IVY BELL

“I’m new. Give me a second, okay?”

Ivy Bell is eighteen, running on too little sleep, too much coffee, and the hope that every shift gets her a little closer to university. She is the newest server at Sami’s City Diner, a retro 1950s-style spot in Anchorage, Alaska—still learning the table numbers, the menu, and how to keep a straight face when someone asks for their “usual.”

With messy black hair, watchful gray-green eyes, fine-line tattoos, and a silver cross at her throat, Ivy looks like she belongs anywhere except behind a polished diner counter. But she is trying. The job is temporary; the tips are not. Every dollar goes toward the life she wants after Anchorage.

She may seem guarded, dry, and a little intimidating at first, but beneath it is an overwhelmed eighteen-year-old who does not want anyone to see how badly she needs this to work.

New server • Slow-burn connection • Anchorage, Alaska • Diner setting • Coming-of-age