“What’s the deadline for your next cookbook? Do you still want me to edit?” Tessa asks, wiping her mouth with a napkin.

Tessa is a copy editor for our local newspaper. It’s nice to have someone in the family with editing skills that I can trust my cookbooks with, who won’t dry heave when I confirm that I try out every piece of advice I give before putting it in a book.

“I want to have this thing finished in a few months. If all goes well, and I don’t have any distractions for the next four weeks, this puppy could be on shelves in bookstores by early next year,” I tell everyone proudly.

“Rosa, put your phone away at the dinner table,” Mom chastises.

Rosa ignores her, scrolling through something on her screen and laughing. “It’s Marco’s phone and I’m just checking the notifications on his cookbook page. You really pissed this chick off.”

Rosa has floundered between jobs ever since she graduated college, never quite being able to figure out what she wanted to do with her life. When my cookbook started gaining popularity a couple of years ago, I was spending more time answering emails and dicking around on Facebook, instead of doing lesson plans and preparing finals. So when I offered her a job as my social media assistant, she jumped at it. I might be regretting the decision of giving her my Facebook password right now though.

Tessa leans closer to Rosa and looks over her shoulder. “What did he do?”

“Some guy on the page asked if all of the tips and recipes still gave you the same outcome if you had kids, and Marco told him that his first mistake was having kids,” Rosa snorts with a chastising shake of her head.

“ALFANSO MARCO DESOTO!” Mom yells, bringing out my full name for extra, angry emphasis.

I hold my hands up in surrender. “Ma, it was a joke. I was just being my usual charming, sarcastic self.”

I turn back to Rosa. “Who commented and what did she say?”

Tessa grabs the phone from her hand. “Her name is Molly and she said, ‘You’re an ass. You probably don’t even know how to bake and just copied all these recipes from your mommy. Cut the cord and get a life.’”

Rosa takes the phone back and Tessa smacks her in the arm. “Ooooh, burn! She’s got your number, Marco!”

I roll my eyes and help myself to another serving of pasta. “Whatever. She’s obviously got a stick up her a…” I glance quickly at my mom and correct myself. “…foot, and doesn’t have a sense of humor.”

“Her name is Molly Gilmore, and it says she’s from Ohio too,” Rosa continues, completely ignoring me.

The spoon slips out of my hand and drops with a loud clatter, splattering red sauce all over the table.

“Ooops, slippery little bugger.” I laugh uncomfortably, grabbing a handful of napkins and sopping up the mess, hoping no one notices I lost all bodily functions as soon as I heard that name.

Tessa gasps and points at me with wide eyes. “Oh my Gosh, you know her! You know her and you like her and she thinks you’re an ass!”

Seriously, how does she do that? People drop spoons all the time; it doesn’t mean they like someone. How does she know my hand didn’t go numb? Maybe it’s early onset Parkinson’s or a stroke. I could be dying and she doesn’t even care.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I mutter as I wad up the dirty napkins, getting up from my chair and heading into the kitchen. “Who wants dessert? I brought my special Tiramisu!”

Not even chocolate, mascarpone, and the special thing I do with the Lady Fingers can deter the three women in my family when they smell something fishy.

They bum rush me in the kitchen so fast all three of them get stuck in the doorway pushing, shoving, and arguing until one of them manages to break free and get to me first.

“Is she pretty? Can she cook? When are you bringing her to dinner so I have enough time to bring out the good china and your grandmother’s lace tablecloth?” Mom asks in a rush of excitement.

Figuring there’s no point in lying to them since I already planned on making my move with Molly as soon as she finished her final tomorrow and will no longer be my student, I grudgingly answer my mother’s questions, hoping it will shut her up.

“Yes, yes, and never.”

She puts her hands on her hips and my sisters do the same, standing behind her and giving me equal looks of annoyance.

“So, you know who this Molly Gilmore person is, but clearly she has no idea you’re the same Alfanso D. whose Facebook page she was on, cookbook author and the guy she just knocked down a few pegs,” Tessa states. “What does she look like? How old is she? Where did you meet her?”

I roll my eyes at all the questions that just won’t stop. When I first found out my cookbook was going to be published, I spoke with the school I worked for to make sure it wouldn’t be a conflict of interest. They suggested using some sort of penname just in case and since I’m only known as Marco Desoto at work, Alfanso D. was born. None of my students know I’m the author of that widely-popular cookbook and only a very small handful of the faculty knows.

“She’s got long dark hair and pretty blue eyes, she’s twenty, and ooooooooh, she’s one of Marco’s students! You naughty boy, you.” Rosa giggles with her eyes glued to the phone in her hand. “Forget writing cookbooks, you could write one of those ‘I Bent the Rules and Bent Her Over My Desk’ taboo student/teacher romances.”

Mom turns around and flicks Rosa’s ear, causing her to yelp and complain loudly, distracting her enough for me to reach around my mother and snatch my phone from her hand. Glancing down at it, I see that Rosa found Molly’s Facebook page and was knee-deep in her investigation, going by the fact that she was in a photo album dated five years ago.

“After tomorrow, she will no longer be my student, so there won’t be anything taboo about it,” I inform them, clicking out of her Facebook page even though all I want to do now is sit and scroll through her pictures. “If any of you say one more word about this, I will pack up that Tiramisu, go home, and eat the entire thing myself.”

I can see each of them struggle to keep their mouths closed, their nosiness at war with their stomachs.

“Did you soak the Lady Fingers in hazelnut coffee?” Tessa asks with wide, hopeful eyes.

I nod.

“Did you put vanilla AND almond extract in the mascarpone?” Rosa questions with a dreamy sigh.

I nod again, crossing my arms in front of me and refusing to budge until they all agree to stay out of my love life. Or what I hope will be a love life and not a complete disaster when Molly finds out I’m the ass she thinks can’t bake.

After a few seconds, they concede reluctantly.

“Fine,” Tessa mutters. “But if that tiramisu sucks, all bets are off.”

I laugh, long and hard, as they trudge back into the dining room and I grab dessert from the fridge, knowing without a doubt I would never make a sucky tiramisu. I’m insulted she would even suggest such a thing.

The rest of the night continues with only a few more minor arguments and no more violence from my mother for my behavior. With a kiss on her cheek and three Tupperware containers filled with leftovers, I leave my childhood home and head across town to my apartment to put together a plan of charming the pants off of Molly Gilmore, and hope my comment about kids on my Facebook page doesn’t come back to bite me in the ass.

Chapter 3

– Soup –

Molly

Staring proudly at my soufflé display that still sits on the middle of the stainless steal counter in the kitchen at school, I look around the huge room, making sure I’m alone. Confident that the rest of my classmates have long since gone home after receiving their pass or fail grades, I start shaking my ass and dancing around the counter. When I get to the other side, I pause my celebration long enough to grab the sheet of paper next to my display that officially declares me a French Pastry Chef, waving it around above my head as I resume my horrible moves.