Chapter 2
Evie
The diner sign buzzes like a dying insect, flickering in and out as if it can’t decide whether it wants to be seen tonight.
THE LIGHTHO—
THE LIGHTHOUSE DINER
THE LIGHTHO—
I flip my hood up against the wind anyway and shoulder the door open with the same elbow I’ve been using for years, because the handle sticks when it’s cold and Harbor’s Edge is always cold when it wants to be mean.
A bell jingles overhead. The heat hits my face, fogging my lashes for half a second.
Grease, coffee, bleach. Home.
The Lighthouse Diner doesn’t look anything like a lighthouse. It’s a squat little building two streets off the boardwalk, painted white once upon a time and now mostly beige with time and salt stains.
But the tourists like the name, and the locals like the cheap eggs.
Behind the counter, Gus is counting out the till like he’s personally offended by the concept of money existing.
He’s in his sixties, built like a barrel, with an unruly mustache. His hair is a heroic gray. His expression is his usual: I’ve never loved anything in my life and certainly not you.
He sees me, and snorts. “You’re late.”
“I know.” I slide behind the counter, shrugging out of my jacket. “Sorry. My grandma decided her afternoon pills were a personal insult to her freedom.”
Gus doesn’t look up. “Tell her to take ’em anyway.”
“I did.”
“And?”
“She told me she survived the eighties without being told what to do by a teenager.”
I bite the inside of my cheek. I’m twenty-four, not sixteen—old enough to pay bills, file taxes, and keep another human being alive through sheer stubbornness and a pill organizer. But to my grandma, I’m permanently seventeen years old with an attitude problem.
Gus grunts. “Clock in.”
From the far booth, Mr. Alvarez lifts his hand in greeting without looking up from his newspaper. Like he’s been here since the earth cooled. Speaking of, his coffee looks mostly full and I know it’s already cold.
Mr. Alvarez likes to sip on coffee, not actually drink it.
“Evening, Evie,” he calls, voice warm.
“Evening,” I answer automatically. “Your coffee is going to get cold if you let it sit any longer.”
“It already is,” he says, pleasantly.
He’s been coming here every day for as long as I’ve been working. He reads the paper like it’s a sacred text and eats pie like it’s his job. His hands are spotted with age, and he remembers things most people pretend not to.
Which is why I like him.
And why I also sometimes want to hide under the fryer.
I tie my apron and step behind the counter, reaching for the coffee pot out of muscle memory. Might as well get him a fresh cup.
That’s when I hear it.
A squeal, sharp enough to pierce the air.
“Oh my GOD, Evie, you’re here! Did you see it? Did you see the clip?! They’re so close, they’re literally—”
Tasha bursts out of the back like she’s been launched by a cannon.
Tasha is barely eighteen and looks like she has never had a single un-fun thought in her life. Tonight she’s wearing Midnight Halo merch under her apron: an official tour hoodie with the sleeves pushed up and a glittery sticker of Kaia’s face slapped on her phone case like a blessing.
I don’t know why the universe gave me her. Some kind of cosmic joke.
Tasha’s phone is already up, screen glowing in her palm. She looks like she’s about to start squealing. Again.
I take one look at her face and know, in my bones, that tonight is going to be one of those shifts.
“What clip?” I ask, already regretting the words.
Tasha’s eyes go bright with the feverish joy of someone who has never been emotionally betrayed by a pop star.
“The Kaia interview!” she says, as if there’s only one Kaia and only one interview worth seeing. “They’re doing promo in the arena, and she’s like, ‘It means everything to come home,’ and she’s wearing this jacket that makes her shoulders look illegal and—”
“Tasha,” I warn.
She barrels over my warning like it’s a traffic cone.
“They’re literally ten blocks away tonight,” she says, voice vibrating. “Ten. Blocks. Like, I could walk there. I could just walk there right now and—”
“Your shift starts in three minutes,” Gus calls without looking up, deadpan.
Tasha spins toward him. “Gus, it’s Midnight Halo.”
Gus snorts. “It’s a band.”
“It’s not a band,” Tasha says, affronted.
“They’re an icon. A cultural movement! And they’re doing the swords tonight—like, obviously—but it’s the homecoming version.
With big, dramatic choreography where they just—” she mimes yanking something out of thin air, eyes shining, “—and everyone loses their minds.”
Gus squints at her like she’s grown another head. “You’re a cultural movement. Go fill the sugar caddies.”
Tasha looks like she might combust. Then she looks back at me, pleading. “Evie. Tell him.”
I pour Mr. Alvarez fresh coffee to buy myself time. “Tell him what?”
“That Kaia Rhee is a local hero,” Tasha says, breathless. “Like, our local hero. She grew up here. She sang at Harbor Lights when she was, like, sixteen and then she got discovered and now she’s coming back and it’s like… destiny.”
My hand tightens around the coffee pot handle.
Local hero.
Destiny.
A beat too sharp passes through my chest, like the snap of a rubber band against skin.
I set the pot down with controlled care. “She’s a person,” I say.
Tasha blinks. “Yes, obviously. But—”
“And this is a diner,” I add, voice flat. “Not a fan club.”
Tasha opens her mouth, closes it, then tries again. “Okay, but you have to admit it’s kind of exciting. The whole town is buzzing. Like, even the gas station had a Midnight Halo poster and—oh! Look!”
She points.
The TV mounted over the counter is on, volume low, running a loop of local news. The screen is bright enough to cut through the diner’s warm gloom. The anchor is smiling too hard, the kind of smile people use when they’re trying to make commerce feel like community.
And there, flashing across the screen, is a promo package:
MIDNIGHT HALO RETURNS HOME
The camera cuts to the arena. Then to the crowd already gathering outside even though the show isn’t for hours. Then to a close-up of a woman with perfect hair and perfect teeth holding a mic.
And then—
Kaia Rhee.
Her face fills the screen like she owns it.
She’s different than the last time I saw her in person. We’d just been teenagers then. Now, she’s older and time has carved her down into something sleek and bright and untouchable. Her hair is darker than it used to be, pulled back. But her eyes are the same.
God. Her eyes are the same…
The anchor’s voice chirps about “record ticket sales” and “unprecedented excitement.”
Kaia’s mouth moves, saying something I can’t hear over the diner’s sounds, but the caption flashes:
“COMING HOME FEELS… SURREAL.”
Tasha makes a sound of awe. “Look at her.”
And I do look, because my body is stupid and my eyes have always been worse.
Kaia smiles on-screen—polished, practiced, the kind of smile you give when you’re trained to be adored. It’s not the smile she used to give me, back when her face would soften and she’d grin with her whole face.
Back when her laugh was loud and real and she didn’t know what it meant to be watched by millions of people.
Back when she’d stand on the pier at Harbor Lights with cold wind in her hair, looking at me like I was the only thing keeping her from floating away.
I feel the memory hit before I can stop it.
The pier boards under our sneakers, wet with sea spray. Lanterns swaying overhead. Her fingers brushing mine like an accident. That second where she leaned in and I leaned in and—
My throat tightens like it’s trying to swallow my heart.
“Nope,” I say out loud.
Tasha turns. “Nope?”
I reach up and click the TV off mid-sentence.
The screen goes black. The diner seems to exhale.
Tasha stares at me like I’ve committed a crime. “Evie!”
“Diner’s not a fan club,” I repeat, leaning closer so my voice stays low and mean enough to end the conversation. “We serve breakfast and shakes and fries. We don’t worship celebrities.”
“She’s not a celebrity,” Tasha says instantly. “She’s Kaia.”
“She’s literally a celebrity,” I say.
Mr. Alvarez folds his newspaper with excruciating slowness. “That Rhee kid,” he says, voice thoughtful. “Used to sing at the festival. Always had a set of pipes on her.”
My hands still.
Gus grunts without looking up, like he’s been waiting years to drop the line. “And you two used to sit in that booth like you paid rent.” His tone stays flat, but there’s something almost smug under it. “You two in there, heads together, giggling.”
Tasha’s eyes go wide like I’ve betrayed her and her attention doubles on me. “You were friends with her?!”
I keep my face neutral. I keep my hands moving.
“I knew her,” I say, stressing the word like it matters. Like it fixes anything. “It’s Harbor’s Edge. Everyone knows everyone.”
I turn away before my face can do something stupid.
“Okay,” I say, too brisk. “We have work to do. Tasha, sugar caddies and wipe down booth three, someone spilled syrup last shift and it’s turning into a science experiment. Mr. Alvarez, pie or are you doing that thing where you pretend you’re not hungry until midnight?”
“Pie,” he says immediately.
Gus slides a plate toward me with a short stack of order slips. “Tourists are already crawling in,” he says. “Festival week. You ready to be miserable?”
“I was born ready,” I say.
Tasha bounces on her heels, still vibrating with excitement she hasn’t gotten to unload. “Evie,” she says softly, like she’s trying a different approach. “You’re not… excited at all? You sat in the same booth as Kaia Rhee!”
I don’t answer right away.
Because outside, through the front windows, I can see the street.
Harbor’s Edge doesn’t usually look like this.
Not on a random weekday night. Not even the week before Harbor Lights.
But people in Midnight Halo merch move in little packs, phones out, laughter too loud.
Cars creep by like they’re hunting for parking.
Even the air looks busier—headlights cutting through it, neon reflecting off windshields, a constant churn of bodies that don’t belong to this town.
The concert’s ten blocks away, and you can feel it anyway. Like gravity. Like the whole place is tilted toward the arena.
Everything feels… wired.
Not bad. Not dangerous, exactly.
Just tight.
Like the town is holding its breath and waiting for something to happen.
Tourist season, I tell myself. Harbor Lights. Money. Hype. Whatever.
Still.
My skin prickles.
Tasha keeps watching me like she thinks I’m going to break and admit something.
I don’t.
“She’s coming to do a job,” I say, voice cool. “People come back for work all the time.”
Tasha frowns. “It’s her homecoming.”
I laugh once, sharp. “Yeah. Sure.”
Mr. Alvarez makes a small sound.
Gus, blessedly, slams down a stack of clean mugs and breaks the moment. “Less talking,” he growls. “More moving. We’re not getting swallowed by the dinner rush because you two are having feelings at the counter.”
Tasha turns beet red. “We’re not—”
I cut in, “We’re not.”
Gus grunts like he doesn’t believe either of us.
The bell over the door jingles again as the first wave comes in: two college girls wrapped in scarves, laughing, Midnight Halo pins on their backpacks.
A middle-aged couple with a guidebook already open.
A guy in a hoodie who looks like he hasn’t slept in three days and is holding a souvenir lantern like it’s a holy relic even though Harbor Lights is days away.
I plaster on my customer face and grab my notepad.
“Hi,” I say, voice sweet enough to rot teeth. “Welcome to the Lighthouse Diner. Coffee?”
As I move down the line of booths, taking orders, refilling mugs, and dodging Tasha’s starry-eyed chatter, I keep catching myself listening for something I shouldn’t be listening for.
A name.
Kaia Rhee.
Our hometown girl.
Local hero.
Every time I hear it, something in me snaps a little, like a wire being pulled too tight.
I keep working anyway.
Because that’s what you do in Harbor’s Edge.
You keep your head down. You serve the coffee. You pretend the past isn’t sitting ten blocks away in an arena, smiling for cameras like she didn’t leave you standing on a pier with your heart in your hands.
And when the TV stays dark behind the counter, the diner feels safer.
Or at least quieter.
Which is as close to safe as this town ever gets.