two came from.”

“Oh, yeah, we’re big into all that nature stuff.”

Lou scratches his chin with his free hand. “Have you tried the Owl’s Nest Trail? Goes right along Cattlehead River, beautiful little stretch that one.”

For the next fifteen minutes, Lou, who turns out to be quite the outdoorsman, happily details his top ten hikes around Bowen, giving an honorable mention to the trail where he saw a family of particularly fat raccoons.

“I’ll be right back with your check,” Lou says finally.

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