Love & Other Disasters(14)

They cooked it anyway. Grudgingly.

Once the hour was up, the cameras turned off for a brief break, and Dahlia turned around.

“You doing okay?” she asked.

London felt a surprising urge to grunt at her again. God, they were a jerk.

“Sure,” they said.

She stepped toward them. “It was the rib cage, right?”

They nodded, feeling their cheeks flush.

Dahlia held out her palm, traced a white line that ran right near her left thumb. “The first time I tried to gut a fish.” She smiled. “Tricky bastards.”

London wanted to lift that hand and run their tongue along that scar. And then move to that mouth, smiling and red and full, her lips the same color as her sweatshirt, the teeth behind them blinding.

They swallowed.

“Yeah. It was a pretty big mistake, though.”

“Whatever. It doesn’t matter if your food’s still good. And it looks great.”

She nodded at London’s plate. She was lying. It did not look great. Her face looked great.

“Thanks. For, you know.” London lifted their bandaged hand. Although they didn’t know why they were still talking. They wished for this conversation to end, desperately, so they could return to stewing about the other contestants and not talking to anyone ever except maybe Cath and Ahmed and definitely only thinking about food and food only.

“Oh, of course.” Dahlia smiled again. And then that old woman, Barbara, was at her side, chattering in her ear, and Dahlia turned away, and London let out a breath.

Judging began shortly afterward, and god, but judging was boring. London admired the judges’ ability to continually eat cold food, but their feet started to go numb after so much standing around and waiting. The only upside was watching Dahlia’s dish get judged, how glowing the reviews were. And even though London couldn’t see her face as Sai and Audra and even Tanner complimented her, they watched her hands behind her back, squeezing each other until they were white.

And they could see, too, as she walked away from the Golden Circle, how she was trying to school her features and act calm, but the corner of her raspberry-colored mouth kept twitching, her eyes bright.

She caught their eye as she rounded the corner to her station. London should have grunted at her again, probably—they understood this immediately a second later—but they were an idiot. They smiled at her.

And her face exploded. Like when she had tasted the tortilla chips for the first time in the bar, but better. Jesus, those teeth.

And then she faced forward again, and London bottled it inside of them, that smile.

The judges’ reviews of London’s dish were not as stellar, but to their surprise, they weren’t awful, either. When it came time for winners and losers, London was solidly in the middle of the pack. They had never felt more grateful to be mediocre.

The judges always called the top three contestants to the Golden Circle first, before choosing the bottom three. Dahlia, Khari, and Ayesha were the top three today, but it wasn’t really a question. Dahlia won.

She was happiness personified, and London could barely look at her. After a poor guy named Mason was the first contestant eliminated, after the cameras turned off, after they confirmed with Janet they weren’t needed for any more solo interviews, London slipped away into the smoggy midsummer air of Los Angeles. It was still surprisingly warm out, even as the sun slipped away at the horizon. They got their phone out of their pocket.

Why the fuck didn’t you make me learn how to gut a fish, they texted Julie as they walked back toward their hotel room, a space that was cold and soulless and safe, completely lacking in any charm whatsoever.





CHAPTER FIVE


London did not body-slam Jacob out of the way, exactly. It just happened that Jacob was slow and lazy and London was impatient to get on the bus. It just happened that pushing past Jacob ensured London’s butt ended up in the empty seat next to Dahlia Woodson.

Complete coincidence.

“Oh, hey.” She smiled at them, and London cursed themself. They had spent all of last night texting everyone they knew in Nashville, followed by reading Twitter for hours, to distract themself from any thoughts of blinding smiles or shoulders exposed by yellow tank tops or fingers wrapped around their thumb. They hadn’t even left their room, for fear of running into her. They had discovered two nights ago, when they’d both been returning from a late-night snack run, that her room was only a few doors down from theirs.

And yet. One glance of that hair this morning, and they were back on their bullshit already.

“Hey. Congratulations on the win yesterday.”

Dahlia blushed. “Thanks. How’s your thumb?”

“It’s good. Healing already.”

As London wiggled their thumb at her, they were aware of how ridiculous this was, their desire to be next to this woman, to see her smile. Even aside from Dahlia being way out of their league, they’d heard her tell Barbara she lived in Maryland. Which was, the last time London checked, pretty far from Nashville. Either of them could get kicked off at any time. And London still knew barely anything about her.

“Where do you think we’re going?”

“I hope somewhere exciting.” Dahlia looked out the window, but London could see the smile in her profile.

London had been surprised Chef’s Special was throwing a Real World Challenge at them so early on. These off-set challenges were normally interesting, even if they were almost always group challenges, and group challenges were the worst. Whichever group lost today would return to the set on Monday for another Elimination Challenge, while the winning team got immunity and a day off. You really wanted to be on a winning team for a Real World Challenge.