Jason is the only person in the waiting room when the two guys enter. As the door opens, he looks up from the magazine he isn’t reading and almost smiles because the first guy is a kid his own age, early twenties, with a shock of bleached hair hanging in front of his face. But when he shakes his head, throwing the hair aside, Jason sees the hard green gaze staring him down and his smile dies.
The kid steps into the room and stops, the way a prospective buyer steps into a run-down apartment and studies his surroundings—with an air of vague disgust, as if one can’t possibly believe he might be interested in this place. He takes in the overstuffed furniture in muted pastel hues that hint at color, the leafy potted plants in the corners, the low wooden tables covered in old issues of People
