Who: Nick M & open
When: recently
Where: the (Good) Diner.
Neighborhoods in Manhattan, they lived insular. Cheek to cheek, rich people and they acted like they didn't know one another fucked, shit, lived or ate in the same places, same hotels, same door service. Same dressmakers, same jewellers, same laundry service and same maids, yeah? Same maids who knew all the dirt that went on behind closed doors. Nick had grown up there and he'd grown up in a neighborhood outside Manhattan where no one gave a shit, long as your business stayed behind closed doors. Small towns, Nick found out that first day in the diner, were worse than the network of live-in service. He heard all about the sheriff and his girl, all about a dead man and a sister, all about weird drugged-out egg hunts and scientists. Would have heard about a lot more, maybe, if gossip hadn't slimmed down to nothing when the table-side service was about two foot lower than expected.
The diner hadn't taken much. Losing a few tables wasn't gonna break his bank and losing a few tables opened out the run between the tables into wide enough to take wheels and a little extra. He'd do something about the counter eventually, because it worked fine if you could lean on it but not at all if you didn't and he was gonna find middle-ground, because otherwise every time he came into his own damn place, he was gonna feel lesser. Nick came in with the morning crowd, to open up. The stove wasn't real user-friendly yet so the morning cook (the one who was gonna get laid off if he cooked eggs like that again) was in the kitchen and the air smelled like hot coffee and seared butter. Nick, he smelled like coffee too, because he'd scattered grounds over his lap when trying to figure out the turbo-charged coffee maker behind the counter. Coffee, and that soap bought expensive in stores where they wafted scent around to seduce in sales. He wore a worn t-shirt that advertized a band long-since broken up on faded red cotton, and jeans, and his shoes were worn-in Converse, laces loosely knotted.
Felt good about the diner, sitting there and breathing in steamy air. It was different, real different from the blare of city noise outside the window, and damned if he hadn't slept better, dead to the world with the absence of sound beyond his bed. The door had a bell, and it jangled now and Nick turned automatically because he'd let the kid with the dirty apron and the bedhead go early. Wasn't enough custom late morning on a weekday to make it worth it, and the kid looked like he needed a strong coffee and a shower before class.
"Help you?"
![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
