Page 44 of How My Fake Alien Boyfriend Learned to Cook and Saved the Family Business

Walter’s new place. Look familiar?

My heart sank as I zoomed in on the text and recognized immediately what my best friend was trying to show me.

My ex’s restaurant menu boasted a list of classic Southern dishes. But not just any Southern dishes—my Southern dishes. Staring back at me from my phone was the exact menu Grandma Gladys developed for Southern Charm—down to the names and dish descriptions.

Immediately, I saw red. How dare Walter call my restaurant old-fashioned when he was poaching our menu the entire time?

Then, I felt nauseous. I had shared some of those recipes with Walter when he offered to help me out in the kitchen for a couple of weeks after I’d just moved back home.

Walter couldn’t be serious. It was too messed up, even for him. Stealing family recipes? Creating a carbon copy of our family restaurant, just because he could?

There was a time when I’d thought Walter might have actually respected me as a peer, unlike most other men in the industry. But when push came to shove, he was just like the rest of them. Only worse, because he knew my biggest worries about keeping Southern Charm afloat, and then exploited them for his own benefit.

Briefly, I considered confronting Walter about it. Possibly unblocking him on my phone and giving him a piece of my mind. But we had been together long enough that I could predict exactly how he would react. My ex would tell me that I was being dramatic, and that his menu was just another interpretation of Southern classics—and when you really think about it, isn’t all food derivative anyway?

I could have screamed.

My vision blurred as I thought about all the work I’d already done to restore the restaurant to its former glory. Hours spent updating the dining room, so it looked as good as new, adding new specials to the menu, doing everything I could to appeal to the customers we’d lost. What did all of that matter now? There was another restaurant in town serving the same exact food, poaching customers I was just starting to lure back.

It might not seem like a big deal to someone else, but I knew the deal. Walter’s restaurant was also participating in the Greatest Restaurants of the Great Smoky Mountains Contest. We simply couldn’t have the same menus. Not because I thought he could out-cook me (he couldn’t), but because his restaurant was newer, and he was a man. The reputation Southern Charm had gained over fifty years didn’t matter in the face of newness and maleness in the food world.

Which meant I only had one option available to me to boost my chances of winning, and it was a terrible one: change up the menu, and with the scheduled judging date just two weeks away.

Everything was looking up…until it wasn’t.

That was bad enough news to wake up to, but it wasn’t long until something even worse happened. Mom called, and I was stupid enough to answer.

It was right after breakfast service, and I needed a break. My wrist, even wrapped, iced, and heavily medicated, was hurting. Unfortunately, I’d had to power through as the only one on staff who could handle cooking. It was just a sprain—just a tiny minor sprain, and those healed on their own, right? But I already wasn’t in the best mood when I answered the phone, and Mom’s call just made it worse.

“Shirley Johnson said she saw you with some new fellow last night,” Mom’s voice floated through the phone speaker. “She said it looked like you were getting real cozy.”

I pulled the phone away from my sweaty ear and slid into the office desk chair.

I had never liked Shirley Johnson, the self-appointed leader of a neighborhood watch group that didn’t exist, and I liked her even less now.

Of course, my nosy next-door neighbor saw me walking with Kal last night. Kal, who was taking me home because of injury…that I got when I realized he was an alien…after I kissed him. Kal, who I had reassured just last night would be safe, because Jacob and I would keep him safe.

I thought about that saying, when it rains, it pours, referring to bad things happening all at once. Personally, I hated when idioms turned out to be true.

“It’s no one, Mom,” I said, trying my best to be casual. “Just someone I work with.”

“Doesn’t sound like no one,” Mom said. I could hear the implied air quotes through the phone. “Buzz Wilson said you were at the store with some young man the other day, and that you called him your boyfriend.”

Oh good. Everyone in town was in my business just when I needed them to mind their own. They couldn’t discover the truth about Kal. But I didn’t have time to focus on this new realization before Mom continued her tirade.

“And that was news to me, as you can imagine! My own daughter meeting a new lover, and her mother being the last person to find out.”

I shouldn’t have expected anything less, but she was really laying it on thick. Also, ew.

“Mom…please don’t say lover to me again.”

“Well, I would call him by his name, dear, except no one has bothered to tell me what it is.”

There was a screech of brakes followed by a litany of swear words. Mom behind the wheel of the car was a traffic hazard all to herself.

“Where are you going?” I asked when the cussing died down.

“Garden club,” Mom replied primly.