Page 82 of Matchmaking On The Menu

“Prank!” he echoes quickly. “It’s a prank!”

I stare at them. Then I look at Mystery Man, who does not immediately look convinced. There’s a beat where everything hangs, Mystery Man still braced, Luke still pinned, Mary hovering like a panicked stage manager.

Luke rubs his jaw where Mystery Man clocked him and looks at Mary. “I thought you were going to be the hero.”

I flick my gaze to Mary who shrugs sheepishly. “I’m sorry.”

Slowly, Mystery Man’s grip loosens. Not all the way, but enough to stop the assault. Not enough to say he trusts literally anything about this situation.

Luke takes the opportunity to very carefully not move, his hands still up like surrender is the only sensible option here. My heart is still pounding, adrenaline nowhere near done with me yet, my brain trying to catch up to the fact that I was just mugged. No, fake mugged.

“This was a prank?” I manage, my voice coming out somewhere between incredulous and mildly hysterical.

“Surprise?” Mary offers weakly.

I open my mouth. Close it. Reopen it. Because I have several questions, and none of them are polite. And that’s when someone clears their throat. It’s delicate. Polite. Completely out of place. We all look up.

Standing a few feet away, like she’s just wandered into the wrong scene entirely, is a well-dressed, middle-aged woman with perfectly styled ginger hair and the kind of posture that says she irons her napkins for fun. She’s holding a piece of paper.

“Sorry,” she says, her tone pleasant but edged with confusion, “is there some sort of queue for this?” She holds up the paper, which I now see is a coupon.

Silence. Complete, and utter silence. My brain finally gives up. At that exact moment, the back doors to the diner slam open.

“Wait, I didn’t think anyone besides Mystery Man lived in those apartments.” Quadri’s voice carries before she’s even fully outside, her words tumbling over each other as she steps into the scene, then stops.

Because, objectively? This is a scene.

Her eyes flick from Mystery Man half-crouched over Luke, to Luke still on the ground with his hands up, to Mary hovering like she’s about to confess to several crimes, to me gripping my purse and trying very hard not to lose what’s left of my sanity.

Quadri straightens slightly, like she’s decided to simply accept none of this.

“Also,” she adds, brushing her hands down her apron like we’re not in the middle of whatever this is, “I’m so sorry the restaurant isn’t empty yet, we got absolutely slammed from three, and I’m still catching up.”

Mary leans toward me and whispers, “Oops. My fault.” She clears her throat. “If you’ll wait around the front, I’ll…um…sort everything out.”

“Oh shucks,” the woman says. “I saw the commotion and thought we were all lining up here.”

Mary looks at her. “If you’ll just follow me.”

I’m so shocked by all of this that I also follow her. We’re all a little shocked, so everyone follows suit. Luke struggles to his feet slowly as if any sudden movement might set Mystery Man off again.

The moment we get to the front, the doors open and a small wave of customers begins filtering out, all of them laughing, chatting, clearly having had the best time of their lives while I was being fake-mugged in the back lot. Sure, they couldn’t see me but still…

Shelly’s voice carries from inside, bright and warm. “Bye! See you again soon!”

Then she steps out. Her gaze sweeps over the group, then locks in. She takes in Mystery Man, Luke, Mary, and Quadri.

“Where are the bikes?”

I blink. “What do you mean?”

“Where’s the tandem bike?”

There’s a split second where no one answers.

Then Mystery Man, still a little keyed up, still not entirely relaxed, deadpans, “It broke in two.”

Shelly blinks.