CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
ATHENA'S POV

The menu they set in front of me didn't have prices on it.

Not a single one. I flipped it over once, twice. Believing the numbers might be hiding on the back somewhere, before I caught Adam watching me do it with the corner of his mouth pulled up like he was trying not to laugh.

"Order whatever you want." he said. "Both of you."

My brother didn't need to be told twice. He'd already flagged down the waiter. For a sixteen-year-old boy who'd never once paid for his own meal, he was quite confident. He even had the effrontery to keep a completely straight-face and ask if what he was ordering came with extra bread.

"It comes with a bread course, sir." the waiter said, like Grey hadn't just called it "extra bread" in the fanciest restaurant in the area.

I ended up pointing at something in the middle of the menu, mostly because I recognized two of the words in it, and handed the menu back before I could second-guess myself into ordering a salad just to keep the bill low. Old habit.

"Do you always do that?" he asked once the waiter had gone.

"Do what?"

"Pick the safest thing on the list." He leaned back, now his hand had left mine and a certain cold began creeping in. "Even with a menu that doesn't have prices on it."

I felt my face go warm and looked down at the folded napkin in my lap instead of answering. I didn't know how to tell him that the habit wasn't something I could get rid off just yet. My family was not buoyant.

Grey thankfully filled the silence before it could stretch too long. "So how do you know everyone here? Like, the guy at the door said your name before you even said his."

"I come here a lot for meetings." Adam said. "Investors mostly. People from the company."

"Just meetings?" the question slipped from my mouth before I could control it.

Adam didn't flinch. "Mostly meetings." A beat of silence passed. "I'm not going to pretend I've never brought anyone else here, Athena. I'd rather you hear it from me than wonder about it all night. Or hear it from someone else.”

I hadn't expected him to say it plainly like that. Something in my chest loosened slightly.

Even if the answer wasn't the one I would have picked if I'd been given a choice.

"I wasn't going to ask." I replied. A confident lie.

"You didn't have to." He reached for the water in front of him. "You get quiet when you're turning something over in your head. I've noticed."

That was something I hadn't even fully noticed about myself. Grey, apparently sensing an opportunity, grinned at me from across the table. "She does the eyebrow thing too," he offered helpfully. "Right before she's about to pretend she's not upset about something."

"Grey!" I wished I could slap him from here.

"What? I'm just saying, if he’s taking notes…"

"He wasn't asking you to compile a list."

Adam laughed at our exchange. For a second, I remembered that Adam had never encountered the bickering between Grey and I.

We hardly ever saw eye to eye, asides now that I was between life and death.

The food came in courses I didn't have names for. The chef designed the plates that I almost felt bad about eating it.

My brother, on the other hand, had no such reservations.

He worked through his plate like he hadn't eaten in a week. Occasionally pausing to ask Adam questions that ranged from genuinely curious to borderline invasive about his personal life.

“You’re a first ranking Beta, right?”

“Yes sir.” It looked like Adam was actually enjoying this conversation.

“Does that mean you got out of chores growing up?”

"Not once…" Adam responded. "My father made sure of that. Character building, he called it."

"Sounds like something a dad would say to get out of doing the chores himself."

"You'd like him." He said it like he was certain there was a future where my brother would met his father.

I watched Adam through most of the night. More than I probably should have.

It was my turn to notice things. I noticed the way he leaned into whatever Grey said, and not once acting like Grey was a kid being tolerated at an adult table.

I observed the way his eyes came back to me every few minutes. Checking like he wanted to be the first person to notice if something went wrong.

It should have felt like too much attention. Instead, it felt like the opposite. The alternate reality of where people looked at me like something they couldn't fix. He looked at me like I wasn’t broken in the first place.

Unlike others, Adam didn't give me some room. He just stayed close enough that I didn't have to carry the evening by myself.

By the time dessert came – something neither of us had ordered but that appeared anyway, courtesy of the house; Grey had gone quiet.

That meant he was fighting off a food coma, while the restaurant had thinned out around us and the tables clearing one by one.

"Thank you," I whispered to Adam. "For tonight."

"You don't have to thank me for wanting to spend time with you."

"I know. I still am thankful."

He reached across the table and covered my hand with his. His thumb moving once over my knuckles, and didn't say anything else.

He didn't need to.

.

.

.

.

Some of the quiet from the car ride over had found its way back into the space between us.

Grey, half-asleep in the back seat, chose that exact moment to mutter, without opening his eyes. "You two are being gross."