Chapter 14
Dustin drove.
He didn't know why he'd agreed to this. The guy had tried to kill him. He’d messed with his gear. And less than ten hours ago, he’d tried to get someone else killed.
And now he was sitting in Dustin's passenger seat, clipboard on his lap, five dollar bill still clutched in his hand like a kid who'd just gotten his allowance.
“You can put that away,” Dustin said.
Greg looked down at the money. “I’d like to contribute, at least.”
“I told you, I'm paying.”
“That doesn't seem fair when I have money.”
“Greg. It's five dollars. You can't even get a decent appetizer for five dollars.”
Greg's face fell. “Why must everything be so expensive?”
Dustin snorted. He couldn't help it. What got him was the absolute indignation in Greg's voice, like the entire human economy had personally offended him.
“That’s capitalism for you,” Dustin said. “It's a good thing the people with the inflatable duck pay me ridiculous amounts of money to throw myself off high places.”
Greg was quiet for a moment, then, “None of the websites I looked at today mentioned jumping off cliffs to make money. How did you even think of that?”
Dustin gave a half-shrug like it didn’t matter. “Maybe I’ll tell you over dinner.”
Greg nodded to himself. “I’d like that, I think.”
Dustin’s gaze slid to the reaper. Why was he considering telling Greg his story?
He wasn’t sure.
The diner was called Ruby’s, and while Dustin had never eaten there before, it looked approximately like every other diner he’d been to while traveling the country in pursuit of new ways to defy gravity.
He expected the coffee to be burned and the burgers to be perfect.
“Pick your poison,” he said to Greg, handing him the menu as they sat down.
Greg quickly seemed overwhelmed by it. “There are more options here than the last restaurant.”
“And it all probably roughly tastes the same.”
Greg looked up. “Really?”
“Really.” Dustin flipped his own menu open. “Unless you get a salad, I guess, but why would you do that?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Greg asked earnestly. He looked down again. “Oh, the salads are expensive. Everything is expensive.”
“This is nothing, sunshine.” Dustin waved him off. His lips twitched. “Maybe one day I’ll take you to a place that’s actually expensive.” Wouldn’t that be interesting? Making Greg blush at a Michelin star restaurant while he was having a food orgasm.
The thought appealed more than it should.
Before he could linger on it for too long, a perky waitress appeared. Her name-tag read Samantha. “What can I get you boys?”
“Coffee and a bacon cheeseburger,” Dustin said. “Medium. And yeah, I’d like fries with that.”
Samantha turned to Greg.
“Um,” said Greg like someone who worried there might be a wrong answer to the question of ‘What’ll you have for dinner?’
Dustin stopped himself from answering for him. He wanted to see what Greg would pick.
“Can I have the grilled cheese,” Greg said eventually. “And fries. And...” He scanned the menu. “A chocolate milkshake?”
Samantha scribbled and disappeared. Greg set the menu down, looking faintly pleased with himself.
“Grilled cheese?” Dustin raised an eyebrow.
“I thought it might be easier to eat than a burger.” Greg straightened his napkin. “I'm learning from my mistakes.”
“Good for you.”
“I'm a fast learner. When I'm not being—” Greg stopped. His jaw tightened.
“Being what?”
“Distracted.”
Dustin waited for him to elaborate. He didn't.
Huh.
Dustin leaned back in his chair. “How did you become a reaper anyway? You don’t seem like reaper material.”
Greg blinked. “I don't understand the question.”
“How did you get the job? Did you apply? Did someone recruit you? Were you, like, a human who died and got conscripted into the death business?”
“Oh.” Greg shook his head. “No, I was never human. Reapers aren't... we're not made from dead people. We're made from the same material as human souls, just less of it. It’s like we get a teaspoon of soul essence rather than a full helping.”
Dustin raised an eyebrow at him. “A teaspoon of soul essence.”
“It's a metaphor. We're thinner, essentially. It makes us good at slipping between spaces. You know, life and death, the mortal world and what comes after.” Greg fidgeted with his napkin. “It’s different from human creation.”
“So you've never been alive.”
“I've always been alive. Just not the way you are.”
Dustin didn't know what to do with that. The guy sitting across from him—awkward, earnest, currently excited about a grilled cheese—had never been a kid. He’d never experienced a first day of school or a first crush or a first anything that Dustin could relate to.
Aside from his first burger and subsequent ketchup stains.
“That's weird,” Dustin said finally.
“I know.” Greg didn't sound offended. “Humans tend to find it unsettling that something can exist without having been born.”
Dustin thought about it a little more. “So you don’t have parents.”
“No.”
“Friends?”
Greg hesitated. “I have colleagues.”
“That's different.”
“I know that too.”
Dustin crossed his arms in front of his chest, processing. “So you get sent here to collect lives, all while not understanding what makes a life worth living.”
The accusation seemed to rattle Greg. “I studied humans for a long time!”
“Right. But you can’t understand life without living a little. Maybe that’s the real reason you have to eat. Maybe someone in your organization understood that.”
As if on cue, Samantha arrived with Greg’s milkshake. She set it down in front of the reaper with a little flourish. It was garnished with whipped cream and a cherry on top and Greg's eyes went wide as he took it in, clearly forgetting that he meant to be upset.
“This is beautiful,” he said. “That’s for me?”
“It's what you ordered.”
“Wow.” Greg’s voice turned reverent as he pulled the glass closer, examining the whipped cream peak like it might contain the secrets of the universe.
To him, maybe it did.
Dustin watched, amused in spite of himself, as Greg picked up the cherry by the stem and studied it. “What do I do with this?”
“You eat it.”
Greg bit the cherry off the stem, chewed thoughtfully, and made a small noise of wonder. Then he took a sip of the milkshake and his whole face transformed.
Dustin smiled.
“Good?” he asked, even though the answer was obvious.
“This is the best thing I've ever consumed.” Greg took another long sip. “Why didn't anyone tell me about chocolate milkshakes?”
“What, this wasn’t covered in reaper orientation?” Dustin teased.
Greg, naturally, failed to detect the sarcasm. He sounded genuinely aggrieved when he responded. “It was not! We learned about filing systems and guidance regulations. What to say and what not to say. No one mentioned milkshakes. No one!”
Dustin laughed without meaning to.
Greg looked up from his milkshake, startled, like he hadn't expected to be funny.
“What?”
“Nothing.” Dustin shook his head. “You're just... not what I expected.”
“What did you expect?”
“Something scarier. You're Death. Capital D. You're supposed to be intimidating.”
“I'm a death,” Greg corrected. “One of many. And I'm not supposed to be intimidating. I'm supposed to be comforting. A guide through the final threshold.” He looked down at his milkshake. “That's all I ever wanted to be.”
The vulnerability in his voice hit Dustin somewhere he wasn't prepared for.
But something else snagged at him too. Something that didn't sit right.
“But you never had a choice, did you?” Dustin said. “You didn't choose this job. This life.”
Greg stirred his milkshake with the straw. “What do you mean?”
“I mean you just said you popped into existence as a reaper. You were made for this. No one asked you what you wanted to be, or am I getting that wrong?”
Greg kept looking at his milkshake. “I wasn’t asked, but… they didn’t have to ask me.” Finally he dragged his gaze up to meet Dustin’s. “I want to be a good reaper. That’s true no matter what you say.”
Dustin let that sit for a moment. Then he asked, “But have you ever let yourself want anything else?”
Greg's mouth opened, but no words came out.
Dustin watched him fumble for an answer, watched the way his brow furrowed, the way his fingers tightened around the milkshake glass. Like the question had short-circuited something in him.
“I have a notebook,” Greg said finally.
“A notebook?”
“I started keeping it during my internship. I write down phrases humans say. Things I didn't understand but wanted to remember.” Greg's voice had gone quiet. “No one told me to do that. It wasn't part of training. I just... wanted to.”
“What kind of phrases?”
“The things they say at the end. To each other, mostly. 'I'll never forget you.' 'Tell them I'm sorry.'“ Greg swallowed. “'It's not the pain—I'm just not ready.'“
Something cold unfurled in Dustin's chest. “Why would you write that down?”
“I don't know.” Greg looked genuinely lost. “It felt important.” He paused. “The other reapers thought it was strange. They call me the Hallmark Harvester.”
“That's a terrible nickname.”
“I know.”
The food arrived. Samantha slid the plates onto the table in front of them—bacon cheeseburger for Dustin, grilled cheese for Greg. The interruption felt almost jarring, like walking out of a dark theater into daylight.
“Anything else I can get you?”
“We're good,” Dustin said. “Thanks.”
She left. Greg picked up his grilled cheese and examined it carefully, clearly grateful for something to do with his hands.
“I was right,” he said after a moment.
“About what?”
“The grilled cheese.” Greg took a bite and chewed. Nothing fell apart or dripped down his chin. He looked quietly triumphant. “I told you I was a fast learner.”
Dustin shook his head and bit into his burger.
They ate in silence for a few minutes. It wasn’t uncomfortable, exactly. Just... full. Like there was too much sitting between them to fit any more words.
Then Greg said, “Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”