“Why don’t you want us going to the diner?”

Her face went pale.

“I never said that.”

“You’ve been taking him there for ten years. Now we’re going once and you’re trying to stop us.”

“Kait, you’re reading too much into this.”

Maybe I was. But Chloe had been my closest friend since childhood, and I knew exactly what she did when she lied: she picked at the skin beside her thumbnail. She was doing it now.

“I want the diner,” Leo said.

“Then that’s where we’re going.”

Chloe looked down at her coffee and barely spoke for the rest of the afternoon.

PART 2

Now, sitting inside the diner, I finally understood why she had been so nervous. Everyone seemed to know Leo personally. Marcy didn’t even hand him a menu.

“Usual?”

“Grilled cheese today.”

She gasped dramatically.

“On your birthday? Living dangerously.”

Leo smiled. A teenage busboy walked past our booth and called over his shoulder.

“Saturday still good, Leo?”

“Yes.”

I immediately turned toward my son.

“What’s Saturday?”

Before Leo could answer, Chloe’s fork slipped from her hand and hit the plate with a loud clang. Leo flinched.

“Sorry,” she said quickly.

But she wasn’t looking at him. She was looking at me.

A few minutes later, an elderly man approached the table.

“Eighteen. Hard to believe.”

“Time doesn’t change based on whether you believe it, Mr. Howard,” Leo replied.

The man laughed, then looked at me.

“You raised a good one.”

Before I could ask exactly how he knew my son, Mr. Howard tapped the table twice. Leo tapped twice back, and the man walked away. I leaned toward Chloe.

“Tell me what’s going on.”

“Not here, Kait.”

My heart started pounding.