“Marshal, I––”
“Just Eli is good,” I assured her.
She stretched for my hand, and I leaned forward and squeezed gently.
Later, I was talking, not paying attention, when I reached for something small—of course it was small—with foam on my plate. Cel stopped me with a hand on my thigh, at the same time gesturing for one of the servers.
“This is crab,” he told her softly. “Neither of us can have this.”
“Oh, yes, I––I’m so––”
“It’s fine,” Cel soothed her. “Just bring us the vegetarian option, please.”
The server took both plates.
Another woman motioned for hers to be taken away as well. “I wasn’t sure what that was, so thank you. I’m allergic to shellfish.”
“You’re welcome,” Cel told her.
“So no shellfish for either of you?” Kathleen asked, bypassing me, leaning forward so she could speak to Cel, which was sort of funny.
“For me, no animals of any kind,” he explained gently. “But for him”—he slid his hand down my bicep to my hand, which he took and held—“no pork or shellfish, as well as no mixing dairy and meat in one meal. The foam on that was cream. Even if it were steak, the dairy was a no-go.”
“I don’t––”
“For example, no chicken with cream sauce, no cheeseburgers.”
“Ew,” she said, clearly disgusted, probably by the cheeseburger part.
“But fish and eggs are considered pareve, so he can eat them as part of a meat meal or a dairy meal. A tuna sandwich with cheese would be fine.”
“I have a lot of Jewish friends, but the food thing doesn’t normally come up.”
“Well, maybe they’re nonobservant and don’t follow the dietary restrictions, in which case it probably wouldn’t come up.”
“That’s true,” she agreed.
“At home and at our favorite place, since the meat is kosher, he’s fine. But when we’re out, for him, it’s easier to stick with veggies and fish.”
I liked him explaining my dietary restrictions. I felt cared for. He was way more on top of things than I was, but my mother was the one who’d educated him, so it wasn’t a surprise.
“Then why was the crab a problem?”
“Shellfish, like shrimp and crab, is not fish,” the woman across from her clarified kindly, and Kathleen laughed at herself. After the woman and the mayor’s daughter shared some quick words, Kathleen turned to Cel. “I just sawRomeo and Julieta few months back,” she said, beaming at him. “Your Mercutio was phenomenal.”
“Thank you so much,” he told her, and I squeezed his knee under the table.
“My daughter wanted to throw her panties on the stage, but I said that wasnotappropriate.”
Cel laughed then, and everyone looked because it was a great sound, warm and effusive. When I glanced at Senan, though, I was surprised at the anger I saw on his face. It was more than jealousy, it was actual hate, and I put my arm back around Cel’s chair, feeling like I had to protect him from how Senan was glaring at him.
Later, when I got up to use the bathroom, on my way back, Senan stopped me in the hallway, staring at me with…I wasn’t sure what. It certainly wasn’t anger; more like he was annoyed about something.
I waited.
Senan cleared his throat. “I’m sorry I was rude to you this afternoon. I had no idea you were a federal marshal.”
Odd apology. As though, if I weren’t a marshal, I wouldn’t have gotten the admission of guilt. But because I was in law enforcement, he didn’t want to piss me off. “Okay.”