The lawyer looked up, glanced at the counter, and reached for his phone. She thought he was calling for help. Instead, he confirmed his lunch reservation.
"Sweetheart, I can’t get involved in whatever’s going on here. I’ve got a deposition in forty minutes."
He had the full weight of the legal system around his neck, yet he looked at a young woman with a shaking coffee pot and chose his deposition. It takes less than two seconds to run that math—the fast, private calculation between something is wrong here and but this is not my problem.
The cost of that math is paid by the girl with the shaking coffee pot.
Tap-squeak. Tap-squeak.
June was moving back toward the service station when she felt a hand settle on her shoulder. Not gripping. Not pulling. Just landing, heavy and warm, with the particular steadiness of something that had been on its way for a very long time.
He was already beside her when she turned, positioning his body between her and the counter. He was six-foot-two, over two hundred twenty pounds, with a silver burn scar running from his jaw down his neck. He wore a Hells Angels Tennessee chapter cut over a gray thermal.
His lips barely moved.