Page 16 of Ivory Legacy

“Let’s introduce you to everyone.” Mr. Thompson gestured toward the kitchen, beckoning me to follow.

As we made the rounds, each staff member greeted me with nods and smiles, their faces blurring into a montage of Harbor Cove’s hospitality. Every introduction was a thread weaving me tighter into the fabric of this community, a tapestry far removed from sterile labs and the shadow of the Moretti empire.

“Everyone’s real friendly here,” Mr. Thompson assured me, clapping a reassuring hand on my shoulder before he shuffled off to tend to a sputtering coffee machine.

“Everyone” included a cook with a laugh as hearty as his burgers and a waitress whose quick wit rivaled any repartee I’d encountered in academic circles. It was clear that survival here depended not on evading danger but on mastering the art of diner small talk and perfecting the delicate dance of balancing trays.

“Alright, Jade, think you can handle it?” Mrs. Thompson asked, her gaze appraising yet kind.

“Absolutely,” I replied, though really, I was fucking scared. Being a waitress seemed way harder than anything I’d ever done.

“Great! Let’s get you started,” she said, motioning to an apron that hung like a rite of passage on a nearby hook.

Slipping into the apron, I felt the weight of a new identity settling around me—not just Jade Bentley, scientist, but Jade, the waitress who’d find sanctuary among the ebb and flow of coffee refills and lunch rushes. With a deep breath, I stepped behind the counter and into my new life.

I shadowed a woman whose name I couldn’t remember and she slowly got me up to speed. I was right; it was hard and I wasn’t good at it, but it provided the perfect distraction. I didn’t want to think about Dante. I didn’t want to think about being pregnant.

I just wanted to think about the next order.

And days passed like that, and then they turned into weeks. Mrs. Thompson had probably only given me a chance because I had started to show and she thought I was a poor single woman about to have a baby who had left her deadbeat baby daddy.

Which, really, I sort of had.

But I didn’t want to think about it like that.

The chime of the door announced another customer, and with an affable smile, I approached the booth. “Good afternoon, what can I get for you today?” The words tumbled out, surprisingly natural against the hum of the diner.

“Whatcha recommend, darlin’?” the man asked, tipping his hat back with a weathered hand.

“Today’s special is the meatloaf,” I suggested. “It’s like comfort on a plate.”

“Sold,” he said, with a grin that crinkled the corners of his eyes.

As I scribbled down the order, my mind couldn’t help but drift to the lab at BioHQ, where precision ruled and the stakes were high. There was something oddly comforting about the routine here, yet I ached for the thrill of discovery, the eureka moments that had defined my career as a scientist. In stolen moments, I sketched protein structures on napkins and jotted down ideas for experiments, though they felt like messages in bottles tossed into an ocean of what-ifs.

“Jade, table four needs a top-up on their coffee,” Mrs. Thompson called out, snapping me back to reality.

“Got it,” I replied, pouring the dark liquid into waiting cups, exchanging pleasantries with patrons whose faces were becoming familiar.

When my break finally arrived, I sank into a booth with a sigh, the scent of freshly baked pie mingling with the robust aroma of coffee. Mrs. Thompson slid into the seat opposite me, her presence as comforting as the homemade quilts that adorned the diner’s walls.

“Bet this is a bit different from your old job, huh?” she asked, her voice carrying the wisdom of years spent within these walls.

“More than you know,” I admitted, giving her a wry smile. I stopped myself from telling her what it was–all I had told her was that I used to work in a lab, and I’d let her believe I was working in the cafeteria.

“Life has a funny way of taking us places we never imagined,” Mrs. Thompson mused, her eyes reflecting memories of days gone by. “This place started as nothing more than a dream and two pairs of hands willing to work ’til they were raw.”

“Seems like you built something wonderful,” I observed, glancing around at the cozy ambiance that spoke of love and dedication poured into every detail.

“Yeah,” she said. “The restaurant is good. The community is even better. You’ll start feeling it, you know, the longer you’re here for.”

Her words settled over me, a gentle reminder that even without lab coats and beakers, life was still a series of experiments—some yielding success, others lessons to be learned.

But I didn’t give myself a lot of time to think about it.

Every day was the same. I took as many shifts as I could, tried to keep myself occupied, and was exhausted by the end of the day.

The sizzle of the grill was my new morning alarm, each pop and crackle a reminder that life at the Cove Inn Diner unfolded with an energy all its own. While I expertly balanced plates along my forearm, navigating between tables with a grace I didn’t know I possessed, the undercurrent of nausea reminded me that something more than just the aroma of frying bacon lingered in the air.

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