Page 40 of Monster Diner

“I wouldn’t call it shacking up.” Victor cleared his throat. “We were cohabiting temporarily, with my teenage son.”

“You can call it what you will. Seems pretty cozy to me.” She waggled her eyebrows at him.

“Well, it’s not. And Lizzy is moving away in a few days.”

“Is she now.” Her sharp gaze zeroed in on the realtor’s folder on the ground. He tried to pick it up to hide it from her, but she plucked them out of his hands quicker than he could move.

She opened the folder and scowled. “You can’t sell Frank’s!” She gasped.

Victor took the folder back from her. “I have no choice. I’m not the only owner.”

“Pfft. Lizzy won’t sell. It was her father’s place.”

“Well, that’s what she wants. It’s either I make enough by Halloween to buy her out, or I have to sell.”

There was a wicked gleam in Gertrude’s eye. “You’re not selling, I’ll tell you that much.”

She shuffled away from him, cackling to herself, and Victor had a sinking feeling he’d just unleashed something he didn’t want to deal with.

He returned to the diner and set the papers in his office, intending to check them over later.

The afternoon line cook was at the flat top, and Victor went into the back room to work on a repair he’d left unfinished while he’d run his errand. He could have called Lucian, the local handyman, to fix it, but the project gave him time to think and kept his hands busy—two things he needed desperately in that moment. The pieces of the broken deep fryer were laid out on a tarp, and he worked through them methodically, reassembling the machine bit by bit. If only all his problems were as easy.

He finished his project as the afternoon shift was nearly over. He would need to head back to the house and make Brayden dinner. He’d requested pancakes, and Victor couldn’t deny him his favorite meal. He was carrying the fixed deep fryer components back into the kitchen when he almost ran into Lizzy coming in for her evening shift.

“Sorry, I didn’t know you were in here,” she said.

Victor’s heart stuttered when he saw her. No matter how much he tried to numb the pain or pretend he could keep it casual, he couldn’t bury this wanting. Or ignore the fact that he wasn’t enough for her.

“I was about to head out,” he said.

She backed away, giving him access to the kitchen and fryer bay. He set down the components into the fryer bay with a heavy thunk and adjusted the fryer back into place, taking longer than was absolutely necessary because he figured she would want to avoid speaking with him the way he’d been avoiding her.

But she lingered nearby, a frown crinkling her brow, and he wanted so badly to kiss her and melt the worries away. But she’d made it clear how she felt. She wanted some Halloween fun. His desire for her was too much.

He straightened and smiled at her, but it felt half-hearted. Vivianne was supposed to be off, her shift over, but she was loitering at the service station, clearly trying to catch up on the gossip. Between her and Gertrude, the entire town would know about their sorta-breakup. If you could even call it that, more like a failure to start. He’d endure the whispers and the pitying stares as he went through the steps of selling the diner. At least he wouldn’t have her there orbiting him, taunting him with the one thing he truly wanted.

“I haven’t seen you in a few days, and it looks like your bed’s not even been slept in,” she said as she fidgeted with the string of her apron.

“Yeah, I don’t sleep much as it is.”

She nodded. “You should still take care of yourself.”

“I’ll rest when the busy season is over.”

“That’s what Frank said too, wasn’t it?”

He spun towards her, pinning her against the wall. She backed up, chest heaving.

“Please,” he said, leaning so his nose nearly brushed against her forehead. Her breath hitched.

“Don’t make this harder than it already is,” she said.

He exhaled and pushed away before striding back into the office, where the realtor’s folder sat. If he were brave enough, he would have put the final nail in the coffin and told her he’d decided to sell. But his greed was too much. He’d hold on to that information for a little longer. Just until Halloween. Then he’d let her go for good.

18

LIZZY