Page 41 of Monster Diner

Lizzy had experienced her fair share of breakups. Even a few times with co-workers. And never had she felt this gutted. They hadn’t even really been dating. Their romantic interactions could be counted on one hand and had spanned all of two weeks. But she felt worse avoiding him than she did ending her multiyear relationship with Steven. She and Victor had been dancing around one another for days. Now it was three days before Halloween, and neither of them was saying out loud what they were both thinking. Time was almost up.

She’d come into work with the intent of extending an olive branch of sorts to Victor. But that’d fallen flat. They’d been friends once upon a time, but this whole inheritance thing could get messy if they couldn’t get along.

The bell on the diner door rang, and Lizzy plastered on a smile to greet her guests. She offered the strangers menus and took their drink orders. Seeing new people in town was a rarity. Most everyone who came through the restaurant she recognized by name and order. But it was getting closer to Halloween, just a few days away, and it was normal to see an influx of new customers.

She delivered the first table’s drink orders and was starting to take their food order when two more groups came in. She’d never seen any of them before either.

“Sit anywhere you like. I’ll be right with you,” Lizzy chirped.

It was quite a rush, but it was exactly what she needed in that moment. A task to apply herself to and get her mind off the sexy reanimated man whose heart she’d broken, now sitting in the manager’s office.

Lizzy was still taking the third table’s drink orders when three more groups came in. It was nearly nine o’clock at night, way past the usual rush hour.

Vivianne was almost off but scurried to the front to seat the guests and fill the last remaining empty tables. There wasn’t a single regular in the diner, and Lizzy was hustling to tend to the tables. There was no time to think.

“Can you stay late?” she asked Vivianne as they passed one another at the server station.

“Yeah. I’ll stay. There’s two more groups waiting for tables.”

“Is this your doing?” Lizzy asked.

“I wish! I checked. None of our posts have gone viral or anything…”

Lizzy huffed a breath and peered into the kitchen, where a panicked Jason was struggling to keep up with the orders. The POS churned as a line of tickets rolled out of the printer.

“Where’s Victor? I can’t do this myself,” he said.

She hesitated for a moment. Victor hadn’t seemed happy to see her earlier, but she couldn’t let the tickets pile up and Jason suffer.

“I’ll get him,” Lizzy said.

She went into the back room and knocked on the door.

She heard a mumbled, “Come in.”

She slid into the room and found Victor sitting at the desk. He towered over it, and in his large hands was a folder with a realtor logo and smiling witches and shifters in front of suburban homes.

Seeing that, her stomach sank. He was planning on selling the diner? That was what she thought she wanted. She should be overjoyed. That was before she had known the people who worked here. Knew their stories and how much the diner meant to the community. They couldn’t sell the diner.

He noticed her and stuffed the folder under the next week’s schedule. “Did you need something?”

She recomposed herself. “Yeah. Ugh, Jason needs help. We got a crazy rush all the sudden.”

“Oh god, did Vivianne put out another coupon code or something?”

“I already asked her. It wasn’t her.”

He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

She nodded and considered asking him about the realtor folder when Vivianne came running in.

“Guys, I’m dying out here. The crowds are getting worse. Locals are showing up. There’s a twenty-minute wait!”

“Coming,” they said in unison, and both bolted into the crowded dining room. Every seat in the diner was full, including the counter. And the air was buzzing with excitement.

Lizzy delivered a milkshake to the young couple at the counter, and she asked, “What brings you all into town?”

“We were coming for the Pumpkin Festival in a few days and heard great reviews from a local woman about this place.”