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“Brea’s pick it is,” Ben said before we could dissolve into pointless, crabby arguing.
No one got along well after twelve hours on the road.
I pulled up the town and searched the choices before landing on one that worked.
“Here, this diner looks like it has a bit of everything, though I doubt they have amazing tacos,” I said, putting it into the GPS so it directed us there.
“Diners have coffee,” Lincoln said around a yawn that only had a chorus of yawns joining his.
“Hey, none of that. We’ve still got a few hours to go,” Ben protested with a groan. You could tell we were tired now. All the joking had been left behind a few hundred miles ago. Now we were all bordering on grumpy.
Road trips always sounded like a good idea until it was a full day of driving.
At least there were enough of us that we could switch off and didn’t have to take as many pit stops.
We pulled up outside of Sunrise Diner a short drive later. We climbed out and stretched our sore bodies for a few minutes before managing to walk to the front door.
“Sit anywhere you like,” a woman in an apron said as she rushed past with a tray full of food.
There were only two other tables at this time of night, so we took the large corner booth at the back. It was big enough to fit us all, so we slid into place and grabbed a stack of menus that were tucked into the holder on the table.
“Well, you look like a bunch of zombies,” our waitress teased as she came over with her pad and pen. “Long day of driving? I haven’t seen you around here before.”
‘If I had a nickel for every time someone said that to us,’I thought to myself but put a smile on my face for her. It wasn’t her fault we were exhausted.
“I think we’re going to need coffee all around,” I said instead. “Definitely a long day of driving.”
“I’ll get that while you take a minute to look over the menus,” she said, rushing off before coming over with a tray of coffee mugs, cream, and sugar packets. She even had a little thing of coffee syrups. It was a lot more than I expected to get at a diner, but I wasn’t going to protest.
We all grabbed a mug and flipped it over as she ran off for the coffee. She filled the mugs one by one before putting it back behind the counter. I’d already downed a chunk of mine without adding anything before she was back with her book, ready to take our order.
“One check or separate?”
“One,” Lincoln said.
“An easy table, that’s what I like,” she said, giving him a wink. He didn’t even look twice, and even I could admit that a satisfied smile graced my face before I could stop myself. Ben gave my thigh a squeeze, biting back his own laughter at the sight.
“Little bit jealous, are we, red?”
“Always,” I shot back, giving him a glare this time before it was our turn to add our order to the mix before she was off, handing the ticket to the cook.
“Alright, so I did some digging on the way, and she sent over some more information. Who wants a little history lesson?” Ben asked.
It took everything in me not to protest but Lincoln just waved him on and brought his coffee to his lips for another long drink. Maybe by the time he finished, we’d be human again.
“She said she’d leave the haunting stuff for our initial tour, but she sent some history over so we would have the background,” he explained.
“Is there really that much to this family to count for a history lesson?” Lincoln asked with a raised eyebrow. His vibrant-blue eyes were full of skepticism.
It wasn’t often that we were called in and realized it was all just stories and no ghosts. But when someone made a huge deal out of their haunting like this, it was a bit harder to believe. One person is a lot less trustworthy than a whole slew of personal experiences.
“Apparently,” Ben said. “The moment I typed Bellmore into my search, a ton of stuff popped up. The family itself is old money. I don’t think I ever found the start of their wealth, they were justknownto be wealthy. They built this castle sometime in the 1800s. There’s some debate on what date is actually correct but that’s not really important.”
“Is it all background on the family, or anything supernatural?” Ryker interrupted.
“There isn’t a lot about the activity online, except for a few people talking about the town itself. They actually run ghost tours in Bellmore, not the castle.”
“So, the town is also haunted?” I asked, a bit shocked. It seemed so cute. Plus, it wasn’t often that you found a place packed with supernatural activity. We generally found it contained to one location, not multiple.
