Page 32 of How My Fake Alien Boyfriend Learned to Cook and Saved the Family Business

I found something much different instead.

The air smelled pungent, like lemon cleaner. The black-and-white checkered floors were gleaming, clearly freshly scrubbed. Dingy windows that were once caked over with grime now clear and sparkling. Sunlight streamed in, washing the space in bright morning light. I touched a finger to the faux tree by the hostess stand; it came away spotless.

My legs carried me through the dining room as I inspected each booth, each table. All spotless. I even knelt on the floor to look at the baseboards. Even those looked clean.

What in the world?

I walked to the kitchen. It was equally spotless—somehow even more spotless than usual, and I’m a stickler for keeping a clean kitchen.

A nearby noise drew me to the office. I stopped in my tracks when I spied Kal with a rag, a bottle of cleaner, and a bucket, wiping down a shelving unit.

Intellectually, I knew I should have been upset because I did explicitly ask Kal not to touch anything, and here he was touching everything. But…the restaurant looked amazing. Like it did when Grandma Gladys was alive.

I know Dad didn’t mean to let it happen, but I could tell he’d struggled with keeping the restaurant up to our usual standards as he suffered through the early warning signs of Parkinson’s. And after that, he’d spent far too long ignoring the ways his condition made running a restaurant difficult.

Which meant I had known for a while that the place needed a good scrub down. It needed a full refresh, if I were being honest. But without the manpower, the budget, or the energy, I hadn’t gotten around to it.

My eyes followed Kal as he lifted a can of crushed tomatoes, wiped the spot beneath it, and replaced it. When he twisted around to grab his bottle of cleaner, Kal stalled as soon as he caught sight of me.

“Good morning, Lola!” Kal said with a smile and those freaking eyes.

I didn’t say anything in response. I was afraid that if I did, I would cry. I so didn’t want to cry at six in the morning in the office of my family’s failing restaurant.

“I was already awake,” Kal said, by way of explanation. “And I was watching the birds out of the front window. But I noticed they were dirty, and it was keeping the sunlight out, which seemed like a shame because the sun is so beautiful.”

Still, I stayed silent as Kal rambled.

“Then that turned into wiping down the tables, then the floors. And then I broke a napkin dispenser, but it was only one, so I’m really sorry about that,” he continued, looking unsure of himself. “I know you asked me not to touch anything, and I probably shouldn’t have done any of this. You’re angry, aren’t you? I knew I should have kept my hands to—”

“Stop!” It came out more forcefully than I intended.

In my defense, Kal was talking so fast that I could barely process any of it. What I did hear made my stomach sink. Because why would Kal automatically assume I’d be angry? Why would he think I cared about a broken napkin dispenser?

The restaurant was sparkling. For the first time since I’d moved back home, I recognized the place where I had spent most of my afternoons and weekends when I was a kid.

I opened my mouth to tell Kal how grateful I was, how in awe I felt, how much I didn’t care about the freaking napkin dispenser. But then my eyes caught on something as familiar to me as the back of my hand, something I hadn’t seen in over a decade: Grandma Gladys’s recipe book.

I choked on a gasp, or a sob, or a combination of the two. With arms as steady as jelly, I reached for it.

Foolproof Recipes for a Damn Good Home-Cooked Meal by Gladys Fiona Maloney.

I skated my hand across the cover, feeling the grooves of the lettering, the scratches and dents from years of use. Where the edges had been handled over and over again, the pages felt soft like fabric. I held grandma’s recipe book on flattened palms, like something precious.

It was lost. I thought this recipe book was lost, but here it was. Solid in my hands and very much not lost.

“Where did you find this?” I asked, my question coming out as a whisper. I looked between Kal’s eyes and Grandma Gladys’s book—clear, bright green to faded red.

Kal held his hands out toward me. “I didn’t mess that up, I swear. I hardly touched it. Okay, I may have flipped through it, but I was very, very careful.” He covered his face with his hands. “Stars above, I did exactly what you told me not to do and now I—”

“Kal,” I said, cutting him off.

He stopped. Looked at me, chest heaving.

“It’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong. Nothing at all. I just…I–” My words were lost to a sob. “This was my grandmother’s. I didn’t think I’d ever see it again. And here it is.”

Kal was still eyeing me apprehensively, as if waiting to get into trouble. How could I explain what he’d done for me? How could I show him my appreciation?

I dropped the recipe book back onto the desk and threw myself at Kal, enveloping him in a tight hug. He stiffened, and I knew I was probably crossing so many boundaries, but Kal had found it. He’d found my grandma’s recipe book. I needed him to realize how much his discovery meant to me.