Page 34 of Rules to Love By

“You’re not terrible at cooking, either. Or at customer service.”

“Is this about the shelter or the Egg Basket?”

“You can’t put off making a decision about the diner indefinitely.”

“What decision?” Marcus carried his plate to the dishwasher. “Johnathan already made all the decisions for me.”

A quiet stillness from the kitchen behind him made him turn.

Tris stood, white-knuckled grip on a wooden spoon and his bleached eyebrows crowded down in a scowl.

“What?” Marcus set his plate in the washer but didn’t go back to the counter. Tris was rarely angry enough to be speechless. It unnerved Marcus.

After a moment more of purse-lipped silence, Tris went back to stirring. “Nothing.”

Marcus watched him agitate the crap out of whatever was in his mixing bowl.

“You know—” Tris closed his mouth with a snap of his teeth Marcus heard from across the room.

He stirred harder.

“You’re killing whatever’s in that bowl,” Marcus said quietly.

“Better than killing you.”

“What did I do?”

Tris threw the spoon into the bowl, then shoved the bowl away. “The one time I ever saw you take charge of anything in your life, you pushed me out of it. You told me to come after my brother.”

“And it was the right thing to do. Rod needed you, and you needed this place. I’m glad I did it.”

“So am I.” Tris glared up at him.

To Marcus’s horror, there were tears in his eyes. “What?”

“If I had known you’d let Johnathan fucking asshole Smally run your life after I left, I never would have—”

“And you never would have found yourself. Found this job. And Ozzy.”

Tris pounded a fist on the counter. “So what? Johnathan doesn’t deserve that diner.”

“And I do?”

“At least you give a shit about it. About what Iris was trying to make of it. She didn’t just help you, Marcus. She helped me. She helped a lot of people like me. None of us were as grateful as we should have been to her, but that doesn’t change the fact she tried. In her own way, she tried. And you’re going to hide out here and let Johnathan burn it all down.”

“I’m not hiding.”

“Aren’t you?”

“I am doing the fucking best I can!” He slammed the hood of the washer down with a loud clang that probably echoed out into the dining area. “I didn’t ask for her to take me in. She did what she was gonna do. She always did. I’m grateful. But I don’t owe her ghost a damn thing.”

“You owe yourself, Marcus. You let him get away with this, and you’re screwing yourself out of what you deserve.”

“So? Bit of a change from everyone else screwing me, right? You want me to take charge of my life? This is me taking charge.”

Tris shook his head. “No. It’s you giving up. I obviously can’t make you do anything—”

“No. You can’t.”

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