A recipe for disaster (#2 of the Miller family)

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental. A RECIPE FOR DISASTER First edition. April 26, 2024. Copyright © 2024 V Verhoeven. Written by V Verhoeven. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Koda’s P.O.V. I wiped my brow with the back of my hand and stepped back to look at the progress inside my restaurant. The place was finally beginning to take shape, and the once-empty shell of a building was now bursting with the promise of the dreams I had ever since I was a little boy and I had discovered my love for food and cooking. My grand opening was just a couple of weeks away now, and the excitement coursing through me was palpable. Hell, Christmas mornings didn’t mean anything compared to the feeling of opening up my restaurant very soon. For as long as I could remember, I had dreamt of owning my own restaurant and cooking what I loved to cook for other people. My love for food and the joy it could bring to others, had fueled my passion for cooking ever since I was old enough to hold a knife, and tall enough to stand behind a stove. The journey to this very moment had been filled with many challenges along the way, but I had persevered. And now, as I looked around at the half-finished interior, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride and accomplishment. That somehow, I had finally made it here, and it had all been worth it in the end.The construction had been a whirlwind of activity, with saws buzzing, hammers pounding and paintbrushes painting vibrant colors on the walls, thanks to the help of the construction team that my big brother’s girlfriend, Jenna, had sent over to help. The large, open kitchen was placed at the left side of the restaurant, and it was every bit as I had imagined it to look in my dreams. Equipped with state-of-the-art appliances and gleaming stainless steel countertops holding every last penny of my life savings. The dining area surrounding the main space of the building and bathed in natural light from the tall windows giving views of the town’s square, furnished with elegant tables and comfortable chairs that would invite guests to linger and spend far more money than they had originally planned on doing. And even more importantly, make memories to last a lifetime. My vision had been to create a place that served more than just food or to fill an empty stomach. I wanted my restaurant to be a place where people could gather, share stories, and make memories that would last a lifetime. My late mother’s recipes and culinary wisdom along with my travels abroad would be at the core of the menu, because those had both been things that had been important to me during my life as well, and things that had shaped me into the man that I had become today. A portrait of my late parents, lovingly framed in a big golden frame, would hang on the wall as a tribute to them. And somehow, I knew they would have been so proud of me right now. Hell, they might not be alive anymore, but I still wanted nothing more than to keep their memory alive for me and my siblings. The Restaurant’s name would be ‘T&T’, which was short for ‘Timber and Tines’. Not just for its warmth and inviting references of wood, but for the hidden meaning it held for me as well, a meaning known only to the Millers, my family, and myself. The Miller family had a deep and dark secret, one that had been passed down through generations as far as we could tell. We were not just ordinary people living in a small town in the middle of nowhere. No sir, we were a family of werewolves. Each member of our family possessed the ability to transform into a wolf. Well, almost everyone… only my grandmother couldn’t shift anymore, because her body was too old to go through the transformation process. And my sister in mating, Jenna, or my big brother’s one true mate as us wolves would call it, who was at this moment still very much a human, until she one day would mix her blood with my brother’s, and she would be able to find her inner wolf as well. But us being wolves, was a secret guarded closely by us all. Luckily, my family had always been close-knit. Our connection was built on trust, love, and the shared burden of our supernatural identity and the trauma of us siblings losing our parents far too young in our lives and theirs. We embraced our abilities to transform into wolves though, recognizing them as a unique part of who we were. But our secret life as humans during the day and wolves by night, meant that we had to maintain secrecy twenty four seven, hiding our true selves from the world, and the small town of Fairview, that we called our home ever since the day that we all had been born. And we had learned how to live with that, without the guidance of a loving parent. That was where my big brother, Adam, had stepped in, taking over as our legal guardian when he had only been a teenager himself. But now, I was all grown up and I had created this restaurant into my new safe haven. For me and my family, that safe haven had always been our old parental house. The house where only Eluna still lived right now, since most of us had moved out a couple of months ago, because we were all just ready to start our own lives as adults now. And yet, when we would meet up together, it would always be at the house where we had all learned to crawl and walk. The house where we had all shared our lives as little pups. A place that had been nothing short of perfect, until that one awful day that our parents had died, and my older brother Adam had been forced to turn into our Mom and Dad overnight. Something I would never be able to repay to him. Damn, that man had given up his entire life in a way, in order tosave ours, and to make sure that we would stick together as a family. Maybe that was why I was so happy for him, now that he had found his one true mate in Jenna? Because that was probably the first time, when Adam had been happy, truly happy, and things in his life had been around himself and his own happiness, instead of all of his siblings. Now, as I continued to inspect my own place, my thoughts wandered to the people who had helped me make my dream a reality. My family sure had been a source of never ending support. They had stood by me during the long nights of planning, and the stressful days of securing permits and financing. My younger brother, Skye, had even made the logo for my restaurant. The man was a mechanic working on cars all day long, but we all knew his true passion was art and drawing. I guess nobody really knew why he had decided to earn his money on cars, when clearly, the man was talented as f**k with a pencil in his hand. But I sighed in content, and said my goodbyes to the construction crew, who were still working on the restaurant, because I had other plans for the rest of the day. And since I was a man of my word, I would keep my promise to help my big brother and his girlfriend move out of the family house and into their own new home today, a home that had taken them months to turn into their own little love nest. The restaurant would still be here tomorrow waiting for me. Right now, the least I could do was lend my brother and his woman a hand, and take a look at what they had done to their new place with my own eyes. And so, two hours later, I found myself in their new house, carrying in box after box with their belongings, as they turned this house into their home. The funny thing was, that the house where my brother and his girlfriend were moving into, wasn’t new for me at all, it had once been the house of my dear grandparents. But since my grandfather had passed a couple of years ago, and a couple of months ago, my grandmother had decided to move into ‘The Garden’, which was a fancy name for an elderly home, or I guess a place where old people moved into in order to have some real fun... I mean, let’s be real here for one second, ever since Gran had moved over there, she did look a lot happier, no matter how badly we all missed her for being a town further away from us. “Stop daydreaming, Koda, let’s get to work,” Gran spoke as if she caught me thinking about her, smacking me head against the back of my head since that was her signature move. At least the one she would use on all the boys in the house. “Hey!” I whined, reaching up my hand to rub the back of my head where she had just slapped me, no matter how old the woman was, she still had one hell of an arm. “Don’t be such a baby, grab that box and bring it upstairs for me, or we are still moving by this time next week.” She added, raising her eyebrow at me as if to tell me she wasn’t kidding around, and she dared me to speak back to her. Lord only knew what she would do if I wouldn’t listen to her. None of us ever waited to find out as we were growing up. We were that smart, at least. “Yes, Ma’am.” I sighed, picking up the box as I started to head toward the stairs leading up to the bedrooms of the house. “Oh sweetheart, I love what you have done to this place!” I heard Gran speak to my older brother, Adam, making me stop dead in my tracks, since her voice sounded way too sweet for my ears or my liking. “Sweetheart? Why on earth would you call Adam sweetheart and smack me on the head within the same minute? We all know I’m the handsome one around here!” I yelled downstairs in a jealous voice, seeing Gran’s head pop up at the bottom of the stairs as she looked up at me. “Adam is my favorite grandchild, haven’t you figured that out just yet, my boy?” She answered me playfully, sending me a matching playful wink afterward. That woman in the devil! God, do I love her! “Well, thanks Gran, I’ll remember that when I’ll be carrying the next twenty boxes up these stairs for you.” I feigned to be emotional, faking a sob as I kept walking up. “Find yourself a girlfriend and start working on getting me my first grandchild, then you will be my favorite one!” She yelled to my back, making my head drop back so I could bark out a hard laugh. Me… A girlfriend? Grandkids… Yeah… No thanks! I was opening up my very own restaurant, and I was in the middle of construction right this very second. Even if the restaurant would be finished and a success, the apartment above it where I would be living, would have zero luxury since I had put all of my savings and even more into the restaurant itself. I was nowhere near ready to meet a woman right now, nor would I have five minutes of spare time to get out into the world and start dating someone or let alone find my one true mate. So, my mind wasn’t even close to thinking about starting a serious relationship right now, but on making my business a success. And right now, my mind was even more on getting to the kitchen to get myself a damn drink, because moving boxes sure made me thirsty, and my brother who lived here was an awful host. So, I had walked into his kitchen, where I was having some small talk with Jenna and teasing my brothers along the way, because well, we were brothers and we always teased each other, when the doorbell rang and Jenna excused herself to open the front door.