She took it.
The handshake lasted longer than it should have. Her hand felt warmer than I remembered. Mine didn’t want to let go.
We released each other at the same time.
“Come by around 10 pm after closing,” I said. “We’ll work out the details.”
“Alright,” she said. “I’ll be back.”
“And you don’t have to wear a suit,” I said. “Something comfortable. It’s the Lighthouse Diner.”
She smiled despite herself. “Thank God. My shoes are killing me.”
“Welcome to the team,” I said.
“I’ll see you later,” she said, walking toward her car.
A seagull shrieked again as she opened her door.
I stood there with sunlight in my eyes, watching her leave, wondering if this was the smartest terrible decision I’d ever made.
It probably was.
EMILY
Later that night, Jason flipped the sign to ‘Closed’ and locked the door. The bolt clicked loud enough to make me look up. It sounded final. Dramatic, even. The kind of click that meant a conversation was about to happen, whether anyone felt prepared or not.
I stood by the counter with my notebook pressed to my chest like it might save my life.
“This feels secretive,” I said, scanning the empty diner. “Isn’t this how people get murdered in small towns?”
Jason laughed and nodded toward the booth by the window. “You still sit on the inside?”
I paused. I hated that he remembered. “Old habits.”
We slid into the booth without talking. Same cracked leather. Same chipped Formica. The table still had the faded ink doodle near the edge. Mine, most likely. I had once decided the syrup dispensers looked lonely and gave them stick figure friends. I never said I was well-adjusted.
Jason cleared his throat like he was about to read a legal disclaimer. “Okay. Fake relationship logistics.”
I flipped open my notebook. “I remember your aunt. She won’t be easy to fool.”
He grinned. “Remember the time we told her the milkshake machine broke because of a power outage?”
I rolled my eyes. “And she walked straight to the back, flipped the switch, and fixed it in ten seconds.”
“She gave me dish duty for a week,” Jason said.
“She said, ‘If you’re going to lie to me, at least do it with some flair.’”
I smiled. “Then we’d better make this good.”
He tapped his pen on the table. “Right. So timeline. How long have we been together?”
“A month.”
“Why?”
“Long enough to feel real. Short enough that no one asks why it never came up at Thanksgiving.”
