checking their seals, even though there was no reason for them to have been broken. It was a habit built into me by every professor I’d had.
Just looking at the first dish I placed under the microscope had my body jiggling with excitement. The bacteria growth was almost null. So insignificant that it was hardly a blip. I went through the rest of them, and my excitement just continued to build.
I spent an hour making notes, taking what I’d worked on in the city the morning before and adding it to my file. I had some ideas on what to add to the base structure that might enhance it even more.
I may be useless in Dawson and Jada’s world, but I could still make a difference with this.
I cleaned up, hung my lab coat, and headed back into the B&B for breakfast prep. I’d just taken out the bag of potatoes when my phone rang with Jersey and Nell’s faces lighting it up.
“Hi!” I greeted.
“I can’t believe you! You didn’t even tell me you went to New York with Dawson. I had to see it on the news.”
“What? I was on the news?”
“Hugging Dawson on his yacht. Truck and I got up early just to watch the coverage.”
“Jada and I went with him. She has a thing for Dawson’s partner,” I said, deflecting my own feelings.
“Vi.” The one word was a gentle prod.
“Jers,” I said back.
“Don’t use him as a rebound,” she said, and I chuckled.
“First, I’d have to actually be rebounding, which you know I’m not, and second, it’s Dawson.”
“Exactly. The man you’ve had feelings for since you knew what crushes were,” she replied.
“He’s family,” I said, even though what I felt for him was in no way the same as what I felt for any of my other family members.
“He’s my brother-in-law,” Jersey said quietly. “But he isn’t really anything to you.”
I sat there stunned for a moment. “What are you saying?”
She took a deep breath and then rushed out. “I’m just saying, if you still have feelings for him, then you shouldn’t stop yourself just because he happens to be Truck’s brother.”
I sat down on the barstool because if I didn’t, my feet might have given out.
“All you’ve ever done was warn me off,” I said.
“Well, yeah. You were sixteen, and he was twenty-two. He was trying to figure out everything in his life, and you had goals. Now, he’s got his life sorted, you’re no longer a kid, and…well…love is a rare and beautiful thing that shouldn’t be ignored.”
“Who said anything about love?”
She snorted. “You’re the one who convinced me that love is the only real superpower, remember?” she said as if I was two and had to have it spelled out for me.
I thought of the kisses Dawson and I had shared. Incredible, world-altering kisses. Filled with more emotion than I’d ever had for anyone I’d ever slept with. Definitely more than I’d had for the guy I’d lost my virginity to at eighteen.
“Violet?”
“He’s got a lot going on in his world. A world that’s really, really different than mine, so I’m not sure it’s any more of a good idea now than it was when I was sixteen.”
“Are you coming back to Palo Alto eventually?”
“I’m not going back to school. That’s all I know at this point,” I told her.
She sighed.
“I’m sorry if that disappoints you,” I said, inhaling and holding my breath. Jersey had wanted me to change the world, had believed in me and my brain before I’d even realized I was different than other people.
“It only disappoints me if it disappoints you,” she replied. “I just want you to be happy. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
My throat clogged with emotions. I suddenly missed her more than anything. I wanted to tell her everything. About the cash I’d found on the yacht and the worry that had coursed through me ever since Dawson told me he was undercover. About the evil I felt rolling off of Ken’Ichi like one of Jersey’s supervillains. But Dawson had asked me not to, and so I would respect this secret just like I’d respected the one he’d told after we’d crashed over the barrier and into the sea. That accident had been all on me, but he’d shouldered it for me, just like he was trying to shoulder the world right now. So, the least I could do was try to share a piece of it with him.