Too Late To Love Me I Already Left With His Twins (Lydia and Dave) novel Chapter 187

The twins spent most of the afternoon sprawled across the living room floor building ridiculous inventions from old puzzle kits while Ava attempted to organize things properly and Eli intentionally sabotaged structural stability “for scientific curiosity.”

By dinnertime, I returned to the kitchen again despite protests from literally everyone.

This time I made stir fried macaroni pasta.

Not ordinary plain pasta either.

The good kind.

Properly seasoned.

I boiled the macaroni until perfectly soft before stir frying it with shredded chicken, colorful bell peppers, carrots, sweet corn, spring onions, and thin strips of beef.

Garlic sizzled first in hot oil.

Then onions.

Then seasoning folded through gradually while the vegetables softened without losing crunch.

The entire kitchen smelled incredible.

Eli immediately looked betrayed.

“It’s macaroni pasta,” he corrected seriously. “Respect the culture.”

“What culture?” Ava asked.

“The delicious one.”

By the time dinner was served, the dining table looked warm and full again in the way only homemade food somehow managed to accomplish.

The twins ate happily while talking over each other.

Something about cooking for them myself after everything that happened the last few days made me feel calmer.

Safer somehow. 

The first day passed quietly.

Mostly sleeping.

Movies.

Blankets.

Snacks.

Recovery.

But by the second evening I was already back working remotely again because unfortunately the world refused to pause simply because my children almost gave me cardiac arrest.

I was on a call with an influencer client involved in public backlash after quoting an outrageous sponsorship f*e online.

“One million dollars?” she groaned dramatically through the speaker. “Everybody says I’m greedy now.”

----

A million dollars

I opened the campaign notes in front of me.

“Okay. First thing: reframing.”

Silence.

Then:

“…What does that mean exactly?”

“It means we change the emotional framing of the conversation without lying.”

1 stood up slowly from my chair and walked toward the window while speaking.

“Right now the internet sees this story as: ‘Influencer thinks she’s worth one million dollars.””

“Which I am,” she muttered.

“I’m not arguing with you,” I replied calmly. “But audiences don’t emotionally process information like business executives. They process through relatability first.”

She groaned softly.

“I hate people.”

“No you don’t,” I said immediately. “You hate unmanaged audience perception.”

A million dollars