keep Shawn talking.

“It’s a puzzle,” Shawn said. His words came in abrupt, choppy sentences. “It’s a mystery. Solving a mystery.” He looked away again; eye contact seemed difficult for him to maintain. “I like solving mysteries.”

Okay. Well, good. “I like mysteries,” Ryan offered. “I watch a lot of crime drama shows. Figuring out who did it, how, why.” For a split second there, Shawn had lit up, and Ryan had to find a way to get that smile back; he had to see that smile again.

“I watch TV,” Shawn said. “While I’m grading papers. I watch ‘Law and Order.’ ‘Murder, She Wrote.’”

“I love ‘Law and Order,’” Ryan said. They were getting somewhere! “Do you watch ‘Cold Case Files?’”

Shawn shook his head, rubbing his temple with his thumb. “I don’t watch TV about real people.”

Ryan waited for lightning to strike. “You don’t watch reality TV?”

“There are enough real people in real life,” Shawn said.

Well…true. Sometimes it was nice to escape into fiction, where the human suffering was a little less real.

“What,” Shawn glanced at him and then at the cup of sweetener packets, “what do you do?”

Oh. “I’m a hairdresser.”

Shawn glanced at Ryan’s hair.

“I didn’t style that,” Ryan said. “Tim did.” Ryan was great when it came to everyone else’s hair and sucked with his own.

“You work with Tim?” Shawn asked.

“Yeah. He’s my best friend.”

“He’s nice,” Shawn said.

“He’s perfect,” Ryan said.

“He’s very friendly,” Shawn admitted. That seemed to bother him a little, which made Ryan smile.

“Mr. Abbott?” A young woman just out of her teens came to their table with a hesitant smile. “Mr. Abbott, I’m Rachel Jorgensen, I was in your class a few years ago.”

“Miss Jorgensen,” Shawn said, quickly getting to his feet and shaking her hand.“ You got an A minus in algebra two. You would have had an A plus if you’d spent less time passing notes about Mr. Gorham with Miss Page.”

“I’m sorry,” she said with a happy smile, not sounding sorry at all. “I can’t believe you remember me. You were my favorite teacher.”

“You were an excellent scholar,” he told her. “You had very neat penmanship.”

She laughed, and it was obvious that she really did like Shawn. “I’m sorry,” she said, with a quick glance at Ryan. “I’m interrupting.”

Shawn rubbed his thumb over his temple. “Miss Jorgensen, Mr. Gillian. Ryan Gillian. Mr. Ryan Gillian.”

“Ryan,” Ryan said, shaking her hand. “He was your favorite teacher?” he asked.

“Mr. Abbott was everybody’s favorite teacher,” she said. “We all loved him.”

“You were all fond of math?” Ryan asked with a skeptical smile.

She laughed. “No, we all hated math. But Mr. Abbott loved it so much, we tried to do well for his sake.”

“Don’t do well for my sake,” Shawn muttered to himself, putting his hands in his pockets. “Do-”

“‘Do well for your own sake,’” she finished with him, smiling. “I’d better go,” she said, looking toward the front of the restaurant. “It was nice to meet you,” she told Ryan. “It was great to see you again, Mr. Abbott.”

“Miss Jorgensen,” Shawn said, shaking her hand again.

She