3. Baba Ghanoush
Baba Ghanoush
dwayne
I was about to slice up some tomatoes when I caught the black coat out of the corner of my eye. Distinctive, that coat. Distinctive, the man wearing it.
Amory walked into the diner with his boyfriend. I didn’t stare, but checked to see how badly he was hurt. Nothing major that I could see, though he had bruises on his face. Jenny was in advance guard mode, maybe even crowding the kid a little bit. I returned my attention to the tomatoes, making neat and even slices out of them.
Predictably, I didn’t have to wait long before Jenny marched into the kitchen.
“Dwayne,” she said.
“I saw.”
“You saw! He has bruises on his face. You don’t believe he got mugged, do you?”
At the job, back before the Moonlight and everything else, one thing we’d learned was the need to have a mixed team. Women made for great analysts, were great at detecting duplicity, and in a lot of situations, they could gain the trust of the subject who had the intel you needed.
Jenny though had experienced dark shit, and some of it was getting projected on the Goth boyfriend. Some of it. Wasn’t going to dismiss her entirely.
“Happens. Happened to him a while back.”
She was aghast. “What did you say?”
I shrugged. “Kid didn’t want me to tell you because he didn’t want to frighten you. It’s why he likes to send you home early.”
Jenny’s ballooning anger deflated. She waited. I fixed some sandwiches, sizzled up some onions.
“I have a bad feeling about this, Dwayne.” She crossed her arms, intent clear.
I nodded. “Noted. I’ll keep an eye on his Soyer.” I glanced out the passthrough. “See what food they want. I’ll serve them, ‘kay?”
Jenny nodded and headed back out.
I got the little mirror I kept by the sink and put it on the small hook in the wall that was there for this exact reason. Didn’t normally bother of course. The team handled things out front well on their own. The kid had picked a good table for me to observe, good for keeping an eye on.
I went around stirring my pancake batter and getting some orders ready, fries and onion rings, omelets, a salad. Soyer spoke softly while Amory looked freaked, scared. He held the menu out to Amory, clearly playing at distraction.
The truth was, I didn’t think for a moment the boyfriend was your run-of-the-mill kind of boyfriend. Man always had eyes on the place, almost as much as he had on the kid. And he was fucking controlled about his facial expressions, barely had anything that even remotely qualified as a tic, and most certainly moved with the kind of confidence you saw in either dancers or good fighters.
In addition, the guy who’d brought Amory his flowers seemed to be hanging out across the street a whole lot. I’d watched once, but it wasn’t dealing drugs. Wasn’t nefarious from what I’d seen, more like a security detail.
Which made me wonder why .
Point though, this Soyer didn’t scream criminal to me, but not civilian either. And point of points, the kid, who’d never even said anything about dating anyone, had brought this guy here. That meant something.
Still, Jenny’s instincts. And only because something looked right from the outside didn’t mean it wasn’t rotten just beneath the skin.
“Veggie stir fry,” Jenny said as she passed on the order, her mood all kinds of sour.
So I made the food, made it pretty, added extra baba ghanoush to it because I knew how much the kid loved it. I pulled my hairnet off after plating and went outside, food in my hands, resigned to letting the orders pile up for the time being.
I saw the kid flinch just when I came out through the swing doors. The boyfriend gave me the once-over, casual but thorough, very routine like someone who knew he needed to analyze a situation before it got dicey.
He then smiled politely. People like that I’d always hated to have to interrogate.
I put the food down. “Got your order. Mind if I join you?”
“Of course,” the boyfriend said, still being all well-behaved. Relaxing a bit even.
I took a seat, spreading out. Amory made saucer eyes at me, not quite understanding. He didn’t need to. If the boyfriend was really bad, and I was wrong, I had a few options to get rid of him, and I’d be quick and quiet about it. The kid would never know, would just think he’d been left overnight, and he’d get over that.
But I’d not seen a need for that yet. Did see the boyfriend relaxing some more before taking up his fork, which was in itself telling me he could afford to. It lined up. Jenny didn’t much hide her dislike, and Soyer hadn’t ever been anything but polite. Thick skin, if he wanted to.
He made a display of trying the food, not adding salt or anything, looking me in the eyes as he chewed, swallowed.
“This is excellent. Amory said your baba ghanoush was.”
“Need to sear the eggplant properly, and I never skip salting them beforehand.”
He nodded, taking another bite without looking away. Amory was making a bit of a show about being confused about the boyfriend and me getting acquainted. Soyer was unbothered. Lots of the time, the violent types would have shut Amory down. Also wouldn’t have taken him out to see friends who cared especially while visibly hurt.
At the same time, the worst of them broke both rules and expectations.
“Attention to detail’s important. As is not skipping steps if you want just the right outcome,” Soyer said.
He got why I was sitting here all right. Had probably gotten my concern when he’d called yesterday.
I clenched my fists, habit from the time I still needed to get mission ready on short notice.
“You’re still off work?” I asked. Kept an eye on Amory too. Amory was bad at lying and hiding things.
Soyer’s head dipped in a minute nod. “My schedule is quite flexible, and I often work from home, though I do occasionally travel for consulting work.”
The kid was a smidge surprised about the consulting work but not the rest of it, so I asked, “Consulting?”
“Real estate development.”
Going by Amory’s reaction, that was a nice load of bullshit. It was rehearsed though, the kind of persona you’d build when you had to hide what you really did.
Pressing would get me nothing, so I changed course.
I nodded toward Amory. “Thanks for taking him to see a doctor.”
That gave me a genuine reaction. Guilt? No, something deeper and more painful. Shame.
“Of course,” Soyer said. “I’d have preferred to have been there sooner. To prevent it in the first place. But I was away. Consulting.”
Huh. When a bullshitter came back around to his own bullshit like this, it usually meant they wanted something, forgiveness, approval. Being told how smart they were. Soyer knew how smart he was, no doubt about it. My gut was telling me he was genuinely taking on the blame for this. Not sure what that meant.
The kid’s face though, softening with pity, that gave me half of an answer. I watched them eat. Watched as Amory slid a little closer. He cared very deeply for the objectively hot man in the black coat who was half bullshit, half secrets, in my best judgment not abusive in the way Jenny feared. His knuckles showed no indication that he was, the black nail polish pristine.
“You’d call yourself a good man, Soyer?” I asked, lifting the pitch of my voice ever so slightly in that way that allowed trust, allowed the person across from me to feel more in control than they were, at least in theory.
Amory cleared his throat, and I could see he was about to send me away. Could also see Soyer stopped that. Good rapport between them.
“I wouldn’t,” he said. “But I’m a hard worker, diligent, driven. And I am driven to be good for those who are important to me.”
And that I fucking believed. He said it without dropping his gaze. Still inclined his head in what you could call humility. No fucking way was he a consultant, though.
“Amory is like a son to me, and I look after my family,” I told him, and by his expression, he got what I was saying.
“I’d expect nothing less. I am the same.” Still holding my gaze, still not backing off. Protective.
We exchanged a couple more minutes of eye contact. No, the man wasn’t what he said he was, but he was fine showing me some of it in those black eyes, something dark though well controlled. It wasn’t meant as a threat. It was Soyer being honest, as honest as he could be perhaps.
In an unfriendly place where death was a great possibility, you’d want someone like Soyer on your side watching your back. He and I had that in common, at least if the opinions of some of the people I’d worked with were to be trusted. I had no idea how the kid had found this guy, but I didn’t think he’d made a terrible decision picking him. Had maybe made a good decision.
It was good enough for me, for the time being. If that changed, I could still get creative, tell Jenny she was right after all.
I gave Soyer a nod. For now, we had a truce.