Chapter 10
Dina
I fluffed my hair in the mirror, checking to make sure that I looked okay. Given that the place was heaving with activity right now, practically everyone in the town having turned out for the Labor Day party at the diner, it felt like I should at least try to make sure I looked my best.
And, as I stared at myself in the mirror, I felt a heavy weight settle over my chest. Labor Day.
End of the summer season. When all of the tourists were going to head off and get back to their old lives.
When the town would settle, filled with the people who lived here rather than the people who visited for a few weeks. And amongst them, no doubt, was Felix.
I hadn’t seen him for the better part of a week, since he had helped me put up some of the posters around town to announce when the party would be taking place.
He had been kind enough to give me a ride while my car was back in the shop, even holding the ladder for me to make sure that the bunting was laid out where it needed to be, but I had no doubt that he would be on the road by now, searching out his next adventure.
Which was fine, of course. Because I hadn’t allowed myself to fantasize about a future with him.
He had been upfront with me, telling me that he was always on the road, that he didn’t want to slow down or settle.
That had to count for something, didn’t it?
As much as it might have been hard for me to keep a hold of my feelings in the face of something like that, at least I was not blindsided by him taking off as I had been the last couple of times.
I had hoped that he might at least come by to say goodbye before he was finished with me, but maybe he had decided it would be too much of a hassle to take time out of his day for something like that.
No, better for both of us that he just left, so I didn’t have to admit that he was another in a long line of men who I had allowed myself to get distracted by.
But Felix...God, despite myself, I couldn’t help but feel like there was something different about what we’d had.
The way he had listened to me, helped me, done everything he could to make my life better, even when I’d dug my heels in and insisted that I didn’t need him.
The way he had pulled his car over at the side of the road to walk home with me that night, opening up to me in the dim evening light, that kiss at the door.
Even now, it was enough to make my heart beat faster, and I couldn’t let myself think that that was the last time I was going to kiss him. Not yet, anyway.
Outside, I could hear the buzz of the diner, and Pam knocked on the door of the small, cramped bathroom.
"Dina, you in there?”
"Yeah, give me a second!” I called back, as I washed my hands and double-checked that my lipstick was still in place. When I pushed open the door, Pam was standing there with her hands on her hips, eyebrows raised.
"I could use a little help out here," she remarked. "Starting to get busy, and the buffet needs restocking..."
"I’m on it," I promised her, but, out of the corner of my eye, I was sure I noticed a slight smirk on her face.
I glanced back at her, wondering if I had imagined it, but she had already taken off back towards the kitchen as I made my way back out into the diner to see what needed to be taken care of.
Music filled the air, from the speakers studded around the corners of the room; the place was packed, the sound of conversation and occasional bursts of laughter filling the air.
I caught the eye of Mia, the owner of Ford’s Italian Kitchen, and she raised a hand to greet me.
I waved back, and was about to head over to say hello when something else entirely caught my attention.
Or, rather, someone.
My feet froze beneath me as I locked eyes with him, wondering if I had invented his presence here just through sheer power of my mind.
But, as I blinked, trying to clear my vision and make sense of this, he met me with that lazy, slightly crooked grin, leaning in the doorway of the diner and watching me like he had been waiting for me all along.
I glanced around; even though Pam had said the buffet needed restocking, it looked alright to me, and besides, I had bigger things to think about right now.
Namely, the man standing before me, the one I had thought would already have left days before.
I was in a bit of a daze as I made my way towards him, the magnetic draw to him just as intense as it had been the very first time I had seen him here.
"What...what are you doing here?" I asked him, as I finally reached his side. Behind me, the crowd seemed to fall away, nothing left here but the way he was looking at me.
"You said everyone in town comes to these things," he replied casually, gesturing around. "Figured if I’m going to stay here, I should start trying to integrate, right?”
"What – what are you talking about?"
Had he just said that he was going to stay?
No way. I must have heard him wrong. Misunderstood.
Because there wasn’t a chance in hell that he was actually going to stick around in this place.
I just couldn’t wrap my head around it, couldn’t make sense of the enormity of what he was saying, standing there staring at him blankly as though reality might cut in at any second.
"I thought you would be gone by now," I admitted, and he cocked an eyebrow.
"Yeah, so did I," he replied.
"But you’re still here."
"Looks like it."
I shook my head.
"Felix, I’m sorry, I don’t understand," I told him, my heart thudding harder in my chest. One wrong move, and it felt like I could ruin this whole thing, lose out on everything that he might have been offering me right now.
I was walking on a tightrope, and I refused to slip and fall, not now, not when I was so, so close...
"Well, there was something I wanted to give you before I left," he explained, and he reached into his pocket, jerking his head outside. "Come on, let’s get out of here..."
I followed him outside, still kind of dazed by what he was saying, wondering what on earth it was that he might have to give me.
And, when we were out of the diner, he withdrew something from his pocket.
An envelope. He held it out to me and I stared down at it dumbly for a moment, not sure how I should respond.
"Take it, Dina," he chuckled. I reached for it, rubbing my thumb under the flap and opening it before I tipped the contents out into my palm. And, as I straightened out the paper to get a better look at it, my eyes widened.
"Wait, this is…"
"The deed for the diner," he finished up, nodding to the building beside me. "And it’s in your name, Dina."
My jaw dropped. Shock coursed through me, so intense it nearly took me off my feet. I looked back to the diner, then to the deed, and then back again, trying to piece it all together in a way that made sense.
"I don’t understand..."
He reached for my hand, the smile widening across his face.
"It’s yours, Dina," he explained. "To do anything you want with. You can sell it, change it into a whole new business, keep the place open as it is, anything that you want. But whatever you do, it’s your choice."
"Felix, I can’t accept this..."
"It’s not charity," he told me firmly. "It’s a chance. A chance for you to do anything you want. Without having to worry that someone is going to gamble it away or that you’re not going to be able to afford it. No strings attached. Just...yours."
I felt a lump leap into my throat as I tried to wrap my head around it.
It was so overwhelming, the thought that he would do this for me, the idea that the diner was mine now to do with as I pleased.
I had never had anything like this to my name before, never done anything other than work at a place like this just to make ends meet.
A weight lifted from my shoulders that I didn’t even know had been there, years of financial worry and burden and fear for the future vanishing in a matter of moments.
No matter how big a gesture this was, I knew that I couldn’t turn it down, or the opportunity that it might have offered to my family alongside it.
"When did you do this...?”
"I spoke to Pam a few days ago," he explained. "Seems like she’s ready to retire, too. Glad to get the money and be able to relax. I asked her not to tell you, though, so I could surprise you at the Labor Day party. And judging by the look on your face right now, she didn’t."
"She didn’t," I echoed after him. I looked up at him, my eyes pricked with tears. Nobody had ever made a gesture like this for me in my life before, and the enormity of it was almost more than I could wrap my head around. He wanted to help me, to really help me. No, not just that, to give me the tools to help myself, so that I didn’t have to rely on his charity.
"Felix," I whispered, my voice catching at the back of my throat. "Felix...thank you. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to thank you enough for this."
That grin spread a little wider over his face.
"You know, I could start with a good coffee," he suggested, and I laughed, the shock finally clearing to make way for the reality of this moment. And, as I gazed at him, I realized there was still something I needed to ask him.
"Does that mean...does that mean you’re going to stay?”
"Well, I’ve got to see what you’re going to do with the place, right?" he remarked. I giggled, but then furrowed my brow at him, still trying to piece it all together.
"But I thought you said you were always travelling," I pointed out. He nodded, his face taking on a more serious edge.
"You know, I thought I would be out of here by now," he admitted. "And when I told you that, about staying on the road, I meant it. But I realized, when I talked to my father the other day, it wasn’t that I wanted to spend my life adventuring. I just didn’t want to spend it trapped in the stress and obsession they made for themselves in that business. But here...?”
He gestured around.
"This is nothing like that. And I don’t want to go. I want to be here. With you. If you’ll have me, Dina."
I closed my eyes for a second, just letting those words sink in.
As though, in a million years, I would have said no to something like that.
Finally, someone was going to stay. The feelings I had for him flooded me completely, the dam that had been holding them back for my own safety finally giving way.
He was going to stay. He was going to stay.
"Of course I will," I told him, and, before I could stop myself, I tossed my arms around him and kissed him on the lips. I didn’t even care that the large windows of the diner would mean that most of the town would be able to see us; let them.
If he was staying here, with me, then I wanted everyone to know about it.
And, as our lips came together, I found myself smiling.
A whole host of possibilities were laying themselves out in front of me, the thought of everything I might be able to do suddenly opening up with glorious clarity.
But, right now, right in front of the diner that had just become mine, all I cared about was him.
And that he was going to be right there at my side as I brought each and every one of those plans to life.