Epilogue
NICK
P ulling open the door to the diner, the scent of bacon grease and fresh coffee hits me, even though it’s already lunchtime. It smells like that no matter what hour you come here.
I walk past the sun-faded red vinyl booths, the linoleum floors scuffed from decades of boots and sneakers, toward the back of the place, a familiar dark ponytail waiting for me.
“Hey, babe.” I lean down as Rachel looks up at me, and greet her with a long kiss.
Sure, I just saw her this morning when she left my bed, but that was hours ago. Every time seeing her is like a reunion.
“Aw, you two almost make me believe in love again.” The diner’s long-suffering waitress, Marge, stops by the table to put two glasses of water in front of us. She waits for a beat and says, “Nope, the feeling’s passed. What can I get you two? The usual?”
“Yep.” I slide my menu over to her. Marge knows I always get the patty melt with fries.
“Um…” Rachel looks at the menu, even flipping it over to study the back side, though I know she’s going to end up getting the turkey club with a side salad. Still, I indulge her.
“Something else look good?” I ask.
She bites at her bottom lip, still scanning. “I guess the turkey club with—”
“A side salad,” Marge finishes for her, taking her menu. “Be right out with it.”
“Oh, Marge, have you thought any more about the pies?”
“Another time, honey. I’m swamped.”
There’s only one other booth occupied in the place at eleven-fifteen—too late for breakfast and too early for lunch for most people.
Since Rachel starts her workday at the crack of dawn, this is when she likes to eat, and I’m happy to spend any time with her I can.
I like this routine we’ve created of meeting here for lunch on days we’re both working.
The diner’s right in between the fire station and the bakery.
Rachel holds her forefinger and thumb barely apart as Marge hurries away.
“I’m this close to convincing her to let the bakery sell pies here.
They’re so much better than that.” She gestures to the pie display case at the end of the counter, with an anemic-looking cherry pie inside.
“I mean, look at it. Uneven lattice work, pale crust. And they use pie filling straight from the can.” She shudders.
I hide my smile behind a sip of water. I don’t dare tell her I’ve tried the pie here and thought it was fine. Obviously, that was before I ate at Aurora Bakery, though. I won’t eat desserts from anywhere else out of solidarity with Rachel now.
“So, anything exciting at the station today?” she asks.
“You’ll never guess who got stuck again.”
Her brows knit together. “Oh, no. Poor Dolly. Where was it this time?”
I sigh. “Behind Mrs. Montour’s fridge.”
She shakes her head. “Is the fire department even responsible for that?”
“Eh… Technically, no. But do you think I was going to tell her that?”
“Of course not,” she agrees.
“What about you? Anything new at the bakery?”
“We debuted our cappuccino eclairs this morning. Hailey said we sold a whopping three before I left for lunch, and that was with her pushing them.”
“Maybe it’ll take time to catch on. Not everyone has your mother’s refined European tastes.”
She rolls her eyes. “At least I got her to back down from the Sicilian sheep’s milk ricotta cannolis. That would have been a nightmare.”
A very expensive nightmare. She’d shown me the breakdown of what it would cost to import the cheese.
“Oh, guess what? We finally got an applicant for the bakery position.”
I reach across the table to squeeze her hands. “That’s amazing.” I know she’ll be glad to cut back on her hours.
“Sydney and I will interview her this week. Oh, and you remember the thing with the SBA?”
The president of the town’s small business association chapter had approached Rachel after their last meeting, gushing about how good the chili cookoff was.
She wanted to know if she’d take part in a new cross-promotional initiative they’ve created for local businesses.
The idea is to pair up two businesses who will then work together to figure out ways they can each promote the other business, expanding each other’s customer reach and bring in new clients.
“Yeah.”
“The bakery’s partnering with the renovated bar. Isn’t that a great match?”
“Definitely.” Better than somewhere like the hardware store, that has limited crossover appeal.
“I set up a meeting with the owner to discuss it. I’ll find out if maybe they have a signature craft beer or something, then work with Sydney to come up with some way we can incorporate it into a dessert. She’s great at flavor combinations.”
“Why not have Sydney do the meeting? You said she wanted to take on more responsibility.”
Her lips purse. “She did say that.”
“Don’t you trust her?”
She sighs. “Of course I do.”
“And this will take something off your plate. You’re always saying you don’t want to add more to your workload.”
She squeezes my hand, a reluctant grin crossing her lips. “Stop being so reasonable. Okay, fine. I’ll ask Sydney to go to the meeting.”
My motives are purely selfish, of course. If she takes on another project, she’ll have less time to spend with me. It’s already hard enough between my weird fire station shifts and her six-days-a-week schedule, even if we’re together most nights.
Our food arrives, and as we eat, I happen to glance out the window and catch Kyle walking on the other side of the street, head down as he walks, hands stuffed in his pockets.
He’s persona non grata around town now, out on bail while he awaits trial for the third degree felony he ended up getting charged with.
He could go away for up to seven years, but we’ll have to wait and see what the judge decides.
I’m just hoping I get called to testify, so I can tell them what a piece of shit he is.
At the very least, Rachel and I haven’t heard a peep from him in the last month, so maybe he really did finally learn his lesson.
I was tempted to find him myself and hammer in the point, but Rachel asked me to leave it alone, not wanting me to risk assault charges if things got heated…
which they probably would. The man tried to ruin my life, after all.
But if she doesn’t want me to, I’ll defer to her. Like I told her, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her, and that includes letting the criminal justice system handle Kyle rather than doing it myself.
I don’t point him out to Rachel, not wanting to upset her, and we finish our lunch in peace, with her none the wiser.
I flag down Marge and pay, then walk my girlfriend back to the bakery, bypassing the front door and leading her around to the alley, where there are no nosy sisters or neighbors to spy on us.
“I wish you weren’t working tonight,” she says, looping her arms over my shoulders. “I swear I don’t sleep as well when you’re not there.”
It’s the same for me when she’s not curled against my chest, her soft breaths letting me know she’s safe, her cinnamon scent in my nose.
“I know, babe.” I kiss her softly. “You’ll have me tomorrow night.”
“My place?”
I nod. She’s been suggesting her house more and more, not only because there are no issues with privacy there, but Tanner hasn’t been keeping up with the cleaning I’ve been asking him to do now that we have company over more.
I get it, we’d been living like slobs for years, but I want to do right by Rachel.
I’m over at her place so much, it makes me wonder at what point she’d be okay with me staying there… forever. Not out of necessity, but because we want it. I know I want it.
We have time for that, though. Time for everything.
She tugs my head down to kiss her again, and I happily comply, the action both familiar and exciting, the way it is every time with her.
With Rachel, forever can’t come soon enough.