Page 147 of Rules to Love By

“The place actually looks pretty good,” Eli observed.

“Yeah.” It was familiar, and yet not. A lot of the original finishes had been damaged or destroyed by exposure. Walls had needed to be rebuilt, plaster repaired with drywall, fixtures bought new to replace the stolen antiques. It was sad, but also not. Marcus had every intention of creating the same ambiance the diner had before Johnathan, but better. Shinier and brighter and happier.

“Go sit,” Eli instructed. “I’ll bring coffee.”

“I can—”

“Sit.”

“Yes.” Marcus sat at the round-tabled booth where he could look out at the street. It helped to do as he was told for the moment. Before long, he would be faced with a stranger who should have been family, and decisions he wasn’t sure he was ready to make. For this moment, letting Eli direct him in the simple things was a comfort.

As Eli set their coffees down, along with a third mug and some cream and sugar packets, the door opened.

A tinkle of bells—though the bells had been removed at some point during the renovation—accompanied an older man inside.

Marcus looked up from his drink to meet pale blue eyes remarkably like Iris’s. “No shit,” he whispered.

“What?”

“It’s Thursday guy.”

“Who?”

“He used to come in every Thursday. Just ordered his food. Didn’t really talk to anyone.”

“Marcus.” The man stopped next to the table, and Marcus and Eli both stood.

“Hi.” Marcus held out a hand. “Fancy seeing you here again.” He didn’t know how he felt about recognizing his grandfather as the mysterious man who’d sat in this exact booth so often but never introduced himself.

Geoffrey Richards was a slight man, grey-haired and wrinkled, but he stood, back straight, eyes clear, and white mustache partially obscuring his expression. His grip, when he shook Marcus’s hand, was strong.

“This is my boyfriend, Eli Benson.” Marcus’s introduction held nothing back. It still, after almost a year, gave him a thrill to say “boyfriend” and “Eli” in the same context, but also, he had no intention of pretending to be anything other than exactly who he was. If his absentee grandfather didn’t like it, he could go back to being absentee.

“It is very good to meet you, Eli.” Richards held out his hand, and Eli didn’t hesitate to take it.

“Let’s sit,” Marcus suggested, mostly because sitting in the booth against the window, with Eli between him and the world, felt safer than standing next to it.

“I’ll get straight to the point,” Richards said once they were settled. “I thought it was best to bring you this news in person.”

Marcus and Eli exchanged looks but said nothing.

“I understand Iris left my son Johnathan a sum of money in her will.”

“And I have every intention of delivering it to him, if he ever shows up.”

“He won’t.”

“And you know this because…?”

Richards sighed heavily, spinning his cup with its black coffee so the handle was on his left side. He sipped from it, set it down, and lifted his gaze to meet Marcus’s. “For months, I’ve been encouraging him to make amends. But a man cannot make amends for something he doesn’t regret. Iris had more faith in him, I’m afraid, than he deserved.”

“You keep talking about him in the past tense. Is he—”

“He’s alive. Incarcerated, which, if I am correct, nullifies his claim to Iris’s money.”

“What did he do?”

Richards’s smile was sad. “Interesting that you leap straight to assuming he did whatever he might have been accused of.”

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