Page 68 of How My Fake Alien Boyfriend Learned to Cook and Saved the Family Business

“Kal!”

“Lollipop? Is everything alright?” Mom called after me as I streaked across the living room and fumbled with my shoes by the door. Why was everything so much more difficult in the dark?

“No!” I shouted, trying to hold back my rising panic. I couldn’t be sure, not until I saw for myself, but I had a gut feeling that everything was not alright.

A knot formed in my stomach and traveled up my throat as I pummeled across the yard and up the stairs to my apartment. The lights were off, and my heart dropped.

Kal wasn’t home? Kal wasn’t home. Kal wasn’t home.

When I’d moved back to Roswell Falls a year ago, I told myself it was just temporary. It would be a much-needed pit stop, a stepping stone for my career, something to pad my resume. Of course, I had underestimated the hold this place had on me, how inextricably connected I was to this small mountain town. And I didn’t understand until that very moment how much Kal’s presence made Roswell Falls truly feel like home.

I read once that humans are all made of starstuff. The elements that made stars, that made entire planets, came from the same endlessly expansive universe. Even then, I’d decided that my particular starstuff was derived from misty mountain ranges, long days in the kitchen, a loving family in a lived-in house, and buttermilk biscuits with blackberry jam.

But I could see now how the same starstuff that created me and everything I loved had also created Kal—because I loved him, too.

My sweaty hand tussled with the doorknob. “Kal?” I called out to the dark room.

Slapping at the wall, I found the light switch, but the electricity was still out. “Kal?” I tried again, uselessly. My voice sounded raw and desperate, but I didn’t care.

I could tell he wasn’t there; I could feel his absence as much as I could sense his presence. Still. Still.

I had to know for certain.

Columns of moonlight filtered in through the windows and cast an ethereal glow. There was just enough light to see that something had been left on the kitchen counter. My senses, on high alert but somehow working on a delay, finally caught up.

My apartment smelled heavenly. Like yeast and brown sugar, and baked goods just pulled from the oven. Of cinnamon.

I stumbled into the kitchen and stopped in front of a platter stacked high with freshly baked cinnamon rolls. In the moonlight, I could just make out a small notebook propped against the plate. I reached for it just as the lights came back on.

It was my new recipe book, already stained with grease and rumpled from handling, turned to a page near the middle. Written in wobbly ink—clearly by someone who’d never had to do much writing—were the words: Kal’s Bestest Most Favorite Cinnamon Rolls.

I scanned the recipe until I found what I was looking for. In the ingredient list, an orange—zested and juiced. It was a recipe I had experimented with Kal early on, when I was coaching him in the kitchen. He’d loved the outcome, but my other taste testers (mainly Nat and Jacob) hadn’t been so keen on the flavor.

Kal remembered. He’d remembered and recreated them for me from scratch, then wrote the recipe down so I wouldn’t forget it. Made a fresh batch so I wouldn’t forget him. Couldn’t forget him.

That absolute jerk.

I was sad. And mad. No, I was fucking furious. And I couldn’t stop crying.

How dare Kal leave me like this, without saying goodbye? Without saying anything at all?

Tears streamed down my face as I grabbed a plate from the cabinet and a fork from the utensil drawer. I plonked the plate by the pile of cinnamon rolls and transferred the biggest one onto it, then dug in.

I thought best when I ate, and I ate best when I was angry. My chewing was overly aggressive as I ruminated.

Should I have told Kal the truth? That I loved him?

Another forkful of cinnamon roll. It was still slightly warm and otherworldly delicious. A hot tear rolled down my cheek and plopped unceremoniously onto my plate.

Why were these cinnamon rolls so freaking delicious?

I reached for the recipe book again. Something was different. This wasn’t the recipe I’d put together. Through blurry eyes, I scanned the ingredients list again.

Ah, there’s the culprit—cardamom. Scribbled in the margins: “Always take a chance on something new.”

And then I remembered how, that day we practiced making cinnamon rolls when my wrist was swollen like a balloon, I instructed Kal to make batch after batch, with small tweaks to punch up the flavor. For about five minutes, I’d waffled over adding cardamom to one of the batches. I ultimately decided that it was too different, too risky, too new. So I’d made the executive decision that no one would want them because they weren’t enough like our usual recipe.

Kal’s note wasn’t just a note. It was a reminder—a gentle reminder, because everything Kal did was gentle.