“I’ll have a half-dozen of the steamed pork and chive, and a half-dozen of the fried spinach and black mushroom. I’ll also take an order of Shanghai noodles and the egg drop soup.” Renly didn’t even bother glancing at the menu as he ordered from his place at the row of stools along the counter. He had long since memorized his favourite items, and had decided on his order while he’d still been parking his car outside the restaurant.
This place was one of Renly’s few favourite haunts, places that he’d discovered since his move to the states. It was cheap, authentic, and out of the way enough that he could show up at nine p.m. on a Tuesday and get seated right away, with sand on his sandaled feet and curly hair still damp from the ocean. He held a mug of oolong tea in his hands and sipped at it slowly, not caring that it burnt his tongue a little.
He was lonely, that much was obvious. Since Robert had found him on the net, he still hadn’t managed to find out much information about what his older brother had been up to while he was steadfastly ignoring or avoiding Renly and the rest of their family, beyond what was printed in the tabloids. Predictably, those sources had not proven very helpful. Frustrated and hungry, he’d decided that he should at least satisfy one of those urges if he could.