"To the worst summer we ever had and the best punch ever thrown!"
"Oh, stop it, Jenny... You're making me blush!"
~~~
George Marshall, owner of Lila's Seafood Restaurant since it first opened and for over forty years, tries his best to save it from...
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Lou Barnes is my name and it's nice to meet you. Bella Jade might be one of the little people it wasn't nice for me to meet.
I don't think I was nice for her to meet me either.
I guess I know how to throw a punch in someone's face and break their nose when needed.
I live with my grandpa and 5 year old sister in a small island, while my parents travel around the world, and I work at a seafood restaurant near the beach. You can't miss Lila's; it's the only pink restaurant around!
Now, why would a seafood restaurant be pink, you ask. That's actually a pretty interesting story, for me at least.
George Marshall, my grandpa's best friend since childhood, was planning to open a seafood restaurant with his fiancée Lila, a good forty years ago, when they were all in their early twenties and color-changing mood rings were cool. Okay, these are still kinda cool, but you get what I mean.
Anyway, they were almost there by the time they got married, but it just wasn't meant to be. Lila died of unknown causes about a month before they opened the restaurant.
George painted the tavern pink in her memory. It was her favourite color and I find this quite romantic.
Yeah, I know he could have done a million other stuff to honor her, but he wanted to give the last thing they built together something to make it special.
Lila's had been swarming with people for the past forty years, since it opened, until things started going bad.
I had been working there as a waitress my entire life and I loved it. We were all a big happy family; me, Gramps, George, his nephew Dennis, Jenny (the other waitress), Larry the chef and for the past three years, my sister too (we couldn't just make a newborn come to the restaurant, she spent some time with our parents first). There was also Logan, a kid my age that lived at an apartment right next to the restaurant. I never imagined myself doing anything else.
And then The Seashell opened right next to our restaurant and things changed.
The Seashell was pretty minimalist, expensive and huge. It was part of a well-known chain of restaurants, so it immediately attracted attention from the locals. It was a small island, as I already told you.
Ever since the Seashell opened, restaurants along the coast started closing. Restaurants that had been there my entire life and I hated that. It was as if my childhood was being ripped apart. We knew the owners and despite the competition, they were our friends. They still met up with George and Gramps every second weekend to play poker.
The remaining restaurants, Lila's included, were about to combine their power against the common enemy, but the new restaurant was just too powerful.
It belonged to Bella Jade, the chick I punched in the face. Bella's the daughter of a millionaire and did anything she wanted with her daddy's money. Even though she was a spoiled brat and I hated her, I have to admit that she had quite a plan and a strategic mind.
