we can on Becka. See if this person left an IT trail. Eat garbage.”
“Pahk Street!”
She snorted and, as the train took a sharp curve, clutched the nearest pole but was thrown against his side anyway. This didn’t bother him at all, if the way he took her hand and held it was any indication. She was on board, too (no pun intended), if her accelerating pulse was any indication.
It’s holding hands on the subway, not a marriage proposal. All you know at this point is that he thinks holding your hand is less disgusting than clutching a subway pole anyone might have licked.
“You’re joining us for dinner.”
“Is this a date thing or a bodyguard thing or a just-being-polite thing?”
“Yes.”
“Oh. I.” Wow. Are you seriously having heart palpitations over this? Could you stop acting like you’re hard up? CALM. DOWN. “I wouldn’t want to intrude.”
“Accepting a sincere invitation is the opposite of intruding.”
“Your niece and your—your Abe—might disagree.”
“Thank you.” He let out a sigh. “I do not know what to call him. And I never know how to introduce him.”
“Ahlington Station!”
“Yeah, I noticed. That’s not a criticism, though. I thought it was pretty cute.”
He groaned. “Exactly what a grown man wants to hear.”
“Adorkable?”
“I’m too old to be adorkable.”
“Nobody’s too old to be adorkable. That’s just a straight fact. You have to accept my wisdom on this issue because I’m decades older than you in maturity and life experience.”
“You’re barely five years older than I am.”
“But, again—decades mentally.”
“I’m reasonably certain that I, in fact, am older than you mentally.”
“I’ll put my Inver Hills Community College degree up against your lame-ass medical school—”
“Harvard.”
“Ha! Couldn’t get into Yale, huh? Well, number two tries harder. Also, I know you are, but what am I? See? You’ve got no comeback for that devastating riposte.”
“I concede.” Tom rubbed his scalp, and his mood shifted from playful to fretful in half a second. “Abe’s old enough to be my father, but he isn’t. He was a member of my sister’s family, but not mine. And it feels distinctly odd to introduce him as a friend. It seems wholly inadequate.”
“Cawpley!”
“Well, what does your father figure / best friend / in-law think?”
Tom shrugged.
Ah. You haven’t discussed it with him. Well, it’s a tricky subject. “Abe, I think you’re dreamy. Will you wear the other half of this best-friend necklace I bought from a mall kiosk?”
“I have … difficulty navigating social scenarios like this. I don’t always understand what’s appropriate. And when I ask, sometimes I make things worse.”
“You’re talking to someone who almost had a giggle fit at her own parents’ double funeral. Trust me—you’re fine.”
His smile was so warm she practically felt it. “You’re very kind.”
“Uh, no. No, I am not. I can present a number of witnesses who will back that up, if you need it.”
“I prefer to make up my own mind. And Abe and Hannah will not mind if you join us. Frankly, the addition of a non–family member could be helpful. I cannot bear the thought of another argument with Abe over the pullout sofa. I need very little sleep—”
“Plus, that hotel suite isn’t a luxurious morgue drawer. How could you possibly be expected to get any sleep?”
“—and he has arthritis! But he insists that I take the gigantic bed, which is ridiculous.”
“Oh, well. In that case, I’ll definitely come to dinner.” A Tom/Abe slapfight could be fun. “You wanna tag-team him? We could do that. Or Hannah could invent some kind of hypnotic that tastes like cotton candy and use it to drug him into avoiding pullout couches for the rest of his life. Hell, she probably wouldn’t even need the drug. She could just hypnotize him with her geniusness.”
“That’s not how hypnosis works. Or genius.”
“Oh, look at the hypnosis expert. You hypno-snobs are all the same.”
“Hynes Convention Centah!”
“What is happening right now? What are we talking about?”
“I could tell you, but then I’d just have to hypnotize you into forgetting.”
He laughed at her. “I don’t always understand you.”
“Noted.”
“Which is charming. But also out of character for me.”
“Aw.” She looked down at her fingers entwined with his. For some reason, it made her think of Dennis and Xenia, who were supposedly a couple but who hadn’t touched each other during the memorial. Where could he be? She hoped he’d fled and was sleeping it off somewhere, because the alternatives
(Is he dead?)
(Is he the killer?)
were awful. Worse, she wasn’t sure which one she wanted to be true.
“It’s none of my business, but I would like