A/N: Hello everyone! So, I'm here with another story! This one, oddly enough, was kind of inspired by a dream I had. There's also a bit of a different writing style with this one, but I hope you all enjoy!
At the beginning of every day, James Diamond makes breakfast.
Sometimes he'll have something simple, like toast with bacon and eggs. Sometimes he likes to make omelets or waffles or, occasionally, when he wakes up really early, he makes a souffle or quiche. But no matter if it's savory or sweet, decadent or simple, James starts every day with a homemade breakfast.
It was habit that had started when he was a kid. His mom used to make the most amazing breakfasts for them, always big and filling and requiring a minimum of thirty minutes at the table. James learned to love breakfast because he loved his mom. He thinks he learned to love to cook because of her, too.
James is pretty sure he has never skipped breakfast. Even when he was a teenager, running around like a chicken without its head, he managed to sit down with his mom to have the 'most important meal of the day' with her.
After he moved from home, most mornings he'd stop by his mom's small restaurant to have breakfast there. Nearly every day consisted of his mom, breakfast, and the restaurant. Until the day she died, James hadn't gone more than a day without seeing his mom in some kitchen, making something delicious.
Running Brooke's without Brooke turned out to be harder than James anticipated. He had expected life to be hard without his mom. He thought it would be hard to be a son without a mother. He hadn't thought about how hard it would be to be a chef without her, too.
Inheriting the restaurant was always the plan, he just wishes it hadn't gone like that. He hadn't thought about how hard it would be to cook, let alone maintain customers without his mom.
He stops that train of thought, immediately cutting it off like a door slamming shut between him and his thoughts.
Hard, James reminds himself, is not impossible.
He folds over pancake batter in a large mixing bowl. He might not spend his mornings eating breakfast with his mom anymore, but he spends them making breakfast in her restaurant and that's just going to have to be enough.
The little bell above the front door rings from the other room, indicating first arrivals. James hoists the bowl under his arm and pushes at the kitchen door, peeking his head into the main room to see who has arrived.
His cook and waitress come in together, arms wrapped around each other as they laugh at a joke he wasn't privy to. The two hadn't been hired as a couple, but James turned out to be a pretty good accidental matchmaker.
The couple has been together since pretty much the first day James hired Stephanie. Dak had been his mom's cook, so he couldn't take full credit.
They stopped laughing as Dak pressed a kiss to the top of her head. James decides to take a little credit.
"Morning, Boss Man." Stephanie says, waving the hand she had clasped around Dak's. Both of their arms raise in greeting to James.
Dak drops his hand from Stephanie's and goes to the counter, boosting himself up onto it. Brooke's hasn't been redecorated in at least a decade and some of the wear, especially the cracked vinyl on the stools and the fraying edges to the artwork, show. But it's homey, it's comforting, and it's… well, it's Brooke's and James figures that's worth more than enough.
"Morning, guys." James says before jerking his head towards the kitchen. "I'm just going to go-"
"Yeah, yeah. I know the drill." Stephanie waves him off before turning to her boyfriend. "So, do you want to help me with the chairs before you run off to start being the amazing sous-chef you are?"
Dak rolls his eyes, but a smile twitches the corner of his mouth. "I'm not sure that's my official title."
He watches her with a fondness that James has never been the recipient of. Something bright like happiness but heated like jealousy pangs in his chest.
James shrugs, heading towards the kitchen. "Call it whatever you want so long as you hurry."
He takes the batter back into the kitchen, setting the bowl down on the counter. He'll make another batch of batter, and Dak can start prepping the vegetables and heating the griddles and ovens.
They need to start on a quiche or two. It's Saturday, and though business had been down ever since the property across the street had been turned into a restaurant specializing in brunch, James is still hoping to have a good morning rush.
The new restaurant, a stylistically upscale place run by none other than Arthur Griffin, is kind of the bane of James' existence. They'd opened two months ago and already, business as Brooke's plummeted. According to pretty much everyone that James complained to, Griffin could run him out of business permanently.
And according to his accountant, he's going to. After all, who wants to go to a homely, aged little place when they could go somewhere that promises bottomless mimosas? His mom's legacy and their delicious, family-oriented home cooking are going to be run out of business because a bunch of bored townspeople wanted spiked orange juice.
Just the thought of it makes James' head throb.
He pushes the thoughts out of his mind, deciding that he isn't going to worry about that right now. Right now, all he's going to worry about is the right ratio of vanilla to wet batter. That's all that matters right now.
Dak comes in after a few minutes and starts his prep work without saying anything. The man is a year or two older than James who, at twenty-four, is barely old enough to be head chef, let alone owner of a struggling-yet-technically-afloat restaurant.
Where James feels like he's struggling with every decision, Dak works effortlessly. Dak has been working at Brooke's since he was eighteen, first bussing tables and eventually moving into the kitchen. James' mom saw something in Dak, and while James isn't completely sure what it is, he thinks he can see it too.
It doesn't hurt that Dak is one of his best friends, as well. They'd spent way too many of their formative years in the small restaurant together to have not bonded, close like family.
"You're quiet." Dak notes, not looking up from where he's chopping tomatoes.
"I'm thinking." James says. "Nothing worth mentioning."
"Probably true." Dak jokes, then, seriously, "Is it about Kyle?"
Oh, shit.
James had kind of forgotten about Kyle.
As of a week ago, Kyle became James' ex-boyfriend. James forgot he's supposed to be upset about that. "No." He answers honestly.
Dak looks up, one eyebrow quirked and his head slightly tilted. His expression shifts from I'm here for you to something more I'm calling bullshit, but he wisely says nothing.
Still, James feels the need to defend himself. "I'm not thinking about him."
"Look," Dak stops chopping completely, and James works very hard not to wince at the impending emotional talk. "It's okay if you're upset. You guys were together for almost a year."
"It was a mutual break-up." James says. Technically, it wasn't, but Kyle had been about ten times more upset than James, so he feels like it's okay to elevate his part in the breakup.
Dak's scoff is predictable, but effective. James struggles not to cross his arms in a pout.
"He was an asshole." Dak offers.
He wasn't, and Dak knew that.
James rolls his eyes. "He was not. But I don't care."
"You don't need to Strong Man this shit." Dak grabs a tomato between his hands, rolling it. "Seriously, when Stephanie and I almost broke up that one time, I was a wreck."
"You love Stephanie." James points out. "Kyle and I were just… having fun."
He winces as soon as the words leave his mouth. That is definitely a jerk thing to say. He keeps talking, hoping he'll stumble onto something that makes him sound less like a jerk. "I'm just not into anything serious."
Dak tosses the tomato up and catches it. "You never are."
"True." James admits.
Done with delving into his feelings, James turns back to the batter he's making. He grabs a container of plastic wrap, covering the now finished bowls. It sticks a little to his fingers, and he focuses on getting out of that and wrapping it securely.
When James finishes, he looks up to see his friend still staring at him. He lifts his chin and eyebrows but doesn't say anything. Dak sighs in response and goes back to chopping the tomatoes, his face drawing in tightly.
The thing is, James isn't reluctant to admit his feelings. He just… doesn't have any. Or, at least, any for Kyle. That's kind of the reason they broke up.
Or, they broke up because Kyle wanted to move in together, and James really couldn't have been bothered with that.
He does feel bad that he didn't actually care. They had been together for nine months, and Kyle had been a great guy. He was nice and attractive, and really liked James, but James didn't want anything serious.
James isn't really sure what that says about him. But he doesn't like it, whatever it is.
Maybe he just isn't the relationship type of guy. Maybe he just doesn't like being in love the way other people seem to.
Maybe he's just an asshole who treated a really great guy so ambivalently that he doesn't even care that they're not dating anymore.
"Should we make a vegetarian and a meat quiche like we talked about yesterday?" Dak asks when he's finished with the tomatoes before grabbing a box of mushrooms, prepping them while he waits for James' response.
James hums his approval and Dak starts chopping. James grabs a knife and starts to cut the meat for the second egg dish. They work in silence except for the occasional scrape of a chair from Stephanie getting the front ready to open.
James glances at the clock; they open in twenty minutes.
"You got this?" James asks when he's done prepping the meat. Dak nods without looking away from what he's doing, and James salutes him, going to wash up and start of the rolls.
The dough had been made yesterday evening right before James left to go home, giving it plenty of time to rise and set. He pops them into the already pre-heated oven.
He grabs the salt, milk, butter, and flour, carrying it over to the side of the stove. Then he finds the biggest skillet he has and starts to slowly make a roux.
James loves making a roux. He likes the simplicity of it, the way that it completely transforms. It takes patience and time, but it's worth it.
He grabs a wooden spoon, carefully stirring. The gravy takes the longest to make because he likes to do it slowly from the recipe his grandmother created and his mom perfected.
Time moves by quickly, as it always does in the kitchen. Before long, he hears the other employees arrive-a dishwasher, a busboy, another waiter-and the customers follow not long after.
James knows better than to get distracted by the sounds and chatter of people. Instead, he turns the roux into gravy, into a meal, when an order calls for it.
Although the orders come, they trickle in slowly. Stephanie brings each back individually and chats with Dak a bit as he fries the eggs or slices potatoes for hash browns. At another establishment-even at Brooke's a year ago-that would have been unprofessional. But James doesn't consider it in bad taste because he knows there aren't any customers waiting for her.
There aren't really that many customers at all.
When the morning rush comes to an end, James leave Dak in charge of the kitchen and goes out to the front.
His regulars sit in their regular spot: Mr. and Mrs. Henderson, an elderly couple that have been coming to Brooke's for twenty years. They come in every weekend morning and sit in the corner booth.
Stephanie's sister and her three kids sit at the big table in the middle, the kids fighting over chocolate milk.
Peter, a middle aged reporter for the local paper, eats his toast and quiche with a cup of black coffee-he comes in every other day and is the reason James added meat quiche to the menu.
There are a few others James vaguely recognizes. He stands behind the counter, refilling coffee and trying to mentally pull in more customers.
James loves to cook. He loves his restaurant, his staff, and his town. He loves everything about the life he has, even if it is hard work and long hours and his mom is gone.
So even if there is a budding restaurant threatening to ruin his business and he is a little bit emotionally unavailable to the point that he forgot about his ex, it doesn't matter. James loves his life and he is going to fight for it.
In the past five years, Kendall Knight has lived in eight different cities and two small towns.
He bounces from state to state, his old junker car spitting in protest and gurgling the cheapest gas Kendall can find. He's lived in New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Illinois. He briefly stayed in Missouri and Wisconsin, and he's pretty sure if he saves up enough cash for an oil change, he can make it to California.
He isn't working to make it out to California necessarily, he just wouldn't mind if he ends up there, but it wouldn't bother him if he doesn't, either.
He doesn't care where he lives, and he doesn't really care if he stays or leaves or any of that. New places weren't always exciting and the more new lives he starts, the more he realizes life is pretty much just life no matter where he is.
He still has to eat and sleep and work, and he still has to deal with the things he doesn't want to deal with. He tried to explain why he kept moving once, but it hadn't come out right. It was hard to explain that he just… well, he just doesn't care. He'll work a job until it bores him and then he'll just pack up the junker and drive until he's sick of driving.
It isn't necessarily the most steady way of life, but Kendall doesn't care about that. He thinks steady might end up being boring.
Speaking of boring-Poplar, Kansas blurs in the windshield, a small town so seemingly boring that Kendall briefly wonders if he's fallen asleep and dreamt the most generic American town he was capable of.
His car rolls to a stop in front of what he thinks must be a courthouse. It's big compared to the rest of the shit in this town, but it still pales in comparison to the sizes of the buildings in Chicago, the last place he was in. The bricks are faded red and there's a gazebo with a broken pillar at the front.
According to the motel manager he called when his car started to sputter on the interstate, the motel isn't far from the courthouse. It was actually walking distance, the woman had cheerfully informed him.
Kendall shuts off the junker before stepping out, pulling out his pack of Marlboro Reds from the cupholder. He takes one of the cigarettes out of the nearly empty pack and puts it in his mouth, slamming the car door behind him.
Rolling the cigarette a bit with his tongue, Kendall squints and looks around. The block has an array of businesses, each one looking just shy of being dilapidated. There's a junk shop, a vintage clothes resale, and a dollar store. He pulls out the lighter from his pocket and lights the cigarette, inhaling the smoke.
"What the hell is this place?" He mutters to himself around the smoke. He locks the car, checks the door handle twice, and starts off towards the other side of the street where the businesses seem to be centrally located.
Living in as many different places as Kendall had, he's fairly accustomed to the general layout towns tend to stick to. Find the courthouse, or any government building, and then the rest of the town will spread out from there. The hub of every small town is easily decipherable.
Predictable. Boring.
Kendall inhales deeply from his cigarette and holds his breath in before letting the smoke billow out from between his lips. His body relaxes beneath the nicotine coating his lungs and mind.
He tries not to scowl when the random townspeople wave at him through shop windows or from across the street. He sees a group of girls huddled by what he thinks is a bank, staring openly at him and whispering to themselves.
Small towns are cheap, which is good when his wallet and gas tank are empty, as they are now. But they can also have the most annoying girls.
He passes by them, purposely avoiding looking in their direction, and goes around the corner to the bank. And there, just at the edge of the block, sits the Sunnyside Motel.
The sign is barely ten feet off the ground. It's shaped like a smiling cartoon sun. It's atrocious. Kendall finished the rest of his cigarette there, glaring at the sign, until the cherry threatens to burn his lips and he has to stub it out on the bank's wall.
Resigned, Kendall crosses the parking lot.
He pushes the door open and pretends to not be bothered by the chime the door lets out at his arrival.
The decor inside makes Kendall stumble a little upon entry. He looks around, face decidedly not pinching up in disgust.
It isn't that Kendall thinks things shouldn't be themed. He makes a point to stay at budget motels because they're cheap and sufficient. But this town, with its cheery people and literally sunny dispositions, seems intrinsically too sweet.
And Kendall isn't really a fan of sweet.
"Hi." Kendall says, nodding to the woman sitting at the counter. Her hair is so blonde and curly, it resembles more of a beehive than a hairdo. Jesus Christ. "I called earlier."
"Oh, right! Kendall!" The woman put her magazine down, perking up in her seat. "I'm Martha."
"Martha,"-of-fucking-course her name is Martha-"I need a room."
"Absolutely you do!" Martha says. Her cheerfulness seems so extreme, Kendall thinks it has to be forced. He looks around, a little convinced there's going to be a man with a gun a few feet away telling her to smile.
She starts clacking away at the keyboard, looking at the computer, and nearly vibrating in her seat. If he wasn't positive this town has already outlawed alcohol and dancing, he would have thought she was on the good drugs.
He swallows back a sigh. No need to be rude, he thinks, though the urge sits just beneath his skin.
"We have quite a few options." Martha stars.
"Whatever is the cheapest." Kendall interrupts.
Martha's face falls slightly, her painted on rosy cheeks drooping, but she nods after a second. "Well, all right." She frowns at the computer for a second before smiling and snapping her fingers. "That'll be room 318! It's a nice one."
"I'm sure." Kendall doesn't roll his eyes. He absolutely doesn't.
"How long will you be staying with us at Sunny Side Motel?"
Kendall pulls out his wallet, flicking through the cash there. About eighty bucks, plus whatever was in his account… probably not much more than that. That won't be enough to get him going. He'll have to find a job and stick around here for at least a couple paychecks.
Dammit.
Kendall pulls out his license and fifty bucks. "Whatever that'll do." He says.
Martha raises her eyebrows, the thin slivers disappearing beneath the beehive momentarily, before she picks up the license and the cash. She glances at the picture and smiles up at him before turning back to the computer. "All right, I can do one week with our special going on right now!"
"Perfect." Kendall says.
He leans against the counter, fiddling with the lighter in his pocket while Martha copies down his information into the computer system.
When she finally finishes, he takes his license back and the key card she hands him. He bites the inside of his cheek and nods while she spends a good five minutes telling him about their hours, facilities, and information about the town he honestly doesn't give a shit about.
The thing is, everyone thinks their town is special.
Everyone thinks their diner is the best diner in the whole country and their real nice residents and the nicest residents. Kendall doesn't care if this town is special to the people in it. He knows by now, no town is objectively special. No town is going to be special to him.
"You have a great day now!" Martha says when he finally finds a lull in the conversation to inch towards the door.
Kendall nods again but doesn't dare respond vocally, instead opening the door and wincing at the loud chime, slipping back outside as quickly as he can manage.
He goes back to his car and drives to the motel parking lot, sliding into the spot Martha told him went with his room. Considering there's only two other cars in the lot and one of them has to be Martha's, he isn't really sure it matters where he parks, but whatever.
The gas gauge needle moves into the red zone. He shuts the car off and decides to ignore it until he finds a job at least.
He grabs his duffle bag from the backseat and locks the junker, finding his room up a few flights of outdoor stairs. The key card works and there are no easily discernible stains on the bedspread, so Kendall dubs the place good enough.
He throws his clothes in the dresser drawers and stuffs his duffle under the bed. He checks his cash again and returns his wallet to his back pocket, locking the door behind him as he leaves the motel room.
He walks past the motel and bank, looking in the windows of the local business for a Help Wanted sign. The sooner he gets a job, the sooner he gets enough money to leave the town.
Each road seems as unbelievably boring as the last. There's no place that seems quirky or out of the ordinary or hiring.
His stomach growls loudly, interrupting his stride just a little. He's been wandering around the town for nearly an hour, looking for any place hiring that didn't look too goddamn miserable to step foot into.
Unfortunately, while small towns are great because they're cheap, they're also harder to get jobs in.
He makes it to the other side of town, which really isn't that far away, and has only seen about three businesses that even looked big enough to have employees. He looks around, feeling irritation flare beneath his skin. He decides to take a break for lunch and then figure it out afterwards.
Luckily, this side of the town seems to actually have places to eat instead of just charity shops and half-empty furniture stores. Until he stumbles across the one cafe and few restaurants actually open, he hadn't known how the economy of this town stays afloat.
He stops in the middle of the street crossing his arms. One of the places looks like it had been opened in the 80s and not renovated since. The paint is faded and the sign is eerily large compared to the rest of the building. Though Brooke's seems to have people in it, it doesn't necessarily seem like a great place.
Across the street, there's an equally dismal option. While the building looks better, or at least newer, the name of the place alone is reason enough for Kendall to scrunch up his nose and wonder if the motel has any vending machines.
After another minute of looking between the two restaurants and groaning audibly, he shakes his head.
It isn't like it actually matters where he eats lunch anyway. Whether he eats crappy diner food or crappy brunch food, his life won't change. How different can two restaurants across the street from each other in a small town really be anyway?
He looks between the two of them again. Though he's too far away to know for sure, it kind of looks like there's a sign in the window of the nicer looking place. If it's a Help Wanted sign, then Kendall could kill two birds with one stone: a nice lunch and a job.
Deciding he was being unnecessarily dramatic, he makes up his mind. He'll go have lunch at the weird Savory Art's, maybe get a job there, get some money, and get the hell out of this small, one-horse town.
XxX
Kendall glares at the man in front of him.
"Look, man, interview me or don't. But don't just stand there." Kendall says as he folds his arms across his chest. He had been trying to stand in a way that said, Hey, I'm a nice guy. Give me a job, but the prick just stood there glaring at him.
The owner of Savory Art's, whose name Kendall doesn't actually know because the man never introduced himself-although he's pretty sure he heard someone call him Griffin-, clucks his tongue.
Kendall regrets ever entering the dumb brunch diner in the first place. Even if the coffee was pretty good and the food was definitely edible, the owner is probably one of the worst bosses Kendall would ever work for.
"You're saying," The owner says slowly, eyebrows raising. "That you're a traveling baker."
"Among other things."
"Why would a pastry chef not have a restaurant?"
"I didn't want to stay anywhere." Kendall says. He ignores the use of the title pastry chef because it seems a little presumptuous and also dumb as hell. He puts the majority of his energy on not clenching his teeth too hard to let his words out. "I'm good, though. Trust me."
"I'm hiring for barkeep." The owner taps his thumb against his lips.
Kendall shrugs. "Fine. Hire me for that, then. But I'm better at desserts."
"But we could use a pastry chef." The man looks at him with as much interest as there is disdain. "What can't you make?"
Kendall hates being interviewed. He'd rather just bake something or let his resume speak for itself. Still, he really doesn't want to work in a random shop if he can actually get a job in his field.
"I'm not great at a souffle. I can do it," He adds. "But I tend to work overnight and those need to be made pretty instantly."
Griffin looks Kendall up and down and then shrugs. "Logan!" He stomps through the restaurant and after a second, Kendall trails behind him.
He slips through the door when Griffin pushes it open, going into the kitchen without saying anything else to Kendall.
"Logan." He says again, and the chef looks up, blinking.
Kendall has no idea why the idiot would have called to his chef from across the goddamn building. He thinks he might end up hating this guy a lot.
"This is Wendell." Griffin gestures toward him.
"Kendall." Kendall corrects.
Logan raises an eyebrow but keeps chopping. "Okay."
"He wants to be our pastry chef."
That stops Logan's hand. He sets down the knife and looks up. "How long have you been doing this?"
An actual, honest to God interview question. Kendall's almost impressed someone seems to have any brains. "Over five years."
"Professionally?"
"Yes. I can give you phone numbers. You know, if you want references."
"Don't bother." Logan says. "References don't matter half as much as what Griffin thinks."
Griffin preens like it's a compliment, but from the way Logan smirks, Kendall thinks it must be an insult.
Logan winks at Kendall before holding out a hand. "Welcome to the team. Get here by nine tomorrow, and I'll have the paperwork for you."
Kendall shakes his hand as Griffin leaves without saying another word. The second the door closes behind him, the kitchen picks back up. The cooks and waitstaff start buzzing around, prepping plates and trays.
"Don't mind him." One of the waitresses says. "He stays out of the way, most of the time."
Logan hands his knife to someone else and steps away from the prep table, gesturing for Kendall to follow him towards the back. "I'm Logan. You have a trial shift tomorrow. We'll see if you're actually any good."
"I am."
Logan raises an eyebrow. "Sure. Well, Griffin will give you a list of things to make every day and that'll be that. He doesn't like the bakers to stay overnight,"-they both roll their eyes-"but we'll mostly be out of the way. You can take the back prep table."
Kendall looks around the kitchen, considering. "I'll bake in the mornings and do prep work in the afternoon, then. Make things easier."
"Perfect." Logan looks back to the stove and winces. "Okay, see you tomorrow. Gotta run."
Kendall watches them cook for a while and then lets himself into the pantry, looking at what ingredients he'll have to work with.
Griffin gave him basically no information and he's not sure who has been making the desserts before he got here, but he assumes it was just a random chef since Griffin was willing to hire him as the pastry chef.
After familiarizing himself with the available ingredients, he slips out of the kitchen and finds a back door. He leaves that way so he won't have to run into Griffin again.
He gets outside and lets out a sigh.
He's got a place to stay, an all right job with a probably shitty boss, and little bit of cash left. Kendall decides that maybe Poplar, Kansas won't be the worst place he's ever stayed.
Done! Of course, this was kind of an introductory chapter, but I hope you all still liked it!
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the chapter, as well as if you happened to have a favorite part/moment! I also hope you don't mind the writing style of this one.
If you all want more, the next chapter of this is ready to go and will more than likely be up sometime this weekend, so until then! :)
-Epically Obsessed