‘It’s not you, it’s me.’

Of all the lazy, cliché, bullshit excuses he could have come up with, he'd come up with the laziest, the most cliché, the most bullshit excuse of all. Did he even think about it, or did his phone just auto-populate this text? And then there's the text itself: a fucking text?! OK, maybe if you've been dating for a month and you hardly know each other, but they'd been together for three years.

Not to mention the fact that WE’RE OPENING A FUCKING BUSINESS TODAY!

I choke off a scream and go for a deep sigh instead, wishing I had video game strength and could crush my phone in my first. Instead, I set it on the counter of the smoothie bar and turn to the large mirror behind it to straighten up.

Yep, that’s me, Samantha; with skin as pale pink as peeled lychee and purple hair pulled up into two kitchen-appropriate buns. On the advice of the gym-bro from the council’s business support team, whom I just think of as Biz-bro, I’ve swapped out my preferred black lipstick for a light red and the charcoal eyeshadow for a Baby Butt Pink and I feel gross just for owning that colour.

Yes, that’s a pale blue polo shirt. No, it’s not my style at all. It was another of Biz-bro’s suggestions. The logo—an offensively narrow woman’s waist circled by the words Slim Pickings—wasn’t his idea, though, it was Brann’s. Brann who is my very much dead-to-me ex-boyfriend.

Slim Pickings was Brann's idea—not just the name, but the entire diner. Reflecting on it now, everything about this venture was his brainchild. I was simply thrilled to see him finally excited about something. Brann's cliché stoner-white-guy-with-dreads persona had, much to my shame, been enough to captivate me when I was three years younger and three years less wise. However, the allure of weed and patchouli quickly faded. Over the years, he became increasingly dependent on me, and I grew wearier of his antics. So, when he proposed the idea of running a health-food diner, I was so caught up in his rare enthusiasm that I agreed and invested all I had, just to keep that spark alive. I attended meetings with the local business bureau, set up the social media accounts, and helped choose the uniforms, which were supposed to be a nice wine red—not the sky blue he changed them to without informing me.

Then he dumped me. By text. Ten minutes before opening day. Leaving me staring at myself in the mirror and trying not to ruin my mascara as my eyes decide between sadness tears and absolute fucking RAGE tears! Dabbing carefully at my eyes, I take a very deep breath, ask myself why I’d agreed to incense in a place that serves food, and put my phone in the pocket of my grey apron.

I guess this place is mine now. All the money has come from me and the loan is in my name, too. So, he may have dumped me into this—pun very much intended—but at least it’s all mine. With that in mind, I stub out the incense, open a window, and stride out into the diner to do one final set of checks before opening.

***

I’d prepared myself for the rush of customers. I was as ready as I’d ever be to handle a diner full of people all alone. What I was not ready for was the crushing silence of an empty diner. It’s been hours and the door hasn’t opened once. I had so many sign-ups on our socials, what the hell?

I take another experimental sip of the "smoothie of the day" Brann had designed, mango and wheatgrass. I grimace at the taste of it and the gritty texture, before putting the glass on the counter with a soft clink and pulling out my phone. I start angrily tapping at the already cracked screen of the overpriced smartphone when the perky little bell over the door rings, startling me so badly that I drop my phone on the counter. There’s a reason it's cracked!

‘Oh hey, you're open already?’ a soft, masculine voice asks, as its owner pushes the door all the way open and steps into the diner. He’s tall, or at least taller than my five foot four, with the makings of a solid dad-bod stretching his plain grey V-neck. Short, cropped hair is going grey at the temples and receding from his sweat-dampened brow. He’s the living embodiment of “The Dad”, like he'd chosen the Dad character class and gone all the way with it. In fact, I glance down as he takes another step into the empty diner. Yep, socks with sandals. Although, that look is in right now for some reason.

Finally deciding on something, Dad-bod walks up to the bar and plonks down a toy shop carrier bag with a heavy thunk. He grabs a napkin, wipes the sweat from his brow, and with a surprisingly charming grin says, ‘I've been following your socials since you started, but the opening event was moved to tomorrow, right?’

I stiffen, retrieving my phone from the counter with stilted movements as I fight to contain my rage. What. Did. He. Do?!

Sure enough, the event on Slim Pickings' business page is set for tomorrow. I know with absolute certainty that hadn't been the case when I’d set the event up, because I’d added it to my calendar via a link on the event page. So, he moved the date. He probably did it to make it easier on himself to dump me yesterday, the absolute fuck-nugget.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

‘So, is it like a soft-opening kinda thing?’ Dad-bod asks, sweat somehow already glazing his forehead again, sparkling in the light streaming through the diner's window.

‘Uh... Yeah!’ I reply, doing my best to appear confident and happy and not like I’m busy thinking about garrotting Brann with his own dreads. ‘Yeah... Welcome to Slim Pickings! You're our... Well,’ I deflate a little, somehow feeling both a little grossed out by him and a lot comforted by his presence, ‘…you're our first customer.’ Yep, I am a failure. I opened the diner hours ago and you're my first and only customer. Please just laugh and leave, get it over with.

But he doesn’t laugh or leave. Instead, he flashes me another oddly disarming smile, his teeth bright against his Mediterranean skin, and says, ‘Oh heck yeah!’ before easing himself onto a bar stool with a poorly suppressed grunt. ‘You're gonna have a regular in me, kid!’

Kid? Ew.

‘So, what's good?’ he asks, grabbing a laminated menu from the bar and scanning it while smiling like he'd won a prize.

I lean over the bar slightly and his sweating kicks up a notch as I point a black-nailed finger at an item halfway down. ‘The meatless burger and sweet potato fries?’ I say uncertainly. Brann designed the menu, but I prepared everything on it while helping him test it. The burger isn't great but it’s probably the only thing I’d choose to eat here. I should probably start caring about this kind of food.

Dad-bod glances up at me with an awkward smile. ‘One of those then, please. And a smoothie of the day?’

I give the smoothie on the counter a sidelong glare. ‘I have to make a change to that one, sorry. Is mango and pineapple okay?’

‘Even better!’ He grins but turns to his phone as soon as I disengage. At least I don’t have to worry about him watching me while I work.

The skillet hisses and spits, the air fryer roars away in the corner, and the noise of it all fills the diner. For a moment I could almost imagine it full of people, hanging out while chill music takes the edge off the chatter... Shit, music!

I grab my phone from my pinny and quickly connect to the speakers, putting on some LoFi music to add to the ambience from the kitchen. The music is too plinky for my tastes but it’s another recommendation from Biz-bro. Something about creating a recognisable ambience to put customers at ease, if I remember rightly.

The downside of the plinky music, however, is that it masks the sound of the bell on the front door. Something I realise only as I turn back to Dad-bod, plate in hand, only to stop in shock at the ten people who have appeared and taken tables throughout the diner. I gawp at the two couples taking tables by the window and a group of six students sitting in the back booth.

‘I-I'll be right with you!’ I call out before placing Dad-bod’s food in front of him and giving him cutlery and a rack of sauces. ‘How...?’

‘I put a post up on MyLocal to let folks know you were open early. I hope you don't mind.’ Dad-bod is smiling at me again. The smile is the bashful and cute smile, not the disarmingly bright smile from earlier.

‘No... No, I don't mind,’ I breathe, returning his smile with one of my own, an honestly happy one. ‘Thank you! Here,’ I say, sliding the glass of thick orange pureed fruit across the counter, ‘the smoothie is on the house!’

‘Score!’ He says, making a little fist pump motion before taking a big pull of the drink through the thick paper straw. ‘Hey, that’s great!’

I’m staring at the new customers, but after a moment I realise he’s looking at me and turn back to him. He says quietly, ‘You should go take their orders,’ giving me another nervous smile and turning his attention to his burger.

I snap out of it and take my new customers' orders before getting to work in the kitchen. It’s an open space to the side of the smoothie bar because, according to Brann, “it's cool when people can watch you cooking”. Thankfully, their orders are simple because I had been more interested in making opening day easy and had insisted on a cut-down menu.

I turn from my work at the clatter of cutlery on ceramic to find Dad-bod standing, wiping his mouth and forehead with a napkin. ‘That was lovely, kid, thanks!’ He beams at me as he adds, ‘And so much healthier than a regular burger!’

I smile back at him, kind of glad and kind of sad that he seems to be about to leave. ‘I'm glad you liked it,’ I say, before offering him a payment device, feeling awkward as hell about it defaulting to a tip screen. He selects twenty per cent, and I ratchet up my smile a notch, thanking him as sweetly as I can.

‘Well, gotta head,’ he says, swiping his card against the reader. ‘I'll be back, though. Maybe your food will help me finally lose the dad-body, eh?’ He pats his belly with one hand while he grabs the bag of toys with the other.

How the fuck am I supposed to respond to that?! I just smile and offer something between a giggle and a stifled laugh. It seems to do the trick as he’s still smiling as he walks past the window once he’s outside.

I turn back to the kitchen and plate up the new orders, distributing them to my remaining customers before heading over to the door and flipping the open/closed sign to "closed." Look, I know this is a really bad business decision, but I’m exhausted already, and I need to focus on figuring out how the hell this is supposed to work without Brann's help. Not that he would have been much help, I guess. But I need to be able to decompress, maybe scream a little. And I need to call Divya, and vent over the phone to my best friend. I can’t do any of that in a diner full of customers.

I clean off Dad-bod’s plate and leave it in the sink, turning to lean against the counter and take a moment to try and settle my roiling mind. My hand brushes against something stiff and slimy and I recoil, turning to find the empty package from the burger; the hard plastic covered in a bright pink slime. Grimacing I lift the package and turn it over. As I read the list of ingredients my hair stands on end. This is... Not even slightly healthy.

OK, I really need to start caring about this kind of food!