“Go back home and go to sleep.”

“I would if I could,” I said, sidestepping him and sitting down on a stool. “Don’t worry. I didn’t come here to try to convince you to let me work. I just came in for a cup of tea.”

David sighed and walked back around the counter, grabbing a mug from the rack above his head.

Deluxe Diner is a diner, yes, but it’s anything but deluxe. The black vinyl stools that surround the main counter had uniform rips down their centers, and the tables, though clean, had scratches in them from decades of use. Still, there was something about the fluorescent-lit forty-seat restaurant that made you want to come back, and it was the first place I’d gone to ask about a job after Keith’s accident.

“Do you have any restaurant experience at all?” David had asked me a year ago as I sat on the same stool and pleaded with him to hire me. “Anything?”

“Does the fact that most of the meals I’ve eaten in the last ten years have been prepared in restaurants count as experience?” I’d asked.

He had glared at me. “Not at all.”

“Well then, not really,” I’d said. “But come on, David. How many times am I here a week? Four? Five? Who else can recite all of the ingredients in the Deluxious omelet?”

He hadn’t said anything, but he had raised his eyebrows.

I had leaned forward across the counter. “Bell peppers, mushrooms, onions, chorizo, spinach, tomatoes, jalapeños, chives, and, of course, your Deluxious choice of cheese.”

He still hadn’t spoken, but one corner of his mouth had turned up slightly. I’d started working there three days later.

As he put the tea down in front of me, David frowned. “Tell me again why you continue to resist my insomnia home remedy of a slice of cheesecake and a bottle of wine?” he asked. “It puts me out in minutes. It’s a Smith family not-so-secret. Sugar and alcohol. The quickest way to nighttime bliss…”

I smiled. I liked alcohol, but it didn’t like me, and since Keith had started using it to fall asleep, I tried my best to stay away from it.

“I’ll stick with chamomile tea,” I said, lifting the mug. “Thanks a lot.”

He nodded and turned to walk back into the kitchen.

Besides a tall, thin man eating eggs sitting next to me at the counter, there were only two tables filled in the diner—a group of teenage girls giggling and sharing french fries, and an elderly woman sitting alone by the front door, reading a book. It was a quiet night for Deluxe; usually, there was a steady stream of customers throughout the day and night, since the restaurant sat at a busy intersection in Chicago’s Irving Park neighborhood.