Page 25 of Matchmaking On The Menu

Phil flicks his straw paper at her. “What did I tell you, Jo? You owe me twenty.”

“It’s not even Halloween yet.” She pouts as she takes the money out of her pocket.

“I know,” I say with a shrug. “But farmers are usually busy around then, so we do it earlier. Makes life easier for everyone.”

Mr. Davenport turns around from the counter, his false teeth firmly in place, something that’s only happened once this month. “Tennyson’s already got bunting hanging everywhere,” he grouches. “They’re still taking down last year’s paint.”

“Don’t be salty, Ashley,” Phil shoots back. “You love the festival as much as the rest of us. Didn’t you win the apple-bobbing competition three years running?”

Mr. Davenport puffs out his chest. “Mmhmm.”

“You wouldn’t imagine it,” I say to Jo, lowering my voice conspiratorially, “but when Mr. Davenport’s got those chompers in, nothing stops him.”

To prove the point, he snaps his teeth open and closed a couple of times, and Jo bursts out laughing.

She slides some money across the table for her coffee and stands to leave. “Well, I guess I’ll have to make sure I swing by when I’m passing through again.”

“Stop in and say hi if you do,” I say.

She lifts her cap in salute. “Sure will.”

The bell jingles again, and for a split second—just one—I look up. Shit!

I’m not at all disappointed to see it’s just a couple from out of town, arguing quietly over whether they should split a milkshake like it’s a binding contract. I don’t linger this time, which feels like progress.

“Table four,” Quadri calls, sliding a plate of sizzling steak and mashed potatoes onto the pass.

“I’m on it.”

The next hour blurs the way it always does when the diner hits that sweet spot between busy and chaotic. Orders stack, coffee flows, and the entire place hums with conversation.

But it’s busier. Not just the locals but more and more tourists coming in for the season.

A group of hikers comes in around noon, muddy boots tracking dirt across the floor and loud voices ranking trails. Two teenagers from one of the other towns—Misty Hills, if I had to guess—spend twenty minutes debating costume ideas for the masquerade as though their social lives depend on it.

“It’s not just a party,” a girl with blue hair insists, stabbing a fry for emphasis. “It’s a statement.”

“A statement of what?” her friend asks.

“That I’m hotter than everyone else.”

Okayyy.

Mr. Davenport snorts into his coffee at the counter. “Nope.”

“They’ll hear you,” I whisper.

He lifts his mug in salute, entirely unrepentant.

By mid-afternoon, the place is strung with more decorations than it was yesterday. I’m not entirely sure when that happened. Bunting hangs a little lower over the windows. Carved wooden pumpkins are stacked by the door, which definitely weren’t there this morning. Tennyson must’ve come through again. That man decorates like he’s in a race against time itself.

“Did he sleep here?” I mutter, adjusting one of the strings that’s threatening to decapitate anyone taller than six feet.

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Llewellen says. “He slept in the storage room during the Harvest of ’98.”

“Why?” I can’t think of anything worse.

“Commitment.”