Page 30 of How My Fake Alien Boyfriend Learned to Cook and Saved the Family Business

The blunt words made me smile; they were so very human.

I scratched my chin with a tentacle and turned the page with another. A recipe book, I recognized. Something humans used to compile unique ways to prepare food. As a Xaerean, I subsisted on the flavorless supplements provided to us, so I did not know much of anything about human food. All I knew was that the food Lola produced here smelled amazing, and that I would do practically anything to get my tentacles on another one of her cinnamon rolls.

This reminded me of that moment earlier, when Lola and I were standing a fraction too close, staring a little too hard. At the sweetness of the tip of her finger, covered in icing, and the feel of her warm breath against my skin.

It didn’t have to be a cinnamon roll, I decided. I would eat anything she prepared if it made me feel like that again—if it meant she would give me her attention and I could be near her. I would toss my nutritional supplements into the woods and eat only human food if she asked me to.

I was, it seemed, immediately and irrevocably devoted to Lola. Perhaps I should have been scared. But thinking of her made me feel warm and gooey-sweet, like the perfect bite of cinnamon roll. Watching her made me think of the butterfly floating among the flowers, a compounding beauty.

I continued to flip through the pages of the recipe book. Some pages were adorned with photos taped crookedly next to a recipe. Others had scratchy illustrations, or no images at all. But every page was full.

Pimento cheese sandwiches. Corn fritters. Biscuits and gravy. Chow chow. And there, surrounded by a halo of scribbled arrows, was an entry for Martie’s Out-of-this-World Blueberry Cobbler, with even more notes and scratches in the margins. I read the explicit instructions on what to do and, more importantly, what not to do to produce the perfect blueberry cobbler, whatever that was.

Gladys, I decided, was right. These recipes did seem to be foolproof. No special instruction left unwritten, and detailed notes on things like exactly how many minutes someone should stir, what utensils to use, and how to tell if a dish needed tweaking. While I had never enjoyed a “damn good home-cooked meal,” I could imagine that if Gladys’s cooking was anything like Lola’s, it would be perfection.

As I made my way through the notebook’s pages, I noticed that the pages were less worn, the ink darker, newer. On the very last page, written at the top in bright pink letters and surrounded by sparkly gold heart-shaped stickers: Lola’s Bestest Most Favorite Cinnamon Rolls. There was a photo, brighter than the rest, with a tray of icing-topped cinnamon rolls—an exact duplicate of what Lola had made that morning.

I ran my thumb over the page, feeling the indent of the words, lingering on Lola’s name. I didn’t know who Gladys was to Lola, but it was clear to me that she must have been someone who cared for her, possibly who loved her. The notebook was physical evidence of that love, if I understood the letter from the first page.

Every person on the planet deserves a damn good home-cooked meal. Even fools.

I smiled again. Wasn’t I the fool in this scenario? I sure did get called one frequently back home. But there, I was often treated as if I didn’t deserve much of anything other than a scolding. On Earth—or at least in Roswell Falls—Gladys just told me that I deserved a damn good home-cooked meal.

Could I do it? Could even a screwup like me follow one of these recipes?

The thought buoyed me. I was in a restaurant with a kitchen that had everything I needed to try, and a book with detailed instructions. Even a fool like me can do it.

Still suit-less but with a renewed sense of confidence, I went to the kitchen, grabbed an apron, and began gathering ingredients. The notebook lay open to the entry for Martie’s Out-of-This-World Blueberry Cobbler—the entry with the most detailed instructions—as I got to work.

Three long, arduous hours later, I had managed to make…a hot pile of purple goop. It didn’t look appetizing, and it smelled even worse than it looked. I eyed it suspiciously before jabbing a spoon into the middle and scooping out a bite. It was bitter, grainy—disgusting. My mouth twisted as I chewed, then swallowed the terrible concoction. I would eat a million nutritional supplement packages before ever eating my creation again. With a knot in my gut, I tipped the pan into a bin.

So that was that. Not entirely foolproof.

The kitchen was a disaster from my efforts, with nothing to show for it.

Tears pricked my eyes as I gingerly set the recipe book on the office desk. It wasn’t for me, clearly.

I remembered then that I had promised Lola I wouldn’t touch anything in the restaurant while she wasn’t here. She had asked me explicitly, and I had lied to her face. That, too, brought me to tears. Why couldn’t I just follow instructions? Why couldn’t I do anything right?

The next hour went to cleaning up the wreckage of my cooking attempt, as I tried my best to leave everything as I found it. When I was done, the kitchen looked just as it did before I’d found the recipe book—except for remains of my failure sitting in the bin.

And suddenly, I was tired in that way that demands immediate rest. I pushed the couch cushions back into place, slipped into my hu-suit, then rolled onto my side and fell asleep.

Lola

“Take the day off.”

My dad was watching me pour a cup of coffee and eyeing me suspiciously. It was probably the dark circles under my eyes that gave my exhaustion away. I wanted to take the day off. He had no idea how badly I wanted to. But I knew I couldn’t, and I think he knew it, too.

I wondered if he was more aware of the state of the restaurant than I thought. If he actually knew it was a sinking ship and that closing the place for a day didn’t really matter that much in the scheme of things.

Or, on the other hand, maybe he had no idea of the trouble we were in, and he was just trying to convince his hard-working eldest daughter to take a breather. Either option was equally likely.

I took a seat across from him at the kitchen table before answering.

“Can’t, Dad. Too much to do.”

I hadn’t told him about Julian walking out, or the new guy who had materialized out of nowhere. For the most part, I’d tried to keep updates about the restaurant brief and drama-free because I didn’t want to cause any undue stress.