Page 71 of The Tomorrows After You
“Riot, what happened with your m—”
“Dinner is served!”Our waitress appeared, balancing a large tray with our plates on it.
Our plates radiated the smell of warm food and my stomach rumbled. Besides the breakfasts at the diner, I couldn’t remember the last real meal I sat down and ate that didn’t come in a cardboard box.
I was about to dig in when I saw Riot dip his head and mutter something under his breath.
“Are you praying?”I asked, immediately regretting how critical I sounded. Riot looked up, surprised as if I’d caught him doing something wrong.
“Sorry. Just a habit, I guess.”He took a sip of water and averted hiseyes.
“No, I just mean, I’m surprised…”I backpedaled.“I guess after everything you’ve been through with the church, your mom… I’m just surprised, is all.”I shrugged and offered an apologetic smile but was captured by the curious look he had on his face.
“I can’t be mad at God for the things people voluntarily do in his name.”He offered a distant smile.
“So, you’re still into it? Like the whole white-bearded-man-in-the-sky thing?”I hated how dumb I sounded but he had piqued my curiosity.
Riot grinned, cutting a piece of steak.“I don’t know about the man-in-the-sky thing but I believe there’s a higher power or purpose for sure. There’s too much evidence not to.”
“Evidence?”Now my skeptical journalistic instincts were intrigued.
He tilted his head back and forth, considering before swallowing the bite of ribeye.“Think about it. We’re careening around the sun at sixty-seven thousand miles per hour and still, we stay on this planet, planted firmly, and aren’t launched into the depths of space. It’s practically magic.”
“I’m pretty sure that magic is called gravity,”I teased.
He narrowed his eye victoriously through a bite of risotto.“Exactly!”He pointed his fork at me.“And gravity just… works. Itworks. Perfectly. Every day. Without fail. Because that’s the way we have to have it to stay in orbit. It’s just really wild how precise everything needs to be for the world to keep turning andlivingthe way it does and yet,” he gestured around us, “here we are. That, to me, is goddamn magic and I guess I’m hard-pressed to believe there isn’t some kind of power that is responsible for creating all those perfect conditions.”Riot lifted his shoulder one more time before returning to his plate.
I sat dumbfounded at the man in front of me.
“So, God is a master magician?”
He looked up, considering.“Yeah. At least that’s how my dad used to describe it.”Riot took a sip of water and a small humor returned to his eyes.“Or he could have just been trying to make light of my mom’s obsession with us going to church on football Sundays.”He gave me a wink and my heart did a little flutter.
As Riot returned to his dinner, I took a breath and opened my mouth.“Riot, about your mom—”
“How is everything?”Jen came ambling over, a fresh bottle of wine in her hands.“Wanted to treat my favorite nephew to a little Camus. On the house, dear.”She plunked the fine wine on our table. Riot beamed.
“Why don’t you join us for a glass?”I surprised myself by asking.
Jen looked between me and Riot who nodded before she pulled a chair up to our table.
Jen wheezed through her fits of laughter.“And then Brennan turns to the blonde and says,‘Even if I were interested, your peak child-bearing years have largely dwindled. If you had a younger sister perhaps...’And then that girl dumped an entire martini on his head!”
Riot pushed his fingers into his eyes, watery with laughter.“Man, am I sorry I missed that!”
“Oh, me too, honey. But that’s what I get for being a Nosy Nelly and trying to hook him up with the staff.”She patted his hand.
The restaurant had mostly emptied by the time we were finished with our dinners. But Aunt Jen had the wine flowing, and she was tapping into the high-end section of the cellar so I was here for it.
“That boy, I’ll tell y’all… He’ll either save this world or destroy it. But either way, he’ll be single while he does it,”she smiled, her laughter subsiding.
Her focus landed on me.“Have you met Brennan, dear?”Her southern accent got deeper with each glass of wine. Or my hearing got fuzzier, I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that this calming sense of normalcy was foreign but welcomed.
“Oh, Nicolette and Brennan are quite fond of each other,”Riot said with amusement in his eyes.
Jen made a high-pitchedmmmnoise.
“I have met Brennan. And I’m pretty sure he only tolerates me because I talk to him like a real human and not a slow adult.”
