The Tessa Randolph Collection, Books 1-3 by Paula Lester (best ereader for comics .txt) 📗

turn out great for Tessa. More often than not, it was either too mushy or overly crunchy.

Okay, okay. Calm down, Tessa. You can figure this out. Google is your friend.

She knew Silas liked empanadas. Maybe she could find an easy recipe for that.

Tessa felt a little better. Until she opened the door to her apartment.

She groaned and slumped into the door frame.

The place was an absolute wreck. Like, hurricane-level messy. Every piece of clothing she owned was strewn across the floor and furniture. Dishes sat piled in the sink and spilling out onto the counter next to it. And there were clumps of cat fur dotting the living room carpet.

Cat fur. Oh, no. She was absolutely not supposed to have a cat.

As though the thought had conjured her, Pepper sauntered over and rubbed on Tessa’s shins. With a little shriek, Tessa bolted the rest of the way through the doorway and shut the door tightly behind her.

She couldn’t have Silas come over. He’d see Pepper. Even though they were dating, he’d feel bound to tell her to get rid of the pet because those were the rules. And she couldn’t ask him to risk his job for her sassy ball of fur.

She let her head clunk back against the door. “What am I going to do?”

Pepper purred loudly and headed for the kitchen, apparently thinking the answer to Tessa’s rhetorical question was that it was cat food time.

“Cuz you always think with your stomach, you brat.” But Tessa obediently followed Pepper and dumped some kibble into her bowl. “There.”

The tortie sat and looked up at her, grumpiness written all over her face.

“No. I’m not giving you canned food. You’re getting chunky. You can have some canned food tomorrow morning.” Tessa crossed her arms and tried to sound firm.

Pepper yowled and then stalked away, leaving the kibble untouched.

Tessa narrowed her eyes at the cat’s retreating tail. Maybe her friend, Abi, would take the cat for the evening, so Silas wouldn’t see her.

But she shook her head to dismiss the idea. If she and Silas were going to be dating, he would be at her apartment sometimes. She couldn’t hide the food, litter, and fur. And she couldn’t deposit Pepper at Abi’s every time. Abi absolutely hated the cat after babysitting her while Tessa was in Florida.

No, if the cat was going to cause an issue between them, it was probably better to get it over with right away.

With that decided, Tessa puffed a piece of dark hair out of her eyes, rolled up her sleeves, and attacked the dirty dishes.

Letting him see the cat was one thing. She didn’t need to reveal her slobby side to the man quite yet. Because, as much as she tried to tell herself the place was messy because she’d lost control of it between packing for Florida, being gone, and jumping right back into work when she got home, the truth was her apartment was always a wreck.

As she scrubbed dirty dishes, Tessa’s mind wandered, and she felt a twinge of discomfort.

Was it fair to Silas to begin a relationship with him when he didn’t know the whole truth about her life? And she really didn’t intend to tell him anytime soon.

After all, having a cat, being a bit of a slob, and not having any sort of cooking skills whatsoever was just the tip of her secret-berg.

Chapter 2

IT TURNED OUT THAT, according to the internet, empanadas were way too complicated. That wasn’t exactly true. The internet tried to make everything sound simple. But Tessa could read through the lines of every recipe and video she found. She wasn’t going to be able to make them. Not now, probably not ever.

She spent a frantic ten minutes pulling all the ingredients she could find out of her cupboards onto the counter. Then she rummaged through the refrigerator and freezer, finally deciding her best bet was spaghetti. That shouldn't be too hard to mess up—it only required that she boil some noodles, brown some meat, and add some sauce.

Plus, in the back of the freezer, she’d found a forgotten loaf of garlic bread that made her fist pump the air in victory. Maybe this would be a good dinner after all.

Once the sauce with meat was simmering and she’d added the noodles to boiling water, Tessa made a pass through the house, gathering every bit of clothing she came upon into her arms. She tossed the whole pile into the closet in her bedroom, giving it a kick to get it all inside. The door didn’t want to close, but she managed to heave it shut with a grunt of satisfaction.

The apartment looked much better when she walked back through. And there was no way Silas would ever go into her bedroom and peek in the closet. Not only would he think she was a good cook, but, hopefully, he'd also believe she was a neat and tidy person.

She pulled the vacuum out of the closet in the hallway and had to spend a little time fiddling with the unfamiliar controls to get it the right height for the area rug in the living room, which confirmed what she already knew in her heart—she didn't vacuum up Pepper’s fur balls nearly often enough.

It was getting close to six. She lit a vanilla-scented candle in the living room, crossed her arms, and looked around. She was going to pull this off. She pushed back her shoulders, feeling a bit smug.

Then the smoke alarm went off in the kitchen.

With a squeal, Tessa raced into the room. Smoke billowed out of the noodle pan. Luckily, she had the foresight to grab a hot mitt before pulling the pan off the heat. She waited for the big billow of smoke to dissipate before she carefully peeked in, against a wave of trepidation.

Tessa groaned. The pot had run dry, and what had once been noodles was now a pile of unrecognizable, charred material stuck to the bottom