Once the deal was real, once the site was secured, once the demolition date was scheduled and Tony had been forbidden from adding arc reactor technology to the waffle irons, Kendis flew back to Houston.

Dionne was still there, working in the same Waffle House with the same terrible coffee and the same terrible customers.

Dionne looked up when Kendis walked in and froze. “Well, I’ll be damned! It’s the punk rock rich auntie.”

Kendis grinned, “Hi, Dionne!”

“You come all the way back for burnt coffee?” Dionne asked as she typed something up on the register and handed a customer a receipt.

“No.”

Dionne narrowed her eyes. “That sounds ominous.”

Kendis sat at the counter and folded her hands. “I’m opening a Waffle House in Los Angeles.”

Dionne stared at her for a long moment, then threw her head back and laughed. But then her laughter died as Dionne got a look at Kendis’s face.

“Oh, you’re serious,” Dionne said, “Lord, you are serious.”

“Yes.” Kendis crossed her arms and waited.

Dionne shot her a look and then snorted, “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Possibly.” Kendis shrugged because, in hindsight, her idea had been ridiculous, but Kendis had done ridiculous things and made it work out.

“In Los Angeles?” Dionne scoffed. “If you wanted to waste money, you could just burn it.”

“I don’t think it’s a waste.”

“Listen to yourself!” Dionne put her hands on her hips. “You want to open a Waffle House in a place where people put avocado on everything and call seasoning ‘too aggressive’?”

“East Hollywood,” Kendis said. “They’ll survive seasoning.”

Dionne paused for a second and shot her another suspicious glare, studying her. “Why are you telling me?”

“Because I want you to run it.”

Dionne stopped breathing for half a second.

“Not as an employee, as my business partner. You get half a stake in the business and equal say in the operations. On top of that, you will get a real salary, benefits, and housing support for the move.

“You also get access to a third-party legal review before you sign anything. But you will get to choose your staff with me, and you will build the culture.”

Dionne stared at her as if Kendis had slapped her, and then she shook her head. “No.”

Kendis blinked, “No?”

“No.” Dionne crossed her arms.

“May I ask why?” Kendis asked, her heart sinking. She had done all of this with Dionne in mind, and now she would have to find someone else.

“Because people don’t hand women like me half a business because I poured them coffee one time,” Dionne said as she wiped the counter with too much force. “I don’t know what kind of game this is, but I’m too old and too tired to be somebody’s charity project.”

“Of course not.” Kendis leaned forward. “You are better than that.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I know you can run a dining room under pressure. I know your boss is useless and mostly absent. I know your customers respect you even when they’re scared of you. I know you deserve better than this.”

Dionne looked away.

Kendis softened her voice. “I’m not offering charity. What I’m offering you is equality. Because I don’t know Waffle House from the inside out. But you do.”

Dionne lifted an eyebrow but Kendis could tell she was slowly being swayed to her side.

“I’m doing this because I have a dream and the capital and the stubbornness to execute it. But Dionne, you have experience, and I am smart enough to know that if I try to build this without someone like you, it’ll become a theme restaurant for people who say ‘authentic’ too much.”

Dionne snorted despite herself.

Kendis pushed a folder across the counter, but Dionne didn’t touch it.

“What’s that?” Dionne asked warily.

“Business proposal, compensation, ownership structure, relocation package, healthcare, retirement, and legal contracts. There is also a preliminary design, but Tony keeps trying to make things too shiny, so ignore page twelve.”

Dionne slowly opened the folder, and she quickly scanned the numbers. She gasped as she took them in.

“There is more money than Clyde makes, and he doesn’t do shit anyway,” Dionne said, shocked.

“Clyde?”

“The manager.”

Kendis shot her a wide, delighted smile. “Good.” She did her best to get ahold of her excitement. Her hope for Dionne to agree to move to Los Angeles was renewed at the sparkle in Dionne’s eyes.

Dionne looked up sharply. “And you want me?”

“Yes,” Kendis shrugged. “I literally couldn’t do this without you.”

For one long moment, Dionne said nothing.

Then the door opened, and a pretty Black woman in her early to mid-thirties with chestnut-brown skin and curly dark kinky hair pulled up into a bun at the top of her head walked into the Waffle House.

She took one look at Dionne’s face and pointed at Kendis. “Who made you look like that?”

Dionne sighed. “Nobody.”

The woman marched over and put her hands on her hips. “Don’t nobody me. Your eyebrows are doing that thing.”

Kendis lifted a hand. “Hi. I’m Kendis.”

“Loretta,” the woman said as she looked Kendis up and down with a frown. “What do you want?”

“She wants me to move to Los Angeles,” Dionne said, still staring at the folder.

Loretta froze, and then she turned slowly. “I’m sorry, what?”

Kendis explained, and Loretta, to her credit, listened carefully, only interrupting for clarification. Dionne, however, had interrupted Kendis six times, but Loretta pointedly ignored her for five of those times.

When Kendis finished, Loretta looked at Dionne. “You going?”

Dionne scoffed. “Girl, I can’t just move to Los Angeles.”

“Why not?” Loretta rolled her eyes. “You think an opportunity like this comes every day.”

“Because!”

“That ain’t an answer.” Loretta angrily gestured. “Dionne-“

“My life is here,” Dionne sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.

Loretta’s expression softened. “No, baby. Your history is here, and that ain’t the same thing.”

Dionne looked down at her hands. Kendis didn’t know what Dionne had been through, but Kendis’s instincts told her that Dionne was used to being given nothing but crumbs and then expected to make gold out of it with zero appreciation or respect.

Loretta glanced at the folder. “She offering benefits?”

“Yes,” Kendis said.

“Housing help?”

“Yes.”

“More money?”

“Yes.”

“Ownership?”

“Half.”

Loretta blinked. “Half-half?”

“Half-half.”

Loretta turned to Dionne. “Bitch, if you don’t quit this job, I’m pushing you into the Pacific myself.”

Dionne pressed her lips together, but her eyes were wet.

Kendis hadn’t known Loretta for only half an hour, but she could see that Dionne and Loretta were close. The type of close that would make Dionne hesitant to leave Loretta behind.

Kendis said gently, “Loretta, there’s a place for you too, if you want it.”

Loretta pointed at herself. “Me?”

“Yes.”

“I got a record.”

“I didn’t ask if you were perfect.” Kendis shrugged. “I asked if you wanted a job.”

Besides, Kendis was the last one to judge. As long as Loretta didn’t have a history that involved abuse or harm to children? Kendis didn’t really care. She was no longer an Auror, and Sirius’s history had shown Kendis the pitfalls of the justice system. Especially when this country jumped at the chance to incarcerate another Black body.

Loretta stared at Kendis for a long moment.

Dionne whispered, “Kendis.”

Kendis shrugged. “People need chances. Especially people who know what it means when nobody gives them one.”

Loretta looked away fast, jaw tight.

Then a skinny white man with a receding hairline came out of the back. “Denise, why are you standing around? Tables need-“

Dionne slowly turned to the person who had to be Clyde. It seemed like the entire place went quiet as if they could sense the shift in the energy.

Dionne untied her apron and threw it on the counter.

Clyde stopped. “What are you doing?”

“I quit.”

Clyde laughed, “You’ll be back.”

“No,” Dionne said, her voice steady. “I really won’t.”

Loretta smiled like sunrise with a switchblade.

Clyde spluttered and then turned to point at Loretta, “You scheduled tonight?”

Loretta took off her name tag and dropped it into a coffee cup, “Not anymore.”

Clyde’s face went red. “You can’t both leave.”

Dionne picked up the folder.

Loretta picked up Dionne’s purse.

Kendis stood to her feet, feeling both calm and triumphant. Dionne was coming to Los Angeles! She felt like she wanted to dance in the street because, after all the hurdles she crossed, Kendis had gotten what she wanted. A Waffle House with Dionne at the helm.

Dionne looked Clyde dead in the eye, “Clyde, you have been confusing my need for a paycheck with loyalty. And that? That was your first mistake.”

Loretta added, “The second mistake was that shirt.”

The cook burst out laughing.

Dionne walked out of that Waffle House with Loretta on one side and Kendis on the other.

Three months later, the East Hollywood Waffle House opened under a yellow sign bright enough to offend the moon.

Dionne ran the floor like a general while Loretta handled customers with a sharp smile and a sixth sense for trouble.

Kendis, Dionne, and Loretta hired carefully. They needed someone who was not only competent but could handle the vibe. They picked some experienced servers, some college students, but they also picked people, like Loretta, who needed a second chance.

And one day, a pretty tall, lanky, Latinx man with short black hair, dark copper skin, a short manicured beard, and a wide, excited smile walked into the Waffle House. Kendis would later learn that his name was Javier Gutierrez and he had the energy of someone one more inconvenience away from having a breakdown.

Dionne watched him spill half a glass of water during the interview.

Loretta mouthed, “No.”

Javier apologized nine times in two minutes. Kendis felt her heart melt because it reminded her of herself when she interviewed for Enchanted Engines. She had gotten her first Master Automobile Technician Certification, she had been desperate for a job, and then she found Conseulo, who had come widely recommended. Lucky for her, Conseulo took pity on Kendis and took her on as an apprentice. The first day on the job, she had been so nervous that she dropped a socket wrench on her foot.

Dionne, however, just studied him for a long moment and then said, “Can you learn?”

Javier nodded quickly. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Can you show up on time?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Can you handle rude people without crying?”

Javier hesitated and Kendis leaned forward to see what he said. The silence held for a long beat before Dionne sighed. “Can you cry in the walk-in and come back out?”

“That I can do!”

Dionne pointed at him. “Hired.”

Loretta threw both hands up. “You adopting strays now?”

Dionne glanced toward Kendis, who was pretending not to hear. “Apparently that’s the business model.”

And two weeks later, Kendis got the satisfaction of turning the sign from closed to open. She smiled at it and walked over to Tony, who was doing his best and failing miserably to try to charm Dionne. Kendis wrapped her arm around him and Tony stopped to press a kiss on her forehead.

“Happy, spouse?”

Kendis looked up to meet Tony’s eyes, “Yes.”

“Stop with that lovey-dovey nonsense,” Dionne waved them off. “I got a Waffle House to operate.”

And Kendis slid into booth seven with Tony by her side, her eyes taking in the steel counter, red leather booths, and the jukebox in the corner, and couldn’t help the bubble of happiness in her. Her vision was now a reality and East Hollywood now had a Waffle House.