Hudson sighs like I’m the emotional burden he never asked for—which is rich coming from someone who still leaves peanut butter fingerprints on the fridge handles like it’s his signature.
Behind me, a plate hits the pass-through with a clatter sharp enough to make my spine straighten. Scrambled eggs, served with a side of judgment.
Opal.
She doesn’t need to announce herself. She is the announcement. The air shifts the second she steps into the room—like the diner knows better than to screw around when she’s behind the grill. Her plates always land with the kind of precision that says she’s proud of them…and also personally offended that someone had the audacity to order food this early.
“Order up,” she calls, wiping her hands on her apron like the eggs just insulted her mother. “And Lark? If you don’t get Finn to shut the hell up with that Backstreet Boys pop shit, I will drop a skillet on his foot. Accidentally. On purpose.”
I glance toward the kitchen, where Finn’s voice—high, nasal, deeply committed—is currently mauling a boy band ballad that should’ve stayedburied with low-rise jeans and bedazzled belt buckles.
I sigh, loudly. “Finn.”
His bleach-blond head pops into view like a whack-a-mole. “Yeah, boss?”
“I warned you.”
“You’re stifling my creative expression.”
“You’re about to be stifling your limp if Opal follows through.”
He mutters something about hostile work environments and disappears again, presumably to butcher another early 2000s classic.
Hudson, unfazed by the chaos, licks frosting off his fingers like he’s got nowhere else to be and slides off the stool. “I’m gonna go watch my movie.”
He wanders toward the back like he hasn’t just inhaled half a dozen cinnamon rolls and makes himself at home in the office—aka the sacred cave where my ancient fifteen-inch TV still manages to play his scratched-upSpider-Man: No Way HomeDVD without glitching into static.
I don’t even have to look.
I can hear the music swell, the whoosh of web-slinging, the soft thud of a landing he’s watched a hundred times but still reacts to like it’s brand new. He’ll come out later, eyes wide, and tell me some small, irrelevant plot detail like it’s breaking news. I’ll act surprised. Like I haven’t heard it sixteen times before.
That’s the job.
And honestly? I love the hell out of it.
By 7:30, the diner is mayhem with a rhythm. Plates clatter, elbows fly, the coffee pot makes that dying-walrus sound again. I move through it on instinct—refilling mugs, dodging bacon grease, stepping over the old ranch dog that somehow keeps sneaking in like he owns stock in the place.
The regulars are already parked in their usual spots, treating it like a bingo hall no one ever wins and no one ever leaves. Somebody’s arguing over cattle feed. Someone else is pretending not to listen while absolutely listening.
Delores Nash is at her usual post at the counter. Bedazzled jean jacketdu jour, notebook labeledTOWN BUSINESSin thick black Sharpie. Delores believes in three things: Jesus, decaf after noon, and knowing your secrets before you do.
In the corner booth, we’ve got Shirley and Harold Fitzpatrick—sixty-two years of marriage and sixty-one years of mutual loathing. They’re locked in mortal combat over a crossword puzzle, as per usual. Shirley won’t wear her damn glasses. Harold won’t let her guess if she can’t see the clues. They once had a screaming match over aJeopardy!rerun so intense their daughter had to come drag them out before Mabel threw them both in the alley like old produce.
At the front table, Buck and Jed Wheeler, twin brothers in their late seventies, are engaged in a silent war of stubbornness. Jed ordered apple pie for breakfast just to spite Buck, who has been insisting that “pie before noon is the devil’s work” for as long as anyone can remember. Neither of them speaks about the ongoing battle, but every morning, Jed eats his pie extra slow and makes sure Buck sees every bite.
They come in, order the same thing they always do, and talk—about whose cow got into whose yard, whether the preacher’s wife really got Botox, and why the mayor still refuses to fix that pothole on the south road that’s been eating truck tires since the Clinton administration.
Most of Summit Springs revolves around ranching in one way or another. Cattle, quarter horses, sheep—livestock auctions that bring in buyers from all over the state. If you’re not running a ranch, you’re working on one, and if you’re not working on one, you probably sell something to the people who do. Which means the Bluebell is more than just a diner. It’s a second home to a whole lot of men who wake up before the sun, spend the early morning working in dust and sweat, and come in looking for black coffee and a plate big enough to make up for skipping dinner the night before.
Most mornings, the place is full of them—ranch hands, foremen, guys who pull up in trucks still coated in dirt from the day before. Their boots are heavy against the floorboards, and their hats are tipped low like they’re trying to recover from the early hours. They take their coffee strong and their eggs runny. They talk in short sentences, in nods and grunts, inlanguage that doesn’t require much beyond an eyebrow raise and a shake of the head.
Right now, there’s a pack of them lined up at the counter—mud-streaked jeans, sunburned necks, ball caps pulled low. They’re flipping through the classifieds like they’re gonna find something in there they haven’t seen a hundred times before.
The Bluebell gets the ranchers early. Before the sun’s even fully up. Their trucks idle out front, trailers still hitched, dust still fresh on the tires. They come in quiet, shoulders heavy with the kind of work most people don’t understand unless they’ve lived it.
The hands roll in later—mid-morning, after they’ve already put in six hours and a busted fence. They’re louder, younger, smell more like sweat and ambition than coffee and age. They pile into booths or line the counter, wolfing down food like it’s fuel—which it is—and then they’re gone, like they were never here in the first place.
By noon, it’s a mix.
