A/N: Hey, everyone, this is Immortal x Snow. First of all, I think I owe you all an explanation as to why my chapter took almost two months. To put it simply, I was very busy with work for a while. Humorously enough, I got a job in a quirky, understaffed diner much like NEF shortly after I began writing chapter one. It was meant to be a part-time job to save money over the summer, but it quickly became more than that, and I really had no time to write anything but a very important original fiction piece (because I'm trying to make it into the real world of publishing, too!). Fortunately, I left that job last week, and now I have some shard of sanity back… though it's a very tiny shard. ;)

I also need to explain how the next few updates are going to work. When I got past 10,000 words and the biggest part of chapter three hadn't happened yet, I knew it would take me a while to get something posted for you all. My coauthor and I talked about what to do. Since she's very busy right now and I have so much left to go—and we don't want to leave anyone hanging for a while with no updates—I will be writing all of chapter three. However, chapter three will be split into a few different updates so no one gets a 20k+ chapter sometime in September but instead a series of smaller chunks throughout August. I'll be titling the different parts like so: "Chapter 3a," "Chapter 3b," etc. This way, the odd-numbered chapters will still be mine, and the even ones will be for my coauthor. Capisce?

Thank you all for your patience. I hope you enjoy reading this chapter as much I enjoyed scrawling down bits and pieces of it at work. (Shh. Don't tell.)

"Come on, Alfred." Matthew curled his arms around his knees and leaned back into his friend's couch. "He's not actually that mad."

Alfred took such a large bite of his hamburger, pulled from his stockpile in the freezer, that he almost gulped down the whole thing in one bite. A blob of ketchup remained around his mouth.

"Matt, he about threw his second-best—well, now first-best—pair of shoes at me. I think he's pretty pissed."

He sighed and took the second and final (and tiny) bite of his quarter pounder. Stress-eating as usual, Matthew thought. His older brother of sorts had a knack for bad coping strategies involving food. And alcohol, of course, but after the story of the drunken phone call to "Arthur-Fucking-Kirkland" had come out, well, he didn't dare bring up beer within Alfred's earshot again, or Francis's for that matter. After a sequence of interviews slamming their cafe—hell, in every single interview the man had done in the past two weeks, he'd more than kvetched and outright seethed about everything from their food to their hairstyles (Francis had worn a ponytail for the past week in defiance of that ungracious, ugly, uncultured bastard)—the author'd managed to guarantee that no one except the Awesome Oldies would return, along with maybe Elizabeta if her husband really needed those rolls, and that was a big if.

"He'll get over it." Matthew traced a pattern of stains on Alfred's couch. Likely from spilling coffee. Matthew was pretty certain by this point in their friendship that caffeine was the only way the man got anything done. Who needed spunk or determination or discipline when you had liquid energy within reach? "He did send me over here, after all."

"Like that means anything." Alfred scarfed the last of his second hamburger and dusted the crumbs off his hands, still not noticing the red stain threatening to dribble down his chin and onto Matthew's math book. He edged his old problem sets a little closer to his half of the coffee table. "What am I supposed to be helping you with again?"

"Calculus. I have a big test tomorrow. Over integrals and stuff."

"Francis sent you over here to have me help you with calculus." Alfred paused a second before cracking up and smacking the back of his couch just by Matthew's head. "He's clearly gone crazy."

"Come on, Alfred."

Alfred picked up his plate and, heading into the small kitchen just off the living room, set it on the counter beside a stack of dirty dishes. Matthew's morbid curiosity almost got the better of him in goading him to ask how long it had been since Alfred had cleaned his apartment, but he curtailed it just in time. He really didn't want to know how dirty the place was, after all. His friend wasn't a slob, per se—in fact, he was probably far cleaner than most single young men—but Matthew had an almost obsessive need for loaded, whirling dishwashers and sparkling countertops. He needed cleanliness for security.

He didn't like to dwell on that fact much, but he couldn't exactly help himself.

"What made him think this was a good idea?"

"I don't know. He said you knew more math than he did. And that you took a ton of calc in college."

"I didn't take a ton. I took enough." Alfred sat back down beside Matthew and picked up the textbook. "I mean, I guess I remember some of this stuff. But who needs math, anyway?"

"I do. If I want to graduate."

"Who needs gradua—"

"Al." Matthew crossed his arms and gave his friend the deadliest glare he could manage, which only made Alfred laugh.

"Okay, okay, I get it. Shut up, Al. Fine, lemme look at this."

Alfred spent the next few moments poring over the book. Matthew pulled his knees to his chest, wrapping his arms around them. Whereas Francis's apartment was as sweltering as the inside of a boiling kettle, Alfred's nigh full blast A/C made him shiver even in his hoodie. Al, on the other hand, hardly seemed chilly as he thumbed through Matthew's notebook, snickering at a doodle here and frowning at some scrawled numbers there. Even in his short sleeves and frayed cargo shorts, Alfred lacked so much as a goosebump.

It was during moments like these that Matthew found himself wondering once more whether his friend—more like his brother, really—was oblivious or stupid or maybe much smarter than he seemed, especially as he wrote up a series of practice integrals for him to work through while he popped over to the kitchen to brew some more—what else?—coffee. Alfred wasn't dumb, he thought as he tapped the metal end of his pencil against his lips and tried to think through each special method Mr. Van Hoffman had shown them in class long ago. If anything, the young man was just ignorant. Unaware. Unlikely to notice that he'd just poured half his coffee grounds on the floor or that his socks didn't match or that he still had ketchup on his face like lipstick gone awry (he'd even smeared it once or twice by now).

But just as Matthew knew the integrals he'd begun adding up could combine to form one long expression, so too did he know that a few (okay, many) instances of absentmindedness did not add up to an inane Alfred.

He wasn't dumb. Call him airheaded, obtuse, ditzy; add them all up, but don't box "moron" as the final answer.

Because somewhere, maybe deep down and only brought to light when needed or demanded, Alfred had a secret stash of smarts.

"Is it 3ln|x-3| minus ln|x+2|? Oh, and with the plus C?," said Matthew, handing Al his paper to check his work after hurriedly penciling in the oh-so-crucial "+C" (how could he have forgotten it?). The older boy frowned after a moment.

"Mm, nope, don't think so, Matt."

"Wait, what? I know I did this right." Matt gripped his pencil. "It's the partial fractions trick, right? Where you split it up? I can't think of another way to do it."

"Right trick, bad foiling. Check your multiplication around step three."

A moment later, Matthew facepalmed.

"Wow. I'm a total idiot. 3x times 3x does not make 6x squared, Matt."

Alfred chuckled and mussed up Matthew's wavy hair. He shoved his hands away in response but couldn't help but crack a small smile. He didn't like having his hair touched. He didn't like anyone getting close to his face. But he almost didn't mind Alfred pulling out his ponytail or poking his cheek or throwing a heavy arm over his thin shoulders.

"That's better," Alfred said, giving Matthew a thumbs-up after checking over his revised work. "Only what, twenty more to go?"

Matthew groaned.

"It's midnight, Al. I get up at six-thirty. I haven't even started my French homework."

"That's easy. Just make Francis do it for you. Problem solved. What else can I fix for you?"

"That's called cheating, o brilliant one."

"Actually, it's called using your resources. Who needs school, anyway?"

"I do."

"Says who?"

"The law."

"Ah, that pesky little thing. Wouldn't it be nice if it just went away for a while?"

"You'd be dead in three seconds."

"Would not."

"Would too."

"Would not." As if to prove his point, Alfred snatched up Matthew's textbook. "Now whaddaya gonna do?"

"Hey, give that back."

Matthew was tall, but Alfred was taller and knew how to use those crucial three inches to his advantage. He held the book over his head and grinned at Matthew.

"C'mon, Al." He jumped and stretched his arms as high over his head as they would go, but he only managed to graze the slick edge of the book. "I'm going to fail that test tomorrow and Francis will kill me."

Alfred laughed, not seeing Matthew's wide eyes or hearing the waver in his voice.

"Dude, you'll be fine. Francis couldn't kill anything if he tried."

"Al—"

"Well, maybe he could kill fun. Or me. But not you."

"Al, please. Please give it back."

"Oh, all right." Alfred sat down and set his prize in Matthew's arms, ignoring the icy glare he'd gotten. "But seriously, you're gonna be fine."

"You don't know that." Matthew wanted to clutch the book tight, as if it could slow down his heartbeat a bit, but thought better of the situation and set it down on the coffee table next to his old assignments—which Alfred snatched up before he could protest.

"Matt, you got A's on, like, all of these. I mean, aside from the two here you turned in late, but whatever. You're a smart kid. Hell, you could tutor me in math. Maybe I'll have to go back to school someday and get you to do that."

"Go back? Like for grad school?"

Alfred took a long drink of his coffee. Matthew prayed he'd made decaf for once. He did have to admit that as little as he appreciated his friend's caffeine highs, he did like the earthy, full (if bitter and burned) smell of his coffee. It made him feel warm. Safe. Close.

And real. As if he hadn't fallen into a hazy, vague dream, but really had Al there with him. Really had someone to call his brother, his family, after all.

"Nope, that's not what I meant. I never finished college, Matt." He cleared his throat, seemingly trying to buy time. "I dropped out my junior year. Second semester."

Matthew paused, his mind lagging like an old computer in an attempt to process the information. The coffee was definitely closer to bitter than to rich now, and the apartment colder than ever, practically gnawing at his pulsing fingertips.

"Al—I don't get it. Why?"

"Wasn't for me, that's all." He stretched his arms above his head, his shirt inching up with them above his belly button, and yawned with his mouth wide open. "Just wasn't for me. I wasn't smart enough, and some pretty paper couldn't really fix that. Plus, it couldn't give me what I wanted. I thought my parents would freak, but they didn't mind. Didn't tell me to come home, either, but that was fine because I liked Sacramento well enough to stay."

"I—I thought you'd always lived here," said Matthew, deciding that out of all the questions blurring and whirling together in his mind, as if spun by a hiccupping, broken blender, he might as well ask a somewhat innocuous, sensible one.

"Hm? No, dude, I'm from near D.C."

"Oh." Matthew blinked. He wished he could have thought of something more intelligent, but only the obvious ran through his mind.

Alfred went to college. Alfred didn't finish college. Alfred didn't find what he wanted at college.

Did Francis know this?

"Sorry. It's not like I didn't want to tell you or anything," said Alfred, an apologetic half-smile forming on his face. He wiped his mouth after a last swig of his coffee, looking at the red stain on his hand with confusion so clear and so childish that Matthew almost laughed.

But deep down, that was all Alfred was: a big kid. A big child with a heart and sense of humor every bit as big as he was.

And, with a deep breath, Matthew understood that his childishness was the very thing he liked about his friend. The exact thing he envied the most in him. Because he wanted to be a child, too. A real child. Not the kid who looked young but had a heart twice his age and a soul so old it could shatter at the slightest touch. Not the one who had to be his brother and his father and even his mother all at the same time.

If he had been even an ounce braver, he would have reached out and given Al a hug that moment and told him everything. But the really lovely thing about growing up was that he'd gotten all the vices of adulthood without the virtues that should have balanced them out.

He was a coward.

"You okay, Matt?"

Matthew wanted to shake his head and tell the truth. Instead, he settled for the usual lie. Alfred wouldn't understand him. He had parents who loved him, who accepted his decision to leave college and live his life the way he wanted.

"I'm fine. Just still worried about the test." That much was true, he thought, reassuring himself with a mental pat on the back. "It's a big portion of my grade."

"You know what?" Alfred jumped off the couch and pumped a fist in the air. Matthew could have sworn he saw supernovae in his sparkling eyes—baby blues to match his baby face. "I'm making you pancakes, bro."

"Huh?"

"No, seriously, I got the kind of maple syrup you like and everything. I decided it wasn't that bad after seventeen or so shots. However many it was." Alfred grinned. "I got pancake mix and everything. Good old Bisquick."

Disgusted out of his silence, Matthew rolled his eyes.

"If you're going to make pancakes, at least make them from scratch. Don't use that pre-made stuff."

"Whoops, look like using Wolfram to create those integrals put too much strain on my wi-fi. Darn, how inconvenient. Now I can't look up a recipe."

"Alfreeeeeed."

But Alfred sauntered off to the kitchen and proudly took out a brand-new box of Bisquick pancake mix. Matthew wondered how much work putting Vaseline on all his doorknobs without him noticing would be. He'd totally do it if not for the test breathing down his neck.

Even so. He'd save that prank for a rainy day. Maybe, just maybe, it would cheer Alfred up.

Because Matthew could see straight through his pretend happiness into the worry that lurked within. The worry that Alfred buried even as he whisked together pancake mix with milk from his jam-packed fridge. The worry that he smoothed over with smiles and drowned out with guffaws. The worry that hurt him but could hardly compare to the insidious guilt that curled around his stomach and over his chest up to his chin, where it settled as a lump in his throat.

He'd hurt his little family by trying to protect them, hadn't he?

Francis couldn't remember having an actual fight with his son. Their home had tension sometimes, of course, but the friction never sparked an actual blaze. Not until Matthew discovered Alfred had never finished college.

The afternoon after his big calculus test, Matthew had been unusually quiet. Though the cafe had been so empty that every tiny noise—a page turning as Matthew read, the floorboards creaking as Alfred paced, metal clanking against metal as Francis whisked dough for pastries that no one would buy (except maybe Romulus, and only when Helena and Hatshepsut decided not to fight with him about his so-called "diet")—swelled and resounded against the shelf-covered walls. But Matthew made no sound at all from the moment he trudged in and sat down in his back booth to do his homework to the second he stepped outside, an ephemeral shadow from a flickering candle, following Francis home at the end of another long, uneventful day. Once more, no one had come in. Hardly anyone besides the resident apartment dwellers, Alfred's neighbors, even walked by, and when they hurried past, chattering on their phones or sipping Starbucks coffee or holding their lovers's hands, they never looked over their shoulders into the dark, empty cafe.

It wore Francis down a bit. He hadn't committed quite the money or energy or time to the place that Alfred had, true. It hadn't been his drunken mistake (to put it gently) that had strangled the whole dream. Still, despite its eccentricities (or maybe because of them; he couldn't decide), Nineteen-Eighty FOOD had become a refuge, a shelter, and maybe even a home. Especially for Matthew.

Francis would have done anything to make his son safe and at home and maybe even smiling in due time. Now Alfred had gone and destroyed his best shot at some hint of domestic peace. He'd have to search like a crazed man consumed in his quest for any other chink, any other opening in Matthew's heart.

"So—how'd your big calculus test go?" he asked that night over pungent, earthy coq au vin pulled bubbling from the oven. Cooking had always served as his source of stress relief—which, of course, had been yanked out of the picture when he needed it most. At least Matthew liked his cooking. So he thought, at least. Matthew didn't talk about food much.

"It was fine."

"Did Alfred help you study last night?"

Matthew wrinkled his nose, his steaming spoon halfway to his mouth.

"If you count burning pancakes and setting the stove on fire and then flooding his apartment as helping me study."

"I don't really want to know, do I?"

"Probably not."

Francis took a sip of his ice water from his sweaty glass. The air conditioning had broken down a while ago. He'd been saving up money to fix it, and he'd been at the landlord's door at least twice a week to complain, but both tenant and owner had expected to have until at least summer to work on the problem. Early February in California wasn't supposed to be this warm and muggy.

So when Matthew began tugging at his shirt collar and playing with his long blue sleeves, Francis assumed the heat was making him uncomfortable. Only when his son began pushing his food around with his tarnished spoon and clearing his throat did Francis begin to suspect otherwise.

"Do you want to say something?" Francis ran a hand down his short ponytail. "I mean, is there something you want to tell me?"

When Matthew ducked his head, Francis's heart sank equally low. He must have missed his chance. He'd been awaiting some sort of confrontation with his son over just about anything, really. When he thought about it, he realized that they did have quite a few things to fight about, all of which stemmed from the same fetid, bleeding root: Francis had adopted a damaged child who may not have wanted salvation.

Matthew's head came back up in a few moments. He brushed his bangs out of his wide eyes and cleared his throat again. The rough, almost ragged noise made Francis wince.

"Well," Matthew finally managed, "Al told me something."

"Mhm?" Francis nodded and raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah." A pause so long Francis thought Matthew was refusing to elaborate. "He told me he didn't finish college."

"Matthew—"

"He dropped out his junior year."

Just like that, as though he'd said nothing at all, Matthew returned to his dinner.

Francis sat still and straight in his chair, weighing his possible responses. Everything seemed as though on a balance with Matthew. Every word, every moment, every damn gesture mattered. One small misstep or careless word, and the scale would tip in the very direction Francis was dying to avoid. Even the sigh that escaped his lips seemed to make Matthew withdraw further within the crumbling, slapdash fortress he'd hastily throw up whenever Francis crossed that invisible line that his son had drawn and that he could never move one way or another. Matthew's boundaries may have looked fragile and last-minute, but Francis knew from experience that time had made them impenetrable.

"Perhaps—perhaps we shouldn't discuss this tonight, Matthew."

The lack of a response on the other end of the small metal table and Matthew's clenched fists served as silent agreement.

The fire burned out into smoldering ashes, but Francis could still feel the heat threatening to explode again.

As an author, Arthur had long since hardened himself to criticism (those fools had no idea what they were talking about) and rejection (they just didn't see his brilliance yet) from his days before his first big publishing contract. He'd learned to ignore such common idiocy. But he hadn't yet learned how to humble himself to spend any more time than necessary near the western half of the IQ bell curve.

These people weren't idiots, he reminded himself as he opened the door to Nineteen-Eighty FOOD.

"Hey, look." Alfred leaned on his broom. "It's an annoying plot twit. Get it?"

Well, perhaps they were. Alfred at least had long since fallen off the peak of the curve.

Arthur probably could have killed him but for recognizing that he was not exactly in the best position to reinjure someone he'd more or less ruined already. Instead, he traced the edge of the menu that Matthew had pushed onto the edge of his table and wondered whom he should give the neatly wrapped parcel he kept at his side in his leather messenger bag. Probably not the creepy frog glaring at him from one of the empty corners of the cafe. Maybe Matthew, ever the awkward teenager, would take it, but he had disappeared, possibly beneath the floorboards or into the bookcase.

Arthur could sympathize. And perhaps he didn't like doing so, but that didn't mean he would get off the piercing hook of guilt that easily.

"So." Alfred meandered over to his table after chatting with the trio sitting at a small table near the window in chairs as old and creaky as the customers lounging in them. Alfred forced a grin; Arthur wanted even more to punch and strangle him, preferably at the same time. "Can I get you anything to eat? Something to drink?"

"Well." Arthur hadn't opened the menu yet, and he'd taken great pains to expunge all memories of those awful food puns from his mind. "Do—do you maybe serve fish and chips?"

Alfred opened his mouth, but the creepy man's voice answered.

"But of course," he said from the corner, arms folded and expression—well, Arthur didn't care much for that expression. "It's our specialty. I'll go prepare it just for you."

"Y'know, we need a pun for that," said Alfred, turning back to Arthur after watching the other man stomp off into the kitchen. "Fish and chips. You're a writer. Help me think of something."

"I would greatly prefer not to."

"Isn't that something from a Melville story? Bartleby the Screwdriver or something?"

"Scrivener. He was a scrivener, thank you very much, and go away."

Alfred shrugged, took his menu, and hurried back to the only other occupied table, which two young men had just joined. Alfred pulled over a chair and sat down next to the old man while practically shoving a book into one of the women's faces and blabbering about something. Arthur couldn't quite make out what, not because Alfred whispered but because he spoke so quickly, an ebullient spring of excitement and energy. Even Matthew, who had emerged in a booth across the cafe with a book and glass of water, looked over his shoulder and smiled as the woman made some remark that put Alfred in stitches, wiping tears from behind his glasses and doubling over with guffaws.

With their glasses and builds and blond hair, the two boys could have been brothers but for the enormous contrast in their personalities, Arthur thought. He wondered how the three of them had banded together to create something as offensive to good taste as this cafe. He hated this part of authorhood sometimes: getting all caught up in mundane, even strange stories that swirled together around him, weaving their webs to grab his thoughts for any length of time from the swiftest of moments to his entire life. As a person, he had developed a talent for snipping those thin threads before they could entangle him for long; as an author, he filtered them out and picked the worthy tales for his books. He wrote only the best. The critics had come to expect that from him.

The clatter of a plate against the tabletop rather rudely yanked Arthur from the party he'd been throwing himself in his mind. The frog stood beside him, looking both angry and pleased with himself, pointing to a mess of tuna clearly dumped from a can on top of crumbled potato chips likely poured from the bottom of an empty Lays bag. Both Matthew and Alfred and even the three old customers stared.

"You asked for fish and chips?"

"Francis, I don't think..." Alfred hurried over, hands held up and mouth twisted.

Arthur sat staring at the plate while Alfred tried to figure out whether the "chips" were supposed to be French fries or potato chips, stuttering something about how Francis should know because he was French and that had something to do with French fries and English food, right?

"No, Alfred, I'm pretty sure this is correct." Francis smiled. "Besides, Arthur likes it. Doesn't he?"

Alfred chuckled, his face going red. For someone who had the gall to call Arthur and dub him a sexually repressed porcupine and an alcoholic caterpillar, he had embarrassment scribbled all over his face. Arthur had half a mind to blow Alfred over and stab Francis with his fork.

He folded his napkin in his lap.

"You see, Alfred—"—Arthur picked up his fork and took a deep breath at what he was about to do—"—Francis is absolutely right."

Arthur took a mouthful of the sob-worthy bastardization of English cuisine.

"I do indeed like it."

Francis's grin widened.

Alfred's jaw dropped.

Matthew's book hit the floor, though that probably had more to do with the flung-opened front door and the man running over the threshold cackling and brandishing a gun.

At the intruder's proclamation that this was a stick-up and that he needed all the money in the joint that moment, Arthur jumped to his feet, ready to push past Francis and find a way to take down the intruder. Instead of stepping aside to let him through, Alfred shrugged and rolled his eyes and muttered something about more annoying plot twits before running behind the bar and taking out—Arthur's eyes widened; where had California been when civilization had finally started to reach the United States?—a gun of his own.

"Sure thing." He pointed his gun at the crouching man. "You'll just have to get through me first."

Arthur braced himself for explosive gunfire and the acrid burn of gunpowder in his nostrils. He even bent over a little, ready to run into the fray if needed. He didn't particularly feel like wasting the rest of his career and wisdom on a sudden death, but he didn't plan on running away, either. Arthur Kirkland considered himself a brave man.

Given how he shoved Arthur back down in the general direction of his seat and sat down on the tabletop with a grumble, Francis didn't exactly seem to agree with Arthur's flashy self-portrait. Why he hadn't jumped to protect Matthew, Arthur couldn't decide. He was just planning out his own route behind the bar past the door to the kitchen and toward the other half of the cafe when the intruder fired and hit Alfred square in the chest.

"Aw, c'mon man, that's completely unfair," he said, staring down at his soaked shirtfront.

"What, that I'm faster than you?" The man laughed. "That's kinda your own damn problem, Al."

He fired again, hitting Alfred's glasses this time, eliciting a groan and a, "That's it, I'm definitely gonna kill you for this, Gilbert."

Arthur's eyebrows knitted into a hairy mustache over his eyes in utter flabbergastation as Matthew picked up his book and continued reading, the old man cheered Alfred on, and arcs of water shot across the cafe and hit the floor with loud bullet-like pitter-patters.

"What in the bloody hell—"

"And that would be Gilbert Beilschmidt," said Francis, leaning back onto his hands and watching Alfred tackle the man and get thrown into a wall in retaliation. "He does this, oh, maybe about once a week. He tried to do it during rushes, but a taser and trip to jail put an end to that."

Gilbert pinned Alfred to the wall and emptied his water gun in his face.

"I win. Bow to the almighty awesome me."

"Get off me, asshole." Alfred wiped his glasses on his still-sopping shirt and, grumbling, put a hand to his side. "Or who knows, maybe Arthur Kirkland over there'll call the police on you again. And, y'know, personally make sure Antonio won't bail you out this time."

"You mean the Arthur Kirkland? The pretentious jackass who makes more than twice a year sneezing and puking up nonsense onto a piece of paper than I do slaving away at my vitally important job every day?"

"Gilbert, you sell used furniture on Craigslist."

"Yeah, but at least I don't do stupid things like ruin my own business while drunk."

"Sounds like they're talking about you," said Francis, swinging his legs, pushing himself off the table, and mirthlessly smirking at Arthur. "Better go see what mess you've made now."

Arthur watched with narrowed eyes as the three men continued chatting beside the bar. In the corner, Matthew finally managed to turn a page of his paperback. He was a bit of an odd kid.

Arthur set down his fork after his final bite of cold, tinny tuna and crisps—certainly not chips, as Alfred had insisted he call them—that were an offense to all things English. He picked up his parcel and started walking over to Matthew's table. He'd be the most likely to accept it. Out of all of them, he had to have the most taste.

He had just reached the boy's booth and was clearing his throat when Alfred began to whine in the most pathetic tone Arthur had ever had the sheer misfortune of hearing.

"Come on, Gilbert," he said, clinking a teaspoon against the ice in the glass he was mixing. "I know it's been a few months, but man, we were doing so good until, well—yeah."

"Until you screwed up and drunk-dialed Mr. Too-Good-For-Craigslist here?" Gilbert pointed to Arthur, making Matthew jerk his head up from his book.

While Alfred hemmed and hawed his way through an embarrassed explanation—"We had gotten so busy because of—well, because of him—that I just lost it for one moment. We were doing so well; you saw it, man"—Arthur cleared his throat again and waved to Matthew.

"Hello."

The teenager flinched just the tiniest bit, his movements so slight Arthur almost missed them.

"Hi." He swallowed. "Do you need something?"

"Not particularly, no." Arthur smiled. "I just wanted to see what you were reading. You seem quite sucked into it."

Matthew held up his book and sat up a bit straighter in his chair. "It's Alice in Wonderland."

"That's an excellent book." Without waiting for permission from Matthew, Arthur sat down across from him and set his parcel down on the table between them. "What do you like best about it?"

"Well, I don't really know. I guess I just like the craziness of it all. It has so many weird things going on all at once."

"Quite right." Arthur folded his hands on the table. Matthew relaxed a little and set his book down, one finger inside the dog-eared, worn pages to mark his place. "Do you read it often?"

"Every night before I go to sleep. But I've never finished it."

Arthur frowned and was about to ask why anyone would ever leave a book unfinished when Alfred's whine cut him off. No, it wasn't exactly a whine. That wasn't the right word, Arthur decided. More of a plea, pathetic as it struck him.

"You haven't given me enough time. Just a little longer. I can fix this, really."

"The same way you fixed the overcrowding problem?"

"Okay, that was low."

All the same, Alfred put down the drink he'd mixed for himself. Gilbert took a swig of his frothy gold beverage with a grin. Francis remained silent.

"What's he doing here, anyway?" Arthur asked Matthew, who didn't seem to share Arthur's interest in the conversation at the bar. "Besides pretending to rob the place. And doing a poor job of that, I might add."

"Gilbert? He and Alfred made a bet that wound up opening this café. I think they were both pretty drunk. As per usual."

"That wouldn't surprise me. What did they bet?"

"If Alfred runs this place successfully, Gilbert will call him his superior for life. And there's something about making out with Al's shoes, too." Matthew wrinkled his nose. "Now, if Al loses—"

"—Dude, it's not even like you get anything if I lose. Knock it off."

"—Well, they were so drunk when they made the bet that Gilbert forgot to make sure he got something if Alfred lost. Except self-satisfaction, I guess."

"Matthew," said Arthur, pursing his lips, "I'm sure you know this, but you have fallen in with some very odd people."

He shrugged, palms raised toward the ceiling, and said nothing.

Behind the bar, Alfred had lowered his voice and bent over, resting on his forearms, whispering something to Gilbert that Arthur couldn't hear. He hated himself for it, but he couldn't help worrying about that damn prick, much as that concern really rather sucked. Deep down, he knew that despite all the blame Alfred was clearly shouldering, he was responsible, too. Both for the cafe's wild success and its subsequent downfall.

Arthur took a long look at Matthew's copy of Alice in Wonderland and then looked all around the room. Then, he remembered. When he had first come in that night, sopping and grumpy and needing nothing more than a place to write, he had thought right away of his favorite Hemingway story, "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place." Of course, the cafe hadn't been all that clean until Alfred had finished his haphazard job of mopping and sweeping, and even then it hadn't sparkled. But it had been well-lighted.

And, he thought as he looked at Matthew's pink face, it had been safe. With its creaky floorboards and mismatched books and smell of fruit and Windex, the cafe had sheltered all of them. And him, too. (Arthur didn't like including himself with the lunatics who ran the place. Refuge or not, it had its fair share of kooks, as one glance at the trio at the bar reminded him.) It sheltered him from the rain with its lights shining into the shadows of a foggy street and its quiet calm in the darkening twilight that late summer night. It seemed like another world entirely, separate from the rest of Sacramento. It stayed open, lit, in the midst of the changing and hastening night engulfing the rest of the city.

He too was one of those who liked to stay late at the cafe.

"I'll be right back, Matthew." Arthur rose and walked toward the bar without glancing back to gauge the boy's reaction. He figured he could trust him with his messenger bag and parcel.

Alfred gave him a funny look that morphed into a half-smile.

"I forgot you were still here," he said. "I'll give you your check in a sec. Hey, that rhymes."

"No need." Arthur took his wallet out of his pocket and slid a crisp $50 bill across the counter to Alfred. "No, shut up, don't say anything. You'll make it worse."

Gilbert guffawed.

"Dude, you could totally get this place up and running again just with donations from this sucker." He tipped his glass toward Arthur and stifled a sequence of giggles.

"Stop. We don't need any of Mr. Kirkland's charity." Francis let each word snap like a lash from his clenched teeth. "In fact, we really don't need any more of Mr. Kirkland himself."

"I don't think I'd like any more of you, either," said Arthur, pushing the bill back toward Alfred, who had set it back down with a confused stare. "But look, part of this really is my fault, too. And at least I have enough maturity to admit that."

"Look, no one's denying blame here—"

"Yes, Alfred is actually at fault."

"—Thanks for that, Francis. But I really think it's better if you go, Arthur." Alfred's face twisted into a sad half-smile. "We'll—I'll—figure this out on my own."

"Damn right you will." Gilbert scoffed. "Good luck getting yourself out of this one. How are you going to win Sacramento's Best New Restaurant without customers?"

"We'll figure it out, Gilbert. We still have time. I can go through the apartment complex advertising to my neighbors—"

"Wait." Arthur held up a hand and paused for a second to think. "Are you offering that as a last chance on the bet? If Alfred wins that, he wins the bet?"

"How did you figure that one out, Prickly Pants?"

"I liked this place better when we only had dead writers," said Francis with a sigh and eye roll.

"Look," said Arthur, hoping Gilbert's remark had nothing to do with Alfred's oh-so-brilliant porcupine quip. The idiot in question tapped his finger against the fifty and glanced over at Arthur, who felt the familiar knotting of his stomach. He wasn't sure how, but he had developed a talent for getting himself into these situations. Apparently, the two of them shared a gift for fucking up. That would probably explain why he had to care about that arsehole. "I probably can't draw crowds again, but I can do something at least. I'll work here. I'll help. I'll do advertising or whatever you need."

"No way." Francis crossed his arms. "Someone will call the health inspectors on your eyebrows."

Alfred tried and failed to smother his laughter.

"That'd make this more interesting. Al, that's officially part of the conditions. You have to hire Prickly Pants to help you win the award. Take it or leave it."

He finished off the rest of his drink and slammed the glass down on the counter, making Alfred wince.

"And, y'know, since this guy overpaid so much—surely you wouldn't mind just sticking my shandy on his tab, right?"

"Nice try." Alfred held out his hand. "It's only five bucks with a tip. You have to make at least that much off your dumpster finds."

"They're not dumpster finds. They're lost treasures."

Still, Gilbert slapped the five into Alfred's hand, picked up his jacket with a chortle and "Good luck, sucker," and left.

"Well," said Alfred, turning to Arthur and tucking both bills into his back pocket, "I guess you're hired. That's the only way we're going to win this thing. I'll see you at eight-thirty tomorrow morning."

Francis put his head in his hand. Matthew stared from the booth, still motionless, finger still in his book. Arthur walked back to him, pushing the parcel into his hands and picking up his bag.

"Keep that," he said with a smile and pat on the tabletop. "You're probably the only one worth giving it to."

As Arthur walked out of the cafe, gripping his bag and wondering what the hell he'd gotten himself into and why he had to be a responsible, mature, wise adult, he heard the old man at the back table call to Alfred, "That's it—we'll show that knucklehead Gilbert. Fight him like a Roman, Alfred. Crush him like I did Hannibal in the Punic Wars."

"Brother," said one of the young men, "doesn't it worry you that Grandpa thinks he fought in the Punic Wars?"

"No," the other said, "what worries me is that Alfred thinks Grandpa fought in the Punic Wars."