“Thanks, Grace.” Rhynehart smiled after the woman, then sat back with a thump and ran a hand vigorously over his dark hair. “I usually go with the bacon burger, but I’m feelin’ like switchin’ it up a little.”
Rolling her eyes, Cheyenne leaned toward him over the table. “I’m not sitting here with you while you eat a burger or whatever the hell else you feel like. Is there a reason I’m here, or do you just like screwing with me?”
“Relax, rookie. There’s a reason. You’ll find out soon enough.” He didn’t look at her as he pored over the menu, hmmming at some of the offerings and tapping them in thought.
Cheyenne started to get up out of the booth. “This is bull—”
“Sit.” Rhynehart kept his voice low, but the urgency of that one word made her pause.
The half-drow narrowed her eyes at him and tried to figure out what was pushing his buttons like this. Then the front door of the diner swung open, jingling the little bell hanging from the top, and Rhynehart nodded over Cheyenne’s shoulder.
Maybe she should’ve thought about it before she turned around because the person walking through that door was the last person she wanted to see right now. She turned quickly back and thumped her hands on the table, glaring at Rhynehart. “Are you serious?”
“What do you think?”
Sir walked through the diner like he owned the place, lifting a hand in greeting to Roger on the other side of the counter. The cook didn’t have nearly as friendly of a hello on his lips this time, but he raised his metal spatula in reply and nodded. When the man stopped beside the booth, dressed like just another civilian and with his hands clasped behind his back, he eyed Cheyenne with those dark, beady eyes beneath his salt-and-pepper hair. “Thanks for saving me a seat.”
The halfling raised her eyebrows and glared at him.
Rhynehart tapped her shin with his boot under the table, and she gave him a derisive snort. With a sigh, the operative scooted over on his side of the table and made room for Sir beside him.
Sir watched his agent slide the menu and silverware down the table. “Huh.” But he slipped in beside Rhynehart just the same and folded his hands on the white tabletop with specks that looked like spilled black pepper. He pointed at her menu. “You know what you want?”
She scoffed. “Yeah, I’m gonna go with the number-two special. Bite me.”
“Oh. Well.” Sir raised his eyebrows and slid the menu toward him on the table, spinning it around so he could read the items. “I heard that one’s a little tough to swallow.”
“Why am I here?” She leaned toward him and tried to keep her voice low enough not to make a scene. “I didn’t sign up for dead kids in a sick ritual before or after a casual dinner, so what else do you want?”
Sir didn’t look up from the menu as he pulled a pair of reading glasses from where he’d hooked them on his shirt collar. He slipped them on with one hand and tilted his head back like somebody’s damn grandpa to read. “This is a conversation you want to have with me, Cheyenne—”
“Don’t.” She spat it out harshly enough to make him look up from the menu. “I told you, you don’t get to say my name. Not in my mom’s house, not at this crappy diner, not even in your sleep. Got it?”
“Would you prefer that I go back to using Blakely?”
“I’d prefer you didn’t call me anything at all, and that I spend the least amount of time possible in the same room as you. I’m only here because you said you could tell me about him.”
“Yes. Him. That’s why we’re here. But I have a hard time getting into a deep conversation on an empty stomach.” Sir looked back down at the menu and kept scanning. “So I’ll get the BLT, and you’ll sit here at this table while I eat it. And then we’ll talk.”
Cheyenne clenched her jaw and glared at him.
“Feel free to get something if you’re hungry. I heard you had quite the time at that church.”
The halfling switched her burning glare from Sir to Rhynehart, and the operative just raised his eyebrows. “I’m not hungry.”
“Suit yourself.”
The server picked that moment as the perfect time to come back to the table, carrying not one but two steaming diner mugs of black coffee. She set them down in front of Rhynehart and Sir like one of them hadn’t just shown up out of nowhere and stuck her hands in the pockets of her apron.
“Grace, you’ve always had perfect timing.” Sir removed his reading glasses, stuck them in his shirt again, and looked up at the woman. “BLT for me, please.”
“No problem. Charlie?”
Rhynehart cleared his throat—probably because Cheyenne had snickered when she heard his first name again—and handed Grace his menu. “Reuben, please. Tell Roger to make those fries—”
“Extra crispy. Yeah, he knows.” Grace shot the man a wink and took both menus. “I’ll have those right out for ya.”
Then she whisked herself away to put in their order, and Cheyenne was forced to sit there and watch both men take their sweet time sipping what smelled like the worst cup of coffee in Richmond. Sir sighed after a sip, put the mug back down, and neatly brushed a drop of coffee from his thick mustache. “Tastes exactly the same, doesn’t it?”
Rhynehart chuckled and dipped his head. “If you can count on anything, it’s this cuppa joe.”
Cheyenne took a deep breath and folded her arms, sitting all the way back in the booth. This is gonna be the longest meal I’ve ever been forced to sit through.
Chapter Eighty-Three
It was all Cheyenne could do not to sit there through that endless meal with her fingers stuck in both ears, just to drown out the sound of Sir
