SEATON
When she was given her break, she went to the back and sat down on an over-turned bucket and stretched her legs out.
Yun Abe looked up from the fryer and gave her a smile. "You look... exhausted."
Seaton beamed at him. "It's a good kind of exhausted." She wiggled her toes in her new clogs that Sam had bought for her. "I've been working hard every night making more stock for that craft fair I'm participating in and thanks to you with your friend at the care home I have orders coming out of my ears!"
Yun nodded, looking like a sage at the top of a mountain. "Good people deserve good things."
Seaton felt her heart swelling in her chest. "Then you must be up to your neck in good things, Mister Abe."
He sighed, shaking his head. "Yun. Please call me Yun."
Seaton's shoulders shook with silent laughter. It seemed simple enough, but she was always nervous. She’d heard a number of people pronounce it as YOU with an N at the end. "Yun."
"See?" He lifted his spatula with a flourish. "It's not that hard, was it?"
"Hey!"
Seaton turned to look at Chloe as she leaned in through the pass opening.
"Y'all should look out the front windows."
Yun picked up two plates and set them on the pass in front of her. "You know I don't have time, Chloe."
She picked up the plates and gave him a big toothy grin as the tipped her head in the directions of the front windows. "I looked out the window, and I can see smoke coming up from somewhere in that direction. I can't tell how close it is, but it seems like it came up all of a sudden."
Seaton got up from the bucket when the front door jingled and kept jingling.
It sounded like they had some new customers.
Yun turned and looked at her, frowning. "You still have a few minutes of your break left."
She grinned. "I'm good. Besides, part of my backside was about to fall asleep."
Yun waved her on with a laugh. "You can take more break time later."
"Thanks, Yun!"
"Ay!" He chuckled as she walked out.
Seaton could see what Chloe was talking about as she looked out the front wall of windows at the Lone Star Diner.
The smoke Chloe mentioned was easy to see.
It was dark and the color of it, against the blue sky, looked like trouble.
Shaking her head, she went to the first table with new customers. "Hey, I'm Seaton. Welcome to the Lone Star Diner. What can I get you to drink while you look at our menu?"
DARYL
Daryl pulled into the parking lot of the Lone Start Diner and did a slow crawl from one end to the other. No one seemed to notice that he was there.
That was both a relief and a frustration.
Still, he got what he wanted a few seconds in.
Seaton was standing at a table by the window.
