Jake
The family spills into the apartment, a roar of noise overtaking the quiet that Rick had enjoyed for the day. It makes him smile, his fingers pausing over the keyboard as the children swarm the living room with their school things.
"Snack and then homework," he hears his wife tell the kids before she appears in the doorway to the office.
She looks tired, leaning against the bookshelf with her work bag weighing down her shoulder. He knows this latest case had her spread thin, trying to balance the politics of dealing with a high-profile victim and making sure her people were doing their best to honor the slain news anchor.
"You get your writing done, babe?" she asks, dropping the bag next to her desk and stepping out of her heels.
"Yeah," he responds, saving the document one last time before shutting his laptop. "Listen, why don't you take a bath and I'll handle homework and dinner."
The pure gratitude that blooms over her face tells him he made the right choice; even if the expression didn't, the light and sweet kiss she gives him definitely makes it clear. "Thank you," she sighs, already drifting toward the bedroom and closing the door to the chaos of their family.
He takes a deep, calming breath and goes out into the madness. Raising Alexis was so easy compared to raising three kids at the same time. Not that Lily and the boys are troublemakers but it is two more bodies to wrangle than he was used to.
"All right, who has homework?" he shouts over the noise.
Everyone talks at once, digging into backpacks for worksheets. He gets Jake and Reece settled with their spelling words, hands Lily a pencil for the addition practice she has before moving into the kitchen to start working on dinner.
"What sounds good, kids? We can do pasta or chicken tenders or-"
"Pizza!" Jake exclaims, spelling words abandoned as he dashes from the table to the kitchen. "I want to make pizza, Dad!"
Rick hesitates, glancing toward the bedroom. He knows Kate would want him to insist that Jake do his homework right alongside his siblings, that he not get preferential treatment because he loves to be in the kitchen.
Hell. Rules were made to be broken and he'll take the punishment Kate might dole out for having his son help him with dinner.
"Come on, bud," he says, lifting the six year old up onto the counter. "We'll make the dough and while it's rising, you do your homework, okay?"
Jake's face lights up as Rick goes to gather the ingredients, dumping them on the countertop beside him. "Promise, Dad. I'll do all my homework for pizza."
And he does. As soon as the dough is plopped into the big bowl and covered with saran wrap to rise, Jake lets Rick help him to the floor and scurries back to the table to finish his spelling sheet just as Lily and Reece pack up their assignments.
"Leave the homework out," he reminds, opening a bottle of wine to let breathe on the counter knowing Kate will need it. "Mom and I will check it over after dinner."
The worksheets go in a pile on the side table and the two children disappear upstairs. But Jake keeps his head down, a little furrow of concentration on his brow that reminds him of Kate when the whiteboard doesn't make any sense to her, until the last word is sloppily spelled out on the paper.
"Done!" he proclaims, adding his sheet to the pile of finished work before bounding back into the kitchen. "My dough done?"
Rick pokes at the lump of dough where it strains against the plastic wrap. "Looks it. Ready to shape it, little chef?"
Out comes the stone cookware, a heavy rectangle that Jake got for his last birthday, and the boy hefts the dough out of the bowl and drops it on the stone, little fingers already mushing it into place while Rick goes behind him and smooths it all out, making it even as Jake creates the crust.
"Let me grab the pizza sauce and cheese," Rick says, keeping his eyes on his son to make sure he doesn't fall off the counter.
"No! Want to try something else," Jake mutters, focused on the last lump of dough in the corner of his cookware. "Peanut butter."
"Peanut butter?"
"Yeah. And something spicy. That red sauce you put on chicken?" he questions, looking up for the name.
"Sriracha sauce?"
"Yes! Maybe some chicken, too," the boy continues, assessing his work before glancing up.
"Jake?" He waits for his son to meet his eye. "You know I like adventurous food but you think everyone will like a peanut butter, sriracha, and chicken pizza?"
Oh no. Bad decision, questioning him.
Jake's face falls, his pleased expression threatening to turn to tears fast. "You don't think it'll be good?"
"I just… You know Lily is picky about her food and we want everyone to enjoy your dinner, right?" he scrambles, trying to make it better before things go downhill.
"You don't think they'll like it," Jake sighs, so dejected already. "We can do normal pizza then."
He can't give Kate pizza with peanut butter, sriracha, and chicken, not with the way she looked when she got home and he knows Lily won't touch anything that she doesn't already like. Reece might be okay but…
"Hey. What if we made another small pizza for you to give out as samples?" Rick suggests. "Take some of this dough and do your special pizza with that? Would that work, bud?"
Jake sucks in a shuddering breath as if fighting back the tears and nods. "Okay."
Rick brushes his hand over Jake's curly hair as he goes to grab the smaller stone circle Kate had brought from her apartment when she first moved in. "This a good size for your special?" he asks, gaining Jake's approval before cutting out a chunk of the spread dough and switching it to the small circle.
"Here, you do your special and I'll be quick with the pepperoni pizza so I can help with yours."
Jake presses out the dough again and Rick sees that he's already learning, careful to keep the dough the same thickness and smooth out the big lumps so that by the time Rick sprinkles the last of the cheese on the pepperoni pizza, the special dough is ready.
"What's first, Chef Jake?"
And just like that, his little chef boy has his groove back, pointing directions to Rick to get the right things. They spread the sriracha first, just a thin layer because Jake knows it makes his tongue tingle, before adding the chicken that Rick chopped up into chunks.
He stops Jake, though, before the boy can add dots of peanut butter. "It doesn't cook well," Rick reminds him. "Gets all runny like when we put it on our s'mores, remember?"
Jake regards him carefully before putting the spoon back in the jar. "We can maybe add it near the end?"
"Sounds like a plan."
He puts the stoneware into the oven while Jake keeps a watchful eye.
After fifteen minutes cooking, Rick takes the pizzas out and lets Jake add his peanut butter, watching as it oozes between the chicken.
"Look good?" he asks the boy who has his hands on his hips, surveying the dinner.
"Yeah. Looks good."
Rick lets the pizzas cool before he cuts them into slices while Jake sets the table, up on his toes to put the plates in the right spots.
"Go get Mom and I'll get the others," Rick asks, already headed for the stairs while Jake runs for the master bedroom.
By the time Lily and Reece come downstairs and Kate reappears looking sleepy - must have taken a nap after her bath - Rick has the pizza plated. Jake climbs onto his chair, looking overjoyed at the slice of his special pizza on his plate and even more thrilled when he sees that Rick also has a slice.
"We've got two options," Rick announces, pouring wine for him and Kate while his wife gets the kids water. "Pepperoni or Jake's Special."
"You made a pizza, Jake?" Kate asks, sitting down at her spot next to him. "What type?"
And god, if he didn't already love her so much it hurt, he falls for her all over again when she doesn't wrinkle her nose as their son explains the ingredients in his pizza. He nearly drops their wine when Kate asks Jake for a bite to try, watching in quiet excitement as Jake saws off a piece with a little bit of everything for his mother.
Rick sees the way she fights not to make a face but Jake doesn't. He beams as she eats his piece of pizza and then nods, declaring it 'not bad at all,' a moment before she reaches for her wine.
"Good job with dinner, Jake," Kate compliments as their other children ignore Jake's special pizza for their classic pepperoni. "I'm so proud of you."
Once the kids are in bed and they're doing the dishes, Kate nudges him with her hip, gesturing to the leftover Jake's Special on the counter.
"He's your kid."
Yes. He certainly is.
This is all too much.
School never was his forte; his older sisters coasted through their courses, naturally intelligent and not plagued with the procrastination that haunted Jake. Even Reece got his applications done quickly, sending off the Common Application to his top schools before Thanksgiving break.
And now the rest of them are doing another trip to the Smithsonian and he's stuck sitting at their dining room table with his laptop as he stares down the applications.
It's too much pressure. He has a half sister running a private investigator firm and raising a family with apparent ease, Lily is starting her second year at Georgetown with her eye on a Secret Service position, and Reece speaks five languages near-fluently, already having spent time abroad.
Everyone found their thing and all he can do is cook.
"How's it going, Jake?"
His father's voice makes him jump, his fingers skittering across the keys as he startles. "Thought you were with Mom and the others," he mumbles, clicking back to his essay.
"Nah," Rick says, sitting next to him. "Only so many times I can look at the Lincoln's top hat before I get bored and then your mother gives me that glare and well, easier to stay home. Besides," he continues, pointing to the laptop screen, "I thought you might want some help with that."
Jake drops his head to the table with a groan. "I can't do this, Dad. I can't."
"You can." There's the same confidence in his father's voice that Jake heard when his mother was doubting her run for Congress, the tone that conveys absolute belief in his words. "There's no timeline for this. You can take a year off, travel the world if you want. You know Mom and I would support you through anything."
"What if I fail?" Jake bursts out. "No one in this family has failed and I don't want to embarrass you and Mom."
His dad laughs, loud and filling the house and for a moment, it makes Jake feel like shit - his own father is laughing at him - until Rick looks him in the eye, completely serious. "Of course we've failed," he reassures. "And Jake? I've failed the most in this family."
"Yeah right," Jake scoffs, clicking through the pages of research on culinary schools.
"Hey, would I lie?"
"Maybe, to make me feel better," he mutters.
Rick shakes his head, pushing the laptop away from Jake's fingers. "I was your age when I wrote my first book and it took me another two years to find someone to even look at it. Jake, I had a whole folder of rejection letters that was taller than the book I was trying to get published. I failed over and over until someone took a chance on me."
"But what if I'm not good enough? Restaurants fail all the time and what if I just flop?"
"Then you come home and we figure something out," his father says. "But let me just say that you will always regret not trying to pursue this dream and that starts with finishing these college applications and seeing what happens."
Jake takes a deep breath and nods. "Can you help me?"
"Of course. Whatever you need."
By the time the rest of the family gets home and starts shedding their winter gear from the trip to the Mall, Jake has finished his college applications and has dinner going for everyone, multiple pots and pans cooking on the stovetop.
When Lily starts to protest one of his creations, Jake waves her off. "Normal food tonight. Promise."
(It doesn't stop him from sneaking a pinch of cinnamon into their hot chocolate later that night and laughing at Lily's face when she takes her first sip.)
What was he thinking?
He can't stop his hands from shaking on the walk from the apartment, shoving them into the pockets of his dress pants while waiting at the crosswalk. All he wants to do is turn around, run back up the street, and hide in the apartment for the rest of his life because this was a mistake.
The light changes and he steps off the curb with the rest of the crowd until he reaches the corner of Greene Street.
They finished the etching on the windows last night, installed the new front doors just the other week, and Jake had slipped the health inspection grade into a protector on the street-facing windows as soon as he finished cleaning them to a shine.
He knew opening a restaurant so soon after graduating could lead to a massive stumble but he got cocky with all of the praise from Wylie and his parents' unwavering support and he bought the corner place down the street to fix up.
Time to face the music. If he's going to fail, he's going to face it down with as much bravery he can muster.
Once inside his kitchen - his kitchen - everything falls into place. He knows what he's doing in a kitchen. He gives orders to the waiters, reinforcing instructions they were told a week ago when they were hired. He re-finalizes the menu, tweaking only one of the courses.
Until the first glasses of wine have been poured out in the dining room and his sous chef has started on the appetizers.
The anxiety attack hits him so fast he can't stop to breathe before he stumbles into his office, shutting the door to the noise and chaos of his kitchen. Jake wedges himself into the footwell of his desk, his back pressed into the hard wood as he squeezes his eyes shut. He feels nauseous, the world spinning around him, and he can't do this.
He doesn't know how long he hides under his desk when someone knocks on his door.
"Stay out here; I'll be fine," he hears before the door shuts again and the click of heels is heard on the wood.
A moment later, his mother's face appears next to his. "Hey. What's going on?"
"Mom," he croaks out. "I can't do this."
She sits down right beside him, taking his hand and pressing it to her chest, a move they're both familiar with by now after years of his anxiety attacks. "Breathe with me, Jake."
No matter how many times she talks him through his panic attacks, he still feels so very angry at her in the first few seconds. Breathe? He's drowning and she wants him to just inhale and exhale like everything is normal?
His fingers curl into the neckline of her dress - it's getting so wrinkled and why can't he pull himself together so his mother can get off the floor? - and focuses on the steady rise and fall of her breathing under his palm.
"That's it," she murmurs. "In through your nose, out through your mouth. You've got this, Jake."
Like magic, the panic pours out of him and his mother pulls him against her side, cradling his head to her shoulder as he comes down from the anxiety in a shaky rush.
"We're so proud of you," she says. "No matter what the critics say tonight, you get to come home to your family and know that we don't care whether you fail or make the front page of the Food section. You're so smart and brave, my little chef."
He starts to laugh off the old nickname before she flicks his ear, the same motion that she used on them all when they misbehaved.
"No. You've come so far from peanut butter, sriracha, and chicken pizza. They're going to love your food," Kate promises, scooting back from the desk as Jake unfolds from the footwell to help her up.
When she opens the door, her Secret Service agent straightens up but Jake catches her before she steps into the hall and tugs her into a hug.
"Thank you so much, Mom," he whispers. "For everything you and Dad have done for me."
Her lips come to his cheek, touching a kiss there before smiling at him. "Always, Jake."
Jake escorts her out to her seat, welcoming the hugs from his father and siblings, tickling his little niece at her sides before rushing back to the kitchen.
He has a restaurant to open, after all.