Well damn, it’s not over. That earns a private sort of smile. Thing was, Billy sort of didn’t want the night to end. With the dawn Steve might rethink some things. A very Cinderella’s carriage turning back into a pumpkin sort of thing.

“Switch to decaf for me,” he advises the waitress. But he’s not done. She gets to go, he gets to wait, and they get to keep talking. “Honestly, between you and me, I’m the one more likely to do the whole panic attack thing. Got medication for it and everything. Breathing exercises.”

Steve nearly died to those things a number of times. But Billy had seen it in a whole different nearly fatal way.

“You think your kid doesn’t want you around?”