Chapter 37 - Diner

                                    

                                          
Zeke and I woke up before dawn, the motel room still cloaked in darkness, with only a faint glow from the streetlights seeping through the threadbare curtains. My phone buzzed beside me, the alarm vibrating gently against the nightstand. I blinked, groggy, my body protesting the early hour. The room was cold, the air heavy with the same stale, faintly musty smell from the night before. I could hear Zeke stirring on the other bed, rustling the thin motel blanket as he rolled over, already half-awake.
We didn't have time to waste. I didn't know what time Dylan was going to meet his "friend" for breakfast which meant that if we wanted to get there in time to spy on him, we had to move fast. I didn't know who he was meeting, but he'd been acting weird for weeks, and today was our only shot at figuring out why. One shot, that's all we got. 
I'd only found out where Dylan was headed by accident. Last week, I overheard him talking to Chris late at night in the kitchen when he thought everyone was asleep. He mentioned the diner's name — Rusty's Place — just once, but it was enough for me to piece it together. I looked it up afterward, a small breakfast joint just on the outskirts of town, the kind of place you'd only know about if you'd been there before. Unluckily for me, Spencer had caught me snooping so I couldn't get any more information out of my two eldest brothers' conversation and now had to do Spencer's chores for a week. 
The plan was simple: get in, order something small, and stake out a spot where we could see Dylan without him noticing us. Easier said than done when your older brother is as sharp as Dylan, but Zeke and I had been plotting this for days. Zeke might've given me hell for it, but he was in this with me now, and I trusted him. No one could read a situation like Zeke; he had a knack for fading into the background, and that was going to be our biggest advantage today.
Plus, it had become aware to me during our time on the bus and other things today that I had a lot of things weighing on me and that was majorly clouding my judgment. The overloading burden of figuring out my brother's elusive secrets made me scared and jittery. Having Zeke here with a level head to just calm me down was doing a lot.  
I quickly threw on my hoodie and jeans, glancing at the time — 5:15 a.m. We had about forty-five minutes before the place opened, and it was kinda a long walk from the motel, just a few blocks away. Zeke groaned as he swung his legs off the bed, pulling on his sneakers, his face half-hidden under a mop of messy hair.
"Come on," I muttered, trying to shake off the lingering sleepiness. "We've gotta go if we want to beat Dylan there."
Zeke shot me a look, his eyes still bleary but focused. "Yeah, yeah, I'm coming." His voice was rough from sleep, but he didn't complain as we grabbed our bags and slipped out of the motel room.
Outside, the world was quiet. The sky above was still a dark shade of indigo, though the faintest hints of dawn were beginning to creep up over the horizon. The streets were mostly deserted, save for the occasional car passing by, its headlights cutting through the morning fog that clung to the ground. The air was crisp, a little too chilly for how early it was, and I tugged my hoodie tighter around me as we started walking toward the diner.
I'd memorized the place's opening hours from what they had online — 6:00 a.m. sharp — and we needed to make sure we were there right as the door unlocked. First people in. The diner wasn't much, just a small, no-frills joint in a quieter part of town. From what I had found out, it was the kind of spot that served strong coffee, greasy bacon, and not much else. Perfect for someone who didn't want to be noticed.
As we walked, the city around us began to slowly stir to life. The streetlights blinked off one by one, and the sky above us brightened just a shade, though it was still early enough that most shops and cafes remained closed. The sidewalks were slick with dew, and the air smelled faintly of wet pavement and the promise of a new day. I could hear the distant hum of traffic picking up, though it still felt like the world was holding its breath, waiting for the morning rush to really begin.