Wait. Was there a Hall of Fame for Bad Ideas?
I put my hands on my hips and glared up at my 22-year-old twins. They were identical to each other and the spitting image of their father, but I didn’t hold that against them. Both wore their brown hair short and messy in a bedhead sort of way that I didn’t want to think too hard about. Their huge brown eyes viewed me expectantly from their spots at the table.
Logan, the law student, was the daredevil of the two boys. He grabbed life by the balls every chance he got. And that meant he ended up in one too many scrapes for my liking.
Lance was a few credits shy of an MBA but still plowed through life without a care in the world. I lost count of all the businesses he started, then abandoned. I don’t mean he grew the company then sold it. I mean, straight-upleftthem. I hoped getting his MBA would curb his irresponsibility, but that hope was gone with the wind.
“So, you two suddenly wanted to learn to cook?” I squinted my eyes at each of them. It was my best Momzilla Glare, and it usually made them cower in fear. It was not working today, though.
Logan acted like I just suggested he eat poop. “Why would we do that?”
Lance nodded. “We thought you’d like to learn.”
My eyebrows took a hike to the sky. “Me? I already know how to cook. Or have you both forgotten growing up and, you know, eating me out of house and home?”
They both shrugged and were about to say something else when the chef stepped up to the head counter. His floppy blonde hair hung over his eyes. He sported one of those hipster beards that should be nowhere near raw meat. Or any food for that matter. My eyes narrowed as I took in his lanky frame.
Never trust a skinny chef.
“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,” Skinny Chef rolled up his sleeves to reveal more of his hipster self with an armload of tattoos. “Welcome to The Chop Shop. Today we’re going to work on our knife skills as we prepare a simple stir fry. We’ll start with onions. Grab an onion out of the basket and your chef’s knife, and I’ll demonstrate the fastest way tonice and dice.”
A couple of people in the crowd tittered. I rolled my eyes but selected an onion and a knife. My boys did the same. Their eyes darted between the Skinny Chef and the door we entered. I glanced back at the door. No one was there.
“Cut your onion in half,” Skinny Chef demonstrated. “Then place the halves on the flat sides.”
I had already done this because I knew how to cook and could dice the ever-loving crap out of an onion. There wasn’t a week that went by that didn’t have a dish with onions in it at my house.
And garlic. Lots of garlic. Because that’s the start of some good food right there.
“Now, take your knife and slice along the ribs of the onion,” Skinny Chef sliced slowly through his onion. “But keep…”
I felt an evil cold wind move through the room and into my soul before the disturbance started. It was the kind of evil that created a pit in my stomach and made my palms sweat. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to regain control of my life and willing the evil to be a figment of my imagination. When I opened my eyes again, I saw the expectant smiles on my sons’ faces. The hope that lived there. It broke my heart because their father would never want to be with them no matter how hard they hoped.
I turned around slowly, wishing and praying that the biggest butthead on the planet wouldn’t be behind me when I got there. I unconsciously brought my knife up as a weapon.
“Papa!” Logan and Lance cried out, running to his side.
They were both talking at once, trying to hug their father. Octavio Cruz didn’t drop eye contact with me as he gave both boys weak pats on the back. The father of my twins stalked toward me at the prep table with a greasy smile on his face.
There was a time when I didn’t realize that smile was greasy. I thought it wascharming. I was 21 and had just clinched the most important business deal of my career. The business newspaper caught wind of it and nominated me for the Top 30 Under 30. I dressed in a floor-length gown, put on sky-high heels, and prepared to mingle with other business people in the community at the ceremony.
I didn’t do much mingling.
Octavio Cruz locked onto me like a heat-seeking missile the minute I walked through the door. He was 15 years older than me anddistinguished. At the time, I had no idea what he did for a living. Just “something in sales,” he told me.
I didn’t ask questions and didn’t know any better.
Something he was counting on.
I was flattered that amaturebusinessman took an interest in me and didn’t think twice when he proposed three weeks later.
Before I knew it, I was pregnant with twins.
Octavio wanted a son to carry on his legacy, but he didn’t want two. He said he would “try it for a while” to see if it would work. But when I was closing in on 30, he dumped the boys and me because he didn’t need the complications anymore.
And bycomplications, he meant “thirty-year-old wife and sons.”
“What the hell are you doing here?” I seethed.
