Doreen's

When Gavin broke into a run, Simon thought for a moment his decision to keep the shotgun slung over his back would pay off. Maybe it was too much for bringing into a diner, but these were the Outer Colonies. Practically everyone applied for their open carry license a year before laws permitted, and far be it from him to appear out of fashion. But as the smuggler skidded to a halt outside a darkened shop, face pressed against a window like Zoey at a toy store, he suspected his hopes would, as usual, be dashed.
“No, no nooo,” Gavin groaned like a wounded animal. “How could it be closed? On a Monday! It’s not one of them colonial holidays, is it?”
Beside him, Zoey cupped her hand to the glass to see in past her own reflection. “Looks dusty. I don’t think it’s just for today.”
Gavin groaned again. “Dangit, they can’t’ve closed Doreen’s. The spacers’ union would riot! Maybe they got a new location…”
He stepped back and scoured the shuttered restaurant’s clapboard sides, hunting for any notice to contradict the un-lit “OPEN” light suction-cupped to the window’s inside.
Simon made sure his helmet’s speaker was on so they heard when he snorted. “So your diner’s a bust. Big deal. We passed two just like it on the way here, and a McFarlane’s. Zoey, you could get a tiny doll with your meal there.”
“Fuck you, I’m not ten.” She grumbled, all of a mature thirteen.
“Dangit,” Gavin lazily reused the socially accepted curse as he gave up on finding a notice. “They did perfect sourdough toast here, and it was always hot when it reached the table.”
Feeling, as usual, that his input would be ignored, Simon switched tack to sardonic commentary. “They sure knew how to warm up bread here, huh?”
“You know what I mean.” Gavin said. “When the bottom face is crisp, the middle is chewy, and the butter’s had just enough time to melt and soak the top layer. Only they use this canola stuff—tastes like liquid gold, and pools in all the little bubbles…”
Simon consciously forbid himself to lick his lips. They may not have seen it behind his helmet’s visor, but this was a matter of pride. Gavin had built up this Doreen’s place all morning and refused to let them spoil breakfast with any pick-me-ups from the spaceport lobby or even an MRE from Simon’s bag. If it’d all been for a dead end, he wasn’t going to let flowery description string him along.
“So it went out of business.” He said. “Sucks, but that’s life. Now c’mon, we can just grab some breakfast burritos from the Food and Drink Dispenser and eat ‘em while we’re—”
“Oho, no.” Gavin interrupted, voice filled with the kind of stubborn determination that rebelled against Simon’s hope of getting off this latest nowhere colony before late afternoon. “The next slipspace jump’s gonna last us at least two weeks, and all that time we’re gonna be wishing we had new ways to flavor protein chips.”
Zoey made a sound no human in good health should make.
“Before we go,” Gavin continued, “we’re enjoying the only place in the sector you can get a good American or English breakfast, if we have to buy back the building and re-hire the staff. Eggs—laid by real chickens!—boiled, scrambled, on toast or not! Fluffy yellow potatoes fried golden-brown! Beans simmered in brown sugar and cider vinegar, sausages thick as your armored thumb!”
Simon felt his mouth watering. This was reminding him too much of the meals he’d had every day on Onyx, so long ago. Spiked with growth hormones for the growing young Spartans—not that they’d seemed to work on him—but hearty, hot, and in generous portions. They’d made the street urchin he’d been before weep for joy, and having survived on a diet of mainly MREs since then, the memories were threatening to do the same now.
Gavin put an arm around his shoulder like a car salesman promising the ten-year-old coupe was just waiting to take him on a cross-continent vacation. Zoey leaned around him to add her best doe eyes.
“Bacon, Simon. Butcher-picked, thick-sliced, applewood-smoked and crispy as you like.”
“Alright,” Simon sighed, his lips already moist. “I’m hungry too, dammit.”