The coffee shop was Daniel’s choice, and when Lucas described it to me later I understood exactly why.
Formica tables. A handwritten specials board. The faint smell of something that had been baked several hours ago and was now doing its best. The kind of place that existed specifically so that people who would never normally sit in a coffee shop could sit in one without being recognized. Lucas said he walked in, looked around, and said nothing. Daniel was already at a corner table with two coffees ordered without asking, because Daniel always ordered without asking and was always correct, which Lucas admitted was one of his more useful qualities.
I was not there. That was the arrangement. This meeting was Daniel and Lucas, and I had been told, with the particular firmness both of them u
