Page 11 of Cooking Up My Comeback (Twin Waves #1)

Me: Even though patience isn’t exactly your strong suit?

Brett: How do you know that?

Me: Lucky guess. You’re the type who wants problems solved yesterday.

Brett: You’re not wrong.

Me: I usually am right about people. It’s my superpower.

Brett: What else do you see?

The question catches me off guard. There’s vulnerability underneath it.

Me: I see someone who’s scared of wanting things too much. Someone who’s used to keeping people at arm’s length. Someone who’s fighting the urge to care.

The typing indicator appears and disappears several times.

Brett: You see too much.

Me: And you don’t see enough. About yourself, anyway.

Brett: What’s that supposed to mean?

Me: For what it’s worth, I think you’re already making smart choices. Your offer proves that.

Brett: How?

Me: You could have bought any building. Turned it into anything. But you chose something that would matter to this community. That’s not accidental.

Another long pause.

Brett: Goodnight, Amber.

Me: That’s it? No witty comeback about my amateur psychology?

Brett: I’m processing.

Me: Take your time. But Brett?

Brett: Yeah?

Me: Thanks for seeing me. The real me. Not just the mess.

Brett: There’s no mess. Just a woman figuring out how to be brave .

My throat tightens.

Me: Goodnight, Brett.

Brett: Sweet dreams.

I set the phone down, heart hammering. It’s just texts. Simple conversation. But it could be a door opening. And maybe I’m not as afraid to walk through it as I thought.

Maybe opposites really do attract for a reason.

B y the time I pull into my parents’ driveway the next morning, my stomach is staging a full rebellion.

It’s not the stress-eaten oatmeal or the gallon of coffee.

It’s the fact that I’m about to tell my mother I’ve lost my job and might be considering a business venture with a man who makes me feel like I’m standing too close to a campfire—warm and slightly dangerous.

The neighborhood looks exactly the same. The basketball hoop still leans left from Dad’s miscalculated slam dunk attempt. Mom’s hydrangeas spill over the walkway in joyful bursts of purple and blue.

I take a deep breath. The air smells like honeysuckle and salt from the nearby waterway. It shouldn’t make me emotional, but it does.

Before I can knock, the door flies open.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite daughter with anxiety written all over her face,” Mom says, eyes crinkling. “You look like you either wrecked the minivan or fell in love. Which one is it?”

She pulls me into a hug scented like lavender lotion and warm biscuits. She’s in her favorite house dress, barefoot, with reading glasses perched on her silver-streaked curls like a crown of practical wisdom.

“Come on in. I made lemon poppyseed muffins. And decaf, because I know you’re vibrating.”

She’s not wrong.

I follow her inside, past the same buttery yellow walls and family photos, including one where I’m in a duck costume at age six, grinning like I’m about to conquer Broadway.

She sets a muffin in front of me and slides over a mug.

“I lost my job,” I blurt.

Mom doesn’t flinch. She sets down her mug and says, “Finally.”

That was not the reaction I expected.

“What?”

“I’ve been waiting for this shoe to drop for months. The way you talk about that place? I’m surprised you didn’t set it on fire on the way out.”

“It wasn’t exactly voluntary.”

“Neither was childbirth, but here we are.”

I laugh.

“There was a health inspection.”

Her eyes soften. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I know how much you poured into that place.”

“I tried so hard to keep it running. And then it was just... gone.”

She squeezes my hand. “Sometimes when one door closes, it’s because a better one is trying to find room to open.”

“That’s not even the complicated part.”

“Oh?”

“There’s this man.” I look down. “His name is Brett. He offered to help me open a restaurant.”

Her eyebrows climb toward her hairline. “As in... help? Like a business partner?”

“He bought this old building downtown and thinks it could be a restaurant again. He says he sees potential in it—and in me.”

She smiles softly. “And do you?”

“I want to. I think I do. But it’s huge. It would mean betting everything on a new dream. Again.”

“You know, Grandma Pearl used to say the best biscuits come from dough that’s been worked hard. It takes pressure and folding and a little mess before you get something worth eating.”

I laugh through my tears. “She also used to say ‘bless their hearts’ about people she couldn’t stand.”

“She was complex.”

We fall into comfortable silence.

“You’ve always had a gift,” she says finally. “Not just for cooking, but for making people feel like they belong. Your grandmother would be so proud.”

The weight of her belief in me hits like a wave. The grief I’ve been carrying. The fear that’s been gnawing at my confidence. I don’t say anything. I just sit there and let myself feel it.

Mom returns with photo albums—big faux-leather scrapbooks with puffy covers. The first page shows me at eight, standing on a step stool in Grandma’s kitchen, wearing an apron three sizes too big and holding a whisk like a magic wand.

“She said you insisted on adding nutmeg. Wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

“She let me name the muffins. I called them Sunshine Bites.”

“She made them for church every Sunday after that. Said it was your signature recipe.”

She flips another page. There’s a picture of us rolling out dough side by side, my hands covered in flour while she shows me how to cut biscuits without twisting the cutter.

“She used to say food wasn’t just nourishment. It was love with seasoning.”

“She was right.”

Another page. A newspaper clipping from 2002, when Grandma’s gumbo won first place at the county fair.

“I wanted to be her,” I admit. “I wanted to run a kitchen like hers. One where people came in hungry and left healed.”

“You still can.”

My throat tightens. “I think I forgot how to dream. Between the bills and the chaos and the kids and broken equipment. I let it slip away. And I’ve been so scared, Mom.”

“You’re allowed to be scared. You’ve had the weight of three lives on your shoulders. You’ve been surviving. But maybe it’s time to start living again.”

“But what if I make the wrong move now and everything collapses?”

“You won’t be doing it alone. This Brett sounds like someone who’s already showing up for you. And if he turns out to be trouble, you’ve got a mother with excellent aim and a mean right hook.”

That gets a laugh through my tears.

“Amber, you don’t have to have it all figured out right now. But don’t you dare walk away from your dreams just because they scare you.”

We move out onto the screened porch overlooking the intracoastal waterway.

The same porch where I used to sit with Grandpa and count jumping fish before sunset.

We settle into the old rocking chairs with chipping blue paint, and Mom hands me sweet tea that appeared from her maternal arsenal of comfort tools.

A motor hums in the distance. A white boat with a peeling decal reading Dr. D’s Day Off pulls up to the dock.

Out steps my dad, still wearing his fishing hat with two neon green lures stuck in the brim like trophies.

He’s holding a massive cooler and waving like he just returned from slaying a dragon.

“Ladies, hope you’re hungry. I caught a fish the size of my ego!”

Mom chokes on her tea.

Dad drops the cooler with dramatic flair. I peer inside at an enormous red drum.

“Twenty-six inches. Almost didn’t fit in the cooler.”

“You are not cleaning that thing in my kitchen,” Mom says.

“Wouldn’t dream of it. Garage sink is prepared and ready.”

I roll my eyes, but it’s impossible not to smile. My parents are ridiculous. And steady. And still here.

This is the life I came from. Loud and imperfect and full of strange fish metaphors and emotional pep talks with muffins. This is the kind of love that doesn’t walk away when things get hard. The kind of home where failure is just the first draft of better.

“You know, Grandma always said you could taste love in the food,” Mom says. “I think she was right. But I also think you can taste legacy.”

I stare out at the water that’s carried generations of my family in and out of this little town.

“What if I mess it up? ”

Mom doesn’t even blink. “Then you learn. You grow. You try again.”

Dad holds up the fish like an Olympic medal. “And when in doubt, add butter. Nobody argues with butter.”

I laugh again, full and real this time.

Because maybe that’s what I needed. Not a perfect plan. Just a reminder that home doesn’t disappear when you fall apart. It waits. It believes in you. And maybe it rocks beside you with sweet tea and tells you your dreams are worth fighting for.