Seems like everyone’s looking at me now, not just Glass, because Lucien’s talking about the fight in the way I kind of wanted him to, and his hand’s warm squeezing my shoulder. The man has big hands, and I can’t help looking at it out of the corner my eye and thinking about him doing other things with them. Hopefully the only thing that shows on my face is a bit of embarrassment over people making so much of the business with Tarquin, which in many ways did not turn out well at all. No need to make mention of that, though.

Glass had asked after where Tarquin was from, and I shake my head at the question. “Don’t think so. Just new in town and in the wrong place that night.” Not going to say more about how he managed to get himself into the mess I found him in. If the kid wants to start something new here, he doesn’t need any more people knowing than already do.

She also asks about how we met. At least I think that’s what she’s asking, and I think she was directing the question at Lucien. I kind of want to see what he says to it, too, although I hope he doesn’t make mention of exactly what I was doing when he came in. If I look over at him again directly, I figure someone’s going to really notice, and talking about Tarquin and what happened to him makes me think that maybe I shouldn’t be so sure he’s being nice to me just to be nice, even though I really want to take it for what it seems to be. And maybe I shouldn’t be wanting what looking at him makes me think about. Don’t know if I can help that, though.