Corinne considered joining her but fell back asleep before she could decide. After another hour of sleep, she pulled on the first dress she could find from a pile on the floor and trudged upstairs to the bar for breakfast. The tables were populated with the morning crowd of those who worked daylight hours for Johnny. Most were groggily clutching white mugs of coffee. A few were eating from the breakfast spread on the sidebar. Gabriel was at a corner table—alone, predictably enough. The Cast Iron crew was slow to trust and even slower to pleasant chitchat. Corinne sighed to herself, then loaded up a plate with eggs and toast and joined him. “Sleep well?” she asked. He just looked at her. His short brown hair was as disheveled as it had been the night before, though every part of his attire, from his plain collared shirt to his pressed black trousers, was fastidiously neat. “That’s called a question,” Corinne said when he didn’t reply. “In polite society, it involves an answer.”
