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that? I was trying to impress him—”
    “Well, I bet he’s very impressed. Hurry back, Adam. You have”—Rico could imagine the vague hand waving—“ networking to do.”
    Oh that was it! Rico stood up, fully prepared to stomp back inside and bully the nice candymaker into telling him how in the holy hell he knew all this shit, when Adam scurried out, a little confection bag in his hand.
    “How—but—I—”
    Adam shook his head. “Don’t ask,” he muttered. “C’mon. After Darrin, Finn’s dad should be a cakewalk.”
    Finn’s dad turned out to be a nice middle-aged man with graying ginger hair and his son’s sweet smile. Sure, Rico could sit down and use one of his boardwalk café tables to work. Yeah, no problem, if he got tired, Mr. Stewart would be thrilled to let him use the bed upstairs. Would Adam’s cousin like a coffee? Some beignets? Absolutely—on the house!
    Adam tried to protest, of course, but Finn’s dad laughed directly in his face and sent him on his way with a hearty slap on the back and a reminder of some sort of get-together after finals.
    Adam left, and Rico sat down at a table near the outside wall, unfolded his laptop, and got ready for some peace.
    And was surprised when he got it—at least twenty minutes of it—while Finn’s dad and a younger woman who looked a lot like Finn worked behind the counter. Together, they got breakfast sandwiches, hash browns, and coffee not only for people who were shopping in the Old Sacramento tourist trap but for people who had come through the tunnel from K Street before they started their office jobs.
    Rico spent the time finding Wi-Fi and hitting up the want ads and headhunters in the area, looking for some job leads. Until he’d taken his plane tickets out for the trip home, he hadn’t realized Old Man Kellerman had also sent him some top-flight references—and the inclusion of those three letters on company letterhead sent an unmistakable message. Kellerman wouldn’t keep him from getting another job—as long as it was elsewhere.
    Which, as Rico breathed in the flowers from the open green areas across the street (and exhaust from the freeway overhead) on what was an admittedly beautiful mild spring day in Sacramento, was actually both generous and smart.
    Rico was on the other side of the country, and he wasn’t desperate. He could get another job. Why would he make trouble for Ezra and Kellerman’s Fine Fabrics if he wasn’t trapped like a rat in a cage?
    So he got his résumé in order and started looking for likely fits and job interviews, and was actually really pleased when Finn’s dad came and sat down across from him, offering a large mocha and beignets.
    “I’m going to have to take over dog-walking duty,” Rico laughed after biting into a beignet. “Your family is trying to make me fat and you barely even know me.”
    Mr. Stewart laughed, the lines at his eyes crinkling, which meant he did that a lot. “Yeah, but we know Adam, and he’s a top-notch guy. He can’t say enough good things about you, so, you know, welcome to the family.”
    Rico’s breath caught and a sudden ache opened up in his chest, like an infection had been festering there and he hadn’t known until just now. “Thanks,” he said quietly. “That’s… that’s really nice of you.”
    “I, uhm, take it this isn’t the sort of welcome you’d expect from your own family?”
    Rico looked at this nice man and thought of his own father, who worked long days and came home at eight at night in suit and tie and read the paper until nine. His mother waited on him—brought him dinner, sat at the table quietly, waiting for him to feed her crumbs of conversation—and Rico tiptoed by the kitchen, hoping the old man would ignore him completely, much like he’d done when Rico was a child.
    His mother, Lydia, had eaten in the kitchen with Rico when he was a kid, which sounded cozy, like it should have been the two of them, and often it was. Except Rico