Chapter 2: The Bad Meal

Thursday lunch was a tradition that had started before Evan even worked there — a handful of guys from the warehouse and the front office walking two blocks to the diner on Fifth, the kind of place that still wrote the specials on a whiteboard in blue marker and never once got the apostrophes right. Grant came along most weeks when he wasn’t traveling, less because he needed the company and more, Evan suspected, because it was good for morale to see the boss’s son eating a patty melt like everybody else.

They’d claimed the same booth for years, apparently, judging by how Danny from receiving and Marcus from the front office slid into their seats without even glancing at the room, like their bodies just knew where to go. Evan was still new enough to the ritual that he hesitated a half-second before sitting, waiting for someone to tell him he’d taken somebody’s spot. Nobody did.

“Catfish special,” Grant said, reading off the board, “which nobody should ever order on a Thursday. Thursday fish is Monday fish that didn’t sell.”

“You don’t know that,” said Danny from receiving.

“I absolutely know that. I worked here two summers stocking the walk-in before Dad decided I was better suited for a desk. Thursday fish is a crime against the consumer.” Grant clapped Evan on the shoulder as they slid into the booth. “Get the burger. Trust me.”

“I’ve had the burger every week for a month.”

“Because the burger’s good every week for a month. That’s the whole point of a burger.”

Evan didn’t get the burger. He got the catfish, mostly to prove a point, mostly because Danny was grinning at him like he’d already lost the argument and Evan wasn’t in the mood to lose two things in one lunch. Marcus ordered the same thing, unbothered, and Grant made a show of scooting an inch away from both of them on the bench, saying he wanted no part of whatever was about to happen.