Chapter1
LARK
Running a small-town diner takes exactly three things: a griddle that doesn’t quit, coffee strong enough to resurrect the dead, and the God-given ability to keep a straight face when someone claims their neighbor’s husband’s vasectomy “reversed itself.” Again.
I’ve got all three this morning—coffee, chaos, and barely-there patience. Most days, it’s a toss-up which one holds out the longest.
The Bluebell hums with history. You can feel it in the walls, in the way the windows fog up when the griddle gets going, in the scent of cinnamon sugar and overcooked hash browns that never quite leaves. It’s got plates that don’t match, forks that bend too easy, and a corner booth that’s heard more confessions than a priest. The cushions still remember the weight of every ass that sat too long waiting for pie, and they’ve got the attitude to prove it.
It smells like home.
Not the glossy kind. The real kind.
Burnt toast. Bad decisions. Something sweet cooling on the counter since sunrise. Whatever Dawn scorched yesterday lingering in the air like a memory no one wants to name.
The place runs too cold in the winter, too hot in the summer, and the coffee pot makes noises like it’s dying slowly but refuses togive up out of spite. There’s still a dent in the counter from when one of the local cowboys dropped a can of peaches back in ‘98. No one’s fixed it. We’ve just learned to work around it.
Honestly? That might be the most accurate metaphor for this whole damn diner.
It’s a little busted. A little stubborn.
But it’s mine.
I’ve made a few changes—new fry baskets, some upgraded appliances—but most of it? Still exactly how Alice left it. The keys were in a drawer. The deed had my name. Still don’t know how I earned it, but here I am anyway.
It’s just past six, that quiet stretch of morning where the town hasn’t shaken itself fully awake yet. The sky’s still edged in lavender, like it hasn’t made up its mind about the day. The neon sign over at Scooter’s General flickers half-heartedly to life and I can smell woodsmoke from a few ranches down the road.
My hands smell like yeast and old coffee grounds. I’m wearing a faded T-shirt that says Bite Me with a cartoon waffle flipping the bird.
I’m living the dream. Or something like it.
Dawn barrels through the kitchen door like the building owes her money. Cherry red hair piled on top of her head, lipstick to match, and a scowl sharp enough to slice through drywall. She doesn’t bother with a good morning—just grabs an apron off the hook like she’s been summoned by the gods of underpaid labor, then snatches a mug from the stack and holds it out.
“Coffee,” she barks, like it’s both a demand and a warning.
I don’t argue, I just fill it. Because caffeine is the only thing standing between Dawn and someone’s soul getting eviscerated before sunrise.
She takes a long sip, sighs like the caffeine just saved her life, and levels me with a look over the rim. “You look like shit.”
“Thanks.”
“You sleep?”
“Define sleep.”
She hums. “Was it the sexy kind of insomnia or the spiraling-into-an-existential-crisis kind?”
“You ask too many questions for six a.m.”
She shrugs. “I ask because I care. Also because it’s entertaining. Your misery fuels me.”
I flip her off. She grins and sips her coffee like I just paid her a compliment.
To be fair, she’s not wrong. I barely slept. Spent half the night convincing myself that a spreadsheet could solve a financial crisis if I just stared at it hard enough. The other half went to watching freezer repair tutorials on YouTube like I was earning a degree in mechanical engineering.
But that’s a problem for Future Me. Present Me has cinnamon rolls to plate, eggs to scramble, and a minor breakdown to schedule for sometime around three if the lunch rush doesn’t kill me first.
Finn breezes by with a tub of silverware clutched to his chest, singing off-key like the main character in a musical no one asked for. Nineteen, bleach-blond, perpetually running on Red Bull and vibes. He thinks the early shift is beneath him, and he’s not wrong—but he also likes being able to afford gas and vape pods, so here we are.
