#03st

The Jeep’s tyres come to a screeching halt in the diner parking lot, shadows stretched long across cooling tarmac by the slow setting sun. A bell chimes as he enters the squat one-storey building, a waitress poised by the door ready to ask if she can help him only for a flicker of recognition to sweep across her features as her gaze settles on his own. "She's in the bathroom -- has been for the last twenty minutes." If Summer's decision to call who her colleagues know to be her neighbour ( he'd been introduced to them as such after picking her up from her first shift ) is any surprise, the woman before him doesn't express it. Instead, she ushers him to the door of the toilets, offering a nod of permission and a reassuring "she's the only one in there." Nico is tentative as he steps over the threshold, met with the smell of cherry-scented chemical bleach. The tread of his boots is slick against the smooth floor, black-clad like a shadow in the otherwise brightly lit room. He approaches the sole cubicle with its door locked shut, eyeing the red of the occupied sign. A careful knock is pressed into plastic, the sound bouncing off of powder pink tiles, accompanied by a gentle, "Summer, it's me."