Page 58 of So Normal

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Faith had to hand it to Michael. The man knew a properly cooked steak. The filet Faith ordered was soft and smooth as butter and cooked to a perfect rare temperature.

“You know how hard it is to find a restaurant that actually knows how to cook a rare steak?” Faith said in between bites.

“It’s an endangered species,” Michael agreed, sawing contentedly at his ribeye. “I’m a medium-rare man myself, but if you don’t know what rare is, you don’t know what medium-rare is either.”

“True that,” Faith agreed, eating another bite.

Next to them, Turk happily wolfed down his own steak, this one also rare at Faith’s insistence. They sat what felt like a football field away from the other guests at a small table near the busboy’s station. The restaurant owner reluctantly allowed the two agents to eat there with Turk considering their service to the city in catching Gaston, but he made sure they ate as far away from the other customers as possible. From the brief glimpses Faith had gotten of the other guests, she felt that Turk had much better table manners than most of the other guests had.

Not that it mattered. It wasn’t like they were going to be regulars here. Besides, the foodwasgood, and good food excused a lot of rudeness.

“You think if Gaston had eaten like this, he might have forgiven those people who ignored him?” Michael asked, echoing Faith’s thought.

“Maybe,” Faith said. “They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”

“Boy, ain’t that the truth,” Michael said. “Ellie makes the best damn pork ribs you’ve ever had. I swear, if I ever go off the rails and land myself in trouble, my last meal will be her pork spareribs slathered in thick, honey bourbon barbecue sauce.” He patted his belly. “Five years from now when you look at me and wonder how on Earth I let myself go so badly, the answer is those ribs.”

Faith offered a smile, but Michael saw right through it. He sighed and said, “Faith, I know you don’t want to talk about this, but we really do need to talk about Ellie.”

Faith sighed herself and set her fork onto her plate. She met Michael’s eyes and said, “Why, Michael? Why does it matter? Why can’t we just be friends and not be involved in each other’s personal lives?”

“Because I can’t be friends with someone who isn’t honest with me,” he said, “not even if that person is my partner.”

“There’s a difference between being honest and being completely open,” Faith said. “I’m not lying to you. I just don’t feel a need to share every thought that pops into my head. I know that you like to share everything with your friends, but I don’t, Michael. I’m a very private person. You know this.”

“Yes, but this isn’t about you,” Michael said. “It’s about me and Ellie, and I’d very much like to know why you don’t like her.”

Faith sighed again. She looked away and sighed a third time. Finally, she said, “Michael, this is only going to upset you. Things are already … well, things are tense enough between us right now. I really don’t want to make things worse by opening this can of worms.”

“The fact that there’s a can of worms to open already makes things tense,” Michael said. “Hiding the worms will only prevent us from working on easing that tension. This is the first step toward fixing things,” he said. “The first step toward getting to the point where we can be comfortable around each other.”

Faith didn’t reply right away. She knew Michael well enough to know that what she had to say would do little to make him feel comfortable around her.

She also knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t budge from this. Not telling him would only guarantee the eventual—and probably not too eventual—end of their friendship.

So, she sighed and said, “All right, Michael. If you want to know why, then here goes. I don’t like Ellie because I don’t trust her.”

Michael stared at her in shock. He blinked and said, “You … you don’t trust her? Why?”

Michael’s shock seemed genuine, but behind the shock, Faith thought she could detect the slightest hint of guilt. Deep down, he didn’t trust her either. Faith had suspected that, and now that she knew it was true, she knew for sure that this conversation would drive a wedge deeply between them.

She sighed. “Well, after Turk reacted the way that he did, I—”

Michael’s eyes hardened immediately. “Turk,” he said. “So, yourdogdoesn’t like her, and you assume that means she’s bad news.”

“Turk’s almost never wrong, Michael,” Faith said.

“Emphasis onalmost, Faith. If you’ll recall, he was wrong twice in the past week.”

“I recall,” Faith said, a little brittlely, “but he’s right more often than he’s wrong.”

“Yeah, and so am I,” he countered, “and I don’t think she’s bad news.”

“It’s not just Turk, Michael,” Faith said. “The whole situation is suspicious. She’s been separated from her husband for months now, years, I think, right?”

“Faith, it’s not so simple as tearing her wedding ring off and saying, ‘I’m not married anymore, nyah nyah nyah.’ She has a lot of finances bound up in her marriage.”

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