Page 38 of Rules to Love By

Eli counted. “Eight.” And put them back in their box for later. “If I needed to know something about the law, I’d ask Kreed’s sister, Madeline.”

“You want me to ask the guy who’s letting me stay in his house for free to ask his sister for free legal advice too? I’m not doing that.”

“You’re not asking her for legal advice. She’s a bankruptcy lawyer. You’re asking for a reference for a probate lawyer. Eleven of these.” He held up a bottle so Marcus could see the label.

“Thanks. Even if I did ask, and she did give me a name, what then?” His tongue caught between his teeth as he manipulated the mouse pad. “Damn it. This is a shitty computer. There.” He hit the Enter bar soundly. “Next?”

“What do you mean ‘what then’?” Eli held up the next bottle for him to read. “You ask the probate—”

“The probate lawyer I can’t afford, you mean? How many?”

“Seven. You don’t have any savings? Didn’t Iris pay you?”

“Of course she did. Most of it went to Tris and his friends, or right back into the diner. Anything else from that company?”

“Still two boxes.” He got up to fetch two large boxes from across the room, which he brought back and began to empty. “Is this the same as the pink one?” He held up a small similarly shaped and labeled bottle, this one with more gold than pink.

“It is.”

“Rebranding is a pain in my ass,” he muttered.

Marcus chuckled. “Iris paid me the same as she paid everyone else.”

“But you didn’t save any.”

“Why would I? I had food on the table, a safe bed, and a good job. Tris and his friends didn’t have those things all the time. And the diner wasn’t profitable enough to hire someone for the repairs it needed, so I did them. Sometimes I supplemented with my money because better materials mean a better repair.”

“Fair enough. There are twelve more of the pink ones in this box. Let me check the other one. I swear Ambrose is a lazy-ass piece of—”

“Still your cousin,” Marcus said in a sing-song-y, quiet voice.

“Unfortunately. Ten more bottles. Let me count the blue ones.”

“We should group them all, one thing to a box, so we can see exactly how much of each we have and we don’t miss counting any, what with the label changes.”

“Makes sense.”

For the next little while, they concentrated on grouping brands and products and repacking it all into boxes clearly marked with fat black permanent marker.

“You know, it didn’t escape my notice that you very neatly dropped the subject of finding a lawyer earlier,” Eli mentioned as they sat at the kitchen table, a plate of grilled cheese sandwiches between them.

“Why does it matter?” Marcus dished tomato and broccoli salad into a bowl. “I can’t afford one any more now than I could this morning.”

“There are lawyers who take cases like yours for a percentage of the inheritance.”

“And if there is no inheritance?”

“A percentage of zero is zero. They know that going in. It obviously pays off often enough to make it worth the effort.”

“Why is everyone so concerned about my aunt’s diner anyway?” Marcus poked at his salad, glowering at the plate as if he could find an answer in the arrangement of broccoli fleurettes and tomato seeds.

“Personally, I don’t care so much about the diner as—”

After a moment, Marcus looked up at him, black eyes narrowed. “As what?”

“You,” Eli confessed, the one word making his chest tight and his skin prickle.

“Me. You care about me?”

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