Page 37 of The Love Scam
“Sorry if I disturbed you.”
“You didn’t.” Lie. “It was no biggie.” Lie.
“All righty.” She’d finished her oatmeal, waved at a couple of the others, gathered her stuff. “Ready to get back to it?”
“Not at all. Not even a little bit. I’d rather be doing almost anything else.”
“We can get your new phone tomorrow.”
“Bring me every Easter basket in this building!” he cried, jumping to his feet. “And then stand back, ladies, because you’ll see a basket-stuffing fool.”
“Or just a fool,” Teresa piped up.
“Silence, peon!”
That got Elena and Teresa and the others laughing, and he smiled at their gentle teasing, and that was good; it was always good when people were laughing because their guards went down and no one ever seemed to notice that while they laughed, he was figuring them out.
Delaney left the table and he was about to follow, when…
“She was sleepwalking, wasn’t she?”
“Gah! Jesus, Lillith. How do you do that? Only get noticed when you want to?”
“Mama taught me. She was, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Because she didn’t know what foster home she was in.”
“… Yeah.”
“It’s okay. I was surprised the first time, too. Just say nice things to her and she’ll go back to sleep.”
“Yeah.” It was low, but his options were limited. He already knew that asking Delaney for details was futile. Time to pump a kid. (Argh. Phrasing.) “So I get the feeling she had a rough childhood.”
“Yes.”
“Like your mother.”
“Yes.”
“And Sofia and Teresa and Elena.”
Lillith nodded.
“There’s a bigger picture here, isn’t there? It’s not just about finding your dad.”
She beamed. “I knew you were going to get it. Y’know, eventually. They’ve been saving for the Big Pipe Dream for years. That’s why they need us.”
“Wait, ‘need’? Us? How do—”
“C’mon, Rake and Lillith.” Delaney was standing in the front of the restaurant, beckoning them forward. “And the rest of you lazy bums, too. Back at it.”
“Fanculo questo,” Eleana replied cheerfully.
Exactly.Fanculo questo.Times ten.
Twenty-two
