Page 14 of How My Fake Alien Boyfriend Learned to Cook and Saved the Family Business

Lola looked to the eggs, then back to me, then back to the eggs.

“Are you pranking me right now, is that what this is?” She grabbed a cloth and swept the mess into a bin before rounding on me, finger jabbing the air. “Did Walter send you here to mess up my shift? Well, you can tell him to shove eggs up his—”

“No!” I cut her off. Clearly, I had done something wrong, but I wasn’t sure what. All I knew was that I didn’t want her to be angry like this. It was never my intention to cause trouble. But trouble seemed to always find me, no matter where I was—even galaxies away. I deflated at the thought.

I had naively assumed that being here, despite the unfortunate circumstances, was an opportunity for a fresh start. For a moment in time, I wouldn’t be Kal the screwup or Kal the guy who never quite fit in. I would just be…Kal. Myself. The real me, without the baggage.

You don’t belong here either.

The negative thought circled my mind, a dark moon on a fixed orbital rotation. I couldn’t help but listen to the growing self-doubt as I watched Lola’s nostrils flare and eyes narrow in anger. Her expression was one I was all too familiar with. Frustration, disappointment. It settled deep within, dropping hard like a meteor in my stomach.

I wanted to fix it. To bring Lola’s smile back, however I could. In this case, I chose honesty.

“I’m sorry,” I said, holding my hands out in apology. “I’m—I didn’t come here for a job. But I saw this place, and when I came in, everyone seemed so happy here. And I guess I just wanted to be part of that.”

The muscles around her eyes softened into something more like pity, and the meteor in my stomach turned into a black hole.

This reaction, too, was one I was familiar with. So few people had believed in me—truly believed in me—in my lifetime. And here on Earth, I had already added another doubter to the list.

“Well…”

The girl called Al popped into the kitchen. “Got a party of ten out there and I’m about to take their orders.”

“Shit. Okay. You, Kal. If you can’t help here, I need you out of the way. I’m putting you on dishes for now, and we’ll talk when the rush is over. Got it?”

“Yes, chef,” I said, mimicking the other human’s words.

Al choked on a laugh, and Lola lifted an eyebrow, the corners of her lips twitching upward. When I didn’t move, she wrapped her hand around my wrist and dragged me across the kitchen, depositing me in a room off to the side.

“This is the dish pit. Dishes get dirty, you clean them.” She pointed around the room, calling out instructions. “Scraps go here,” she said, scraping residue from a pan. “Rinse here,” she said, turning on the faucet and pulling the nozzle down to spray water on a dirty pot.

“Put rinsed dishes there,” she pointed to a large metal appliance, “pull this down, and press that button. It’ll beep when they’re done. Unload, refill, repeat.”

She dried her hands on her apron and stepped away, back to the chaos of the kitchen. “It’s simple. And if you have any questions,” she turned her back to me, “keep them to yourself.”

Lola

My knees were hurting, my back was killing me, and I had burned my forearm pulling biscuits from the oven.

I finally felt like I was living again.

Sure, we had been in the weeds for most of the morning, and the new guy turned out to be useless on the line. But we did it. I did it. I ran a kitchen and fed a dining room full of guests, and I didn’t break down or lose focus or do any of the things my ex used to accuse me of in the kitchen.

And I had done it on my own.

Now, I was on the other end of it, coming down from the adrenaline while wiping down surfaces, cleaning up for the day. After months of looking at the daily totals through slightly parted fingers, I was actually excited to see how we had done.

Though unexpected, the busy day had reminded me why I used to love working in the kitchen. The pure rush of churning out dish after dish felt like a state of nirvana. When it went right, at least. It was when it went wrong that I began to question myself. The chaos, the workplace toxicity. Working yourself to the bone without working your way up.

Is there a hyper-specific word for that feeling where you know in your heart what your purpose in life should be, but you’ve also never felt like you belonged in that world? If so, that would have perfectly applied to me and the world of cooking.

The rush of the kitchen was like nothing else I’d ever experienced, but I never quite found my place. Those days when I was still a kid, helping my grandma make a batch of corn fritters in the kitchen for the community center potluck were my fondest memories. Everything felt possible with her leading the way, following her own dreams and making them happen.

Without her—without the soft bubble of Southern Charm as it was when I was a kid—I hadn’t quite figured out how to make my dreams of becoming an executive chef come true, or if that was even what I wanted.

The clatter of pots and pans from the dish pit reminded me I had a new unresolved problem to deal with. A problem named Kal. When I peeked around the corner, I saw him trying and failing to pick up a tower of clean pots. Eventually, he managed to do it, carrying them from the dishwasher to the racks. I noticed that his clothes, apron and all, were soaked from head to toe, and a mound of soap suds sat daintily on the crown of his head.

Kal’s huge grin didn’t falter once as I watched him dump leftovers from a plate of red beans and rice into the trash can, heft a load of coffee mugs onto a shelf, then rinse a pile of pans. A soap bubble floated up from the nearly overflowing sink, and Kal’s gaze followed along as the bubble bounced in the air. He tried to catch it on his finger, and when it popped, he laughed like it was his first time ever popping a bubble.