“Come with me.”
“It sounds like it might be fun, interesting,” Shannon said, “but Max has a soccer game and–”
Morgan Tugabatti gave Shannon the look and tapped the top of Shannon’s hand as though she didn’t already have her attention.
“Let me rephrase that: You have to come with me. I can’t do it without you.”
Shannon squinted.
“Morg…” (Shannon always thought it was kind of funny that her best friend was a successful horror novelist and she called her ‘Morg’) “I really can’t help with a real estate deal. Be serious.”
Morgan Lyle Tugabatti- ML Batti to readers across the globe- flagged down the server.
“Eddie, can you wrap her bottle of wine to go?”
***
Shannon and Morgan walked down the Riverwalk, Shannon sipping wine out of a plastic cup that Shannon thought Morgan had overtipped their server for, Morgan devouring a raspado she got from a vendor by the transit center.
“I have a secret,” Morgan said, as Shannon watched a couple near the fountain crane their necks, recognizing the pseudonymous author.
“I’ve probably bored you to tears with tales of summers with Grampa Shadow.”
Shannon smiled. “Lots of stories, most of them not boring.”
“I don’t talk about Grampa Tugboat very often.”
“No, not really.”
Shannon felt a tiny bit of trepidation rise in her gut. She could tell Morgan was about to recount a painful memory, otherwise they’d still be in the air-conditioned restaurant.
“Grampa Tugboat was almost the opposite of Grampa Shadow. He worked at a little die-making joint on Plymouth Rd, they called him Tugboat there, obviously a bastardization of Tugabatti.”
Shannon sipped her wine, thinking it was probably the first time wine this expensive was enjoyed from a plastic cup.
“He was a good guy,” Morgan said, “ just pretty normal compared to Shadow with all his sculptures and creative projects, and of course the piece of fuselage.”
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