Page 183 of In Somnis

I’ll think about it later.

I’m panting when I hit the reception, which is not a great look, and I’m already composing the apology to Simon in my head—sorry, won’t happen again, I know, I know—when I register that the two guests standing at the desk are not wearing the expression of people who want to complain.

They’re leaning forward. Interested. Body language that means they want something, not that something went wrong.

“Just wondering if it’s a regular thing,” the woman is saying. “The lunch service. Whether it’ll be on offer for the rest of the stay.”

Simon looks up when he hears me come in, and the quality of his expression tells me he’s been fielding variations of this question for a while. “I’m not sure, actually. Let me—” He clocks me. “Nevan. Do we know if lunch sandwiches are a regular offering going forward?”

I open my mouth, then immediately close it. “I’ll find out,” I say. “I’ll let you know.”

The woman smiles. “Wonderful. And please do pass on our compliments. Breakfast this morning was exceptional.”

“Best yet,” her husband agrees.

“Thank you.” I give them my best customer service smile. “I’ll let the chef know.”

I say it automatically, and then I go through the door to the restaurant before either of them can say anything else.

I stop just inside.

The space is more than clean. The tables are wiped down and reset, and the chairs are tucked in at the right angle, early afternoon light coming through the windows. It doesn’t look like a room that ran a service this morning without its manager. It looks like a room that was taken care of, but that’s not the thing that stops me.

The thing that stops me is the server station in the corner, which has been reorganized since yesterday. The coffee machine from the back—the good one, the one I kept meaning to bring out properly and kept not getting around to—is sitting on the counter, clean and gleaming, with a small handwritten sign propped against it that reads

Please help yourself

in round, neat handwriting I recognize immediately but still take a couple minutes to read. Beside it, on a board with a small card listing the ingredients, is a tray of muffins. But I don’t need to read that to see what they are.

White Chocolate Blueberry muffins with lemon glaze.

She ran a full breakfast service, a lunch service, and then did this because she thought about the guests. My guests. She thought about them the way I think about them, the way I’ve been thinking about them for years while holding this place together with whatever I have left after the end of a double shift.

That’s not just good cooking, that’s someone who cares about the same things I do.

The smell coming off the muffins hits the back of my throat and makes my stomach growl.

There are guests sitting at two of the tables with coffee cups in front of them. They don’t appear to be waiting for anything. They are just… here. Mid-afternoon, no scheduled service, people are sitting in the restaurant because it is warm, the coffee machine is on, and there are muffins.

Mr. Hoffmann looks up from his newspaper when I walk past. He’s been coming every October for six years, always the same room, the same two weeks, the fleece that has seen better days, and the thermos he fills from the breakfast station every morning without fail.

“Nevan! What a great idea with the muffins. Every year it’s been good. But this year it’s something else. This…” he gestures at the coffee machine, the tray, “… this is exactly the kind of thing that makes a place worth coming back to. The little something that makes it feel as if someone actually thought about you.”

“I’m glad you’re enjoying your stay with us, Mr. Hoffmann,” I say, and mean it more than I usually do.

Mabel thinks I can’t run this place alone, even though I do. But I think, for the first time ever, I’m standing in a room that shows what it would look like if I didn’t have to.

I walk up to the server station, pick up a muffin from the tray because it seems rude not to, and take a bite.

Holy hell.

The inside is soft in a way that shouldn’t be possible from a batch made however many hours ago,

“Good, right?” Sydney is beside me out of nowhere, leaning against the server station with her arms crossed and a grin that I don’t think I’ve seen her aim in my direction before. “I think I’ve never had a better muffin in my life, and the lunch sandwiches were just as good.”

“Yeah?” I ask around a mouthful.

God, Lennon knows her shit.