There are so many things she wouldn't dream of telling people at home, but each time she floats something to him that would send other people into fits of pity or disgust, he nods and it's as easy as that.

She toys with her hair, putting it in a braid and unbraiding it, because otherwise her hands will find something else to do. "I was a runaway junkie living on the beach. I had a lot of stoner friends I'd surf with or crash on their couches, if they had 'em. I was that for a long time. What about you?"

What was he before he was, from what she's gathered, a very powerful cook? (His story brought that home for her. They don't send you to Mexico to teach meth unless you're something different than the twitchy dealers she had known.)