One of my other cooks, Ingrid, is able to come in for an afternoon shift, and I leave a few hours early for my weekly family dinner.

There was a time when that just meant Mom and me. We’d cook together, catch up, enjoy a glass of wine, and that’d be that. But judging from the list of things she wants me to pick up before I come over—and especially the quantity of those things—tonight it isn’t just going to be the two of us.

Last year, a single dad moved into the empty house next to hers. I think Mom sympathized with him, since he was raising a teenage daughter on his own, and she knew firsthand how hard it'd been to raise a kid alone.

But over the course of a few months their family grew. David—the dad—got in touch with his bi side and became hot for teacher Jake Morrison. His daughter, Riley, decided to join him and fell pretty hard for her classmate, Julie. Mom told me Julie's parents threw her out right before Christmas last year, so all four of them are living at David's house, with Julie heading off to college soon.

By the time I get to the house, the place looks like a Hallmark movie. David and Jake are helping Mom pull out all her pots and pans before she inevitably chases them out of her kitchen, and the girls are curled up on the couch watching TV. It brings an immediate smile to my face—I’ll take this over some quiet evening any day.

"Your supply drop's here," I announce as I haul four bags into the kitchen.

"That's your cue to get lost, boys," she tells David and Jake, shooing them away.

"Hey, I have been taking cooking classes," David says defensively.

Mom gives him a little pat on the shoulder. "That's nice, sweetheart. Now get your ass out of my kitchen."

Mom's going for a chicken curry tonight with basmati rice and a cucumber salad. Not something she normally cooks, but we both like experimenting with new dishes and cuisines. Before I went off to culinary school, we spent a year traveling abroad, collecting family recipes and expanding our woefully underdeveloped palates.

It was one of the best years of my life.

"That includes you, too," she says, poking me in the side with a wooden spoon.

"The hell it does, old lady."

"You've been cooking all day. The last thing you need to do is come over to my place and cook."

"I've been cooking burgers and hash browns all day," I fire back.

I stare at her over my shoulder, and she stares right back. My mom's a small woman. Tiny, even. But she's fierce. She spent half a lifetime running into burning buildings for a living and the other half building a restaurant from the ground up in what used to be a discotheque.

She's a badass, is what I'm saying. But I learned everything I know from her, and I just keep eye contact like I'm trying to make a mama grizzly back down by sheer force of will.

"You can help with the curry," she finally concedes. "Nothing else."

I take that compromise, and help her get the curry together, chopping the herbs and grinding a spice mix that makes my eyes water. We don't use measurements, just doing everything by taste. It's more fun that way, and helping her get the flavor of the curry just right makes up for all those hours I spent slinging patties and dunking fries.

Eventually she kicks me out, though, just like she said she would. I join the Fraziers—because I just think of them as one big family unit now, even if they aren't—in the living room, pulling out my Cards Against Humanity set so we can screw around a little before dinner's ready.

The whole house smells like Indian spices by the time we sit down to eat, and Mom's pulled out all the stops to make her plating on point, too. She might not have gone to culinary school like I did, but she's never had any problem whatsoever making her food look… well, good enough to eat.

Once we all take our places, I'm starving. I must not be the only one, because for a solid ten minutes the only sound that comes from any of us is the scrape of spoons and intermittent noises of pleasure.

"This is amazing, Gracie," David says, breaking the almost-silence. "Where'd you get the recipe?"

"Hot guy in Calcutta," I say around a mouthful of rice.

Mom just shrugs, not at all embarrassed. "Too old for me."

"He wasn't even forty.” I give her a look.

"Like I said. Too old."

That earns a round of laughter from everyone at the table, and a bunch of questions that would probably make any other son want to crawl into a hole and die. I'm used to this, though. As my mom likes to say: She's old, not dead. She was a bombshell in her younger days, and she's a bombshell now.

"Men older than thirty can't keep up," she says, taking a sip of wine. A quick glance around the table makes her amend it to, "Straight men, anyway."

"Nice save," I say with a grin.

"My mama didn't name me Grace for nothing."

There's a lot more of that as we finish eating. I make a few quips here and there, but it's really Mom who runs the show. She shines like the damn sun and she knows it. I'm happy to just play support here and there.

It always used to be that way, in everything. I'm loud and boisterous and in your face, but Mom's that times a thousand. The plan was I'd go off to the International Culinary Center and get a fancy education and then we'd work hard to put Gracie's Place on the map as more than a locals’ paradise.

But a few years back, Mom started having problems. Arthritis so bad she could hardly get out of bed some days. The doctor said it was just the natural result of everything she put her body through when she was younger. Mom said that was horse shit, but her iron will wasn't enough to stave off the worst of it.

She fought hard to keep Gracie's open, but working in the kitchen all day was just making things that much harder on her. So I came home and took over. I put our plans into action and got our little family diner noticed by the Food Network.

Business is booming, and I know Mom's proud of me. But I also know it broke her heart to have to leave the kitchen.

It's why I don't put up too much of a fight when she wants to throw these dinners. She needs this, more than anybody else at this table. And once everyone's fed and happy, I can tell she feels a little more whole than she did before.

David and I help with the dishes, managing to run Mom out of the kitchen for that, at least. She, Jake, and the girls go in for a pretty risqué game of CAH, from what I can hear, but eventually it’s time for Riley and Julie to turn in for the night.

We send the Fraziers home and Mom puts on a pot of coffee. She doesn't need to ask me to stay for a while longer. It's an unspoken rule.

"Are you short-staffed tomorrow?" she asks casually, as if I can't figure out her angle.

"Just by one. Malik's still out. We'll manage, though."

"I don't mind picking up a shift." There's such an innocent lilt to her tone. I might buy it if I hadn't known her for literally every day of my life.

"We did fine today with just me and Tony. We're good, Mom. I promise."

That argument continues for the next fifteen minutes or so before I eventually relent and agree to let her help me with the baking tomorrow morning. I love my mother more than life itself, but part of being a "tough broad" for her also means never letting things rest. She genuinely doesn't know how to back down from… anything.

But of course once she gets what she wants, she moves on and we talk about life outside the diner.

"Meet anyone fun lately?" She drapes her arm over the back of the couch, her full sleeve of tats on display.

"Not for a while," I answer truthfully, though instantly my mind hones in on a mountain of a man in a Kelly green uniform.

"What about that Grindr guy?" One of her thin brows is arched, her lips pulling into a smirk.

I make a face. Not because I'm discussing hookups with my mom—I'm used to that by now—but because that guy isn't worth the waste of thought.

"That bad, huh?"

"You know those guys who hit a crazy growth spurt when they were teenagers and never felt like they needed to learn to use the gift God gave them?"

She makes pretty much the same face I just did, and I grin. Yep. Drinking coffee with my sixty-year-old mom, talking about guys with ridiculously big dicks who have no clue what they're doing.

Just a normal Tuesday.

We stay up talking well into the night, neither of us wanting to admit we're tired. I'm the first to fade, because I know if I don't go soon, we'll both catch a second wind. Mom loads up some takeout trays with curry and rice and walks me out to my car.

"I'll see you tomorrow morning. And if you need me to stay longer…"

"I won’t," I assure her with a smile before I lean in for the hug.

Most of the traffic lights are already flashing yellow as I drive home. My apartment's right down the road from the diner, and I do a quick drive by to make sure everything's okay. Not that anything ever happens in Glen Springs, but it's a habit I learned from my mom—and from experience. Better safe than sorry.

The day starts to kick my ass as I take the stairs up to my place, but I somehow make it in and drag my butt into the shower. The hot water soothes my aching muscles, the steam clears my head, but I'm just as tired when I step out of the bathroom as I was when I stepped in.

My phone chimes while I'm pulling on a clean pair of underwear. The number's not one I know, and my app stops the preview from coming through. That alone is enough to raise the hairs on the back of my neck.

It's probably just spam. My number got on a list a few months ago, and ever since I've had people texting me about all these bogus offers. I know I should just ignore it, but something compels me to actually open my messages.

What I see there stops my heart.

hey baby

im out

be there by morning ;)

Ice floods my veins and a fine tremor makes its way through my limbs. The rest of the world just seems to stop existing, and I'm left in this cold, empty space with just my phone.

And him.

im not mad u didnt pick me up btw

youre a busy boy

No. This can't be happening. He wasn't supposed to be out for another two years. I should've been safe.

"Fuck!" I yell into the empty space, my hands going into my hair. I tug at the strands just to have something to hold on to as my reality rearranges itself into my worst nightmare.

I want to leave. I want to get as far away from this place as I can. I want to call my mom and tell her what's going on. Call Tony and Dana and anyone else who will listen.

I want to call the fucking cops so I can actually feel safe in my own home.

And I hate it. I fucking hate this. He's already taken so much from me. I'll be damned if I let him take anything else.

Steeling my resolve, I grab for my phone. My hand's shaking so bad, I can barely tap out a response. It takes me three tries to get something halfway legible, and I hit send before I can second guess myself.

I'm giving you one warning, Blake. Stay the fuck away from me.

The phone chimes just moments later, but I don't read it. Instead, I rush back into the bathroom, curl up on the floor, and spend the rest of the night alternating between retching and crying.