My Hockey Alpha

Chapter 238: A Stop on the Road

Nina

Enzo and I followed the old man, Frank, into the diner.

We were short on time, but Frank was right; we had an important journey ahead of us, and we couldn’t accomplish our goals on nothing but coffee and potato chips. Neither of us had eaten in over a day by now, and we were both starving.

Frank opened the door to the old retro diner, causing the little bell to hit the glass and jingle loudly. This diner was a lot like the one that I worked at; there were some vinyl-covered booths in the windows along with a long, enamel counter lined with stools. Everything seemed to be either a shade of sky blue or cream white — even the waitress’s uniform. It was, essentially, the quintessential North American diner. Aside from the fact that the people here were all werewolves or some other form of occult, it didn’t really even feel as though I set foot outside of Mountainview.

Without waiting for the waitress, Frank led us over to a booth in the corner and slid into the seat with a grunt, as though his old bones felt strained just from the process of sitting down. Enzo and I slid into the seat across from him.

A few moments later, the waitress — who was wearing a blue dress with a white apron, almost exactly like the one that I wore at the diner in Mountainview — came up to us and poured steaming black coffee into three thick mugs without a word. She plopped a small pitcher of creamer down on the counter. There was no sugar anywhere to be found.

“Hey, Frank,” the waitress said with a bit of a sigh. “Good day for driving.”

“Yup.” As usual, Frank was a man of few words. I quickly began to realize that maybe that was just the way he talked to everything, and that it wasn’t just because Enzo and I were outsiders.

The waitress then slowly turned her head to look at Enzo and me, and looked us both up and down deliberately. She was chewing a piece of gum, and smacked her lips with it as she stared at us.

“Who’re you?”

“Uh…” I began, feeling small beneath the waitress’s glare. Enzo, however, stepped in for me.

to take on the same cadence that these people had. It made me realize that Enzo really was from this place, after all, and maybe the way that he spoke back in Mountainview wasn’t natural to his normal way of speaking. I supposed that living in a place for several years

I hated to admit it, but I appreciated the fact that these people didn’t ask too many questions. Whether or not they simply didn’t care or they genuinely didn’t want to get

Frank suddenly said.

the

“Yup. Thanks, Louise.”

“Mhm.”

leaving Enzo, Frank, and I alone at our booth. There was a long, awkward silence; I didn’t know what to say at this point, because after our brief conversation — if one could even call it that — in the truck, I had learned that Frank wasn’t the

diner uniform sitting at a table with a man and a toddler, indicating that she was probably sitting with her family for her lunch break. And if the town that we met Frank in was

tell us at all about this

Enzo’s hand tighten on my leg beneath the table, but I wasn’t afraid. Frank, just like everyone else around here, was just a normal working man. In fact, he had done nothing except prove that he was incredibly kind, in his own way. Sure, he seemed a bit rough around the edges, but he went out of his way to give two strangers a ride and was even willing to sit down and have a meal with

cracked

goin’ after the Luna, aren’t ya?” he

and

weren’t going after anyone except Selena. I didn’t even know anyone who was

thinkin’. This place is as run down

“Well, no, I—”

hard

asked. We were both surprised at

“Yup.

What happened?” I asked, leaning forward with my elbows

though he wanted to choose his words carefully. I could tell that he didn’t want to say anything