Love & Other Disasters(37)

London felt it in their bones on Thursday morning that they were off. And they weren’t sure if even a whole day of cute Dahlia moments could cure it.

They had ended up texting their dad last night instead of calling. Because they were, in fact, a coward. They had typed and retyped the message at least ten times, trying for the most nonconfrontational angle, warning him they were out on the show, but ending it on a “miss you, love you” type of vibe.

It had taken their dad a half hour to respond. And when he did, it was with this:

Ok

Just the two letters. The worst possible response in the entire history of texting. London wanted to chuck their phone out the window. And yet, what else had they been expecting? Even this morning, they kept checking their phone like an idiot, as if some magical message might appear at any minute.

Hey kiddo, you know, I thought about it overnight, and I decided to stop being such an asshole and accept you! Sorry for all those times I didn’t use the right pronoun and those three years I made you feel like you were fucking up our whole family! Super-duper proud of you now, though, buddy! Go get ’em!

London rubbed a hand over their face as they stood at their station. They hadn’t slept well, and maybe that was contributing to how off-center they felt. Plus, it had been a four-day filming week, all long studio days, and while four days were better than five, it’d still been a lot.

They had a three-day weekend starting tomorrow, thank god. Clearly, they needed it.

In front of them, Dahlia laughed at something Barbara said.

There were eight of them left now. Single digits. As each person left, being on the show felt both more comfortable and more tense. They were all used to the production schedule now. They knew the crew, the pantry, the equipment, the tics of the judges and the producers. They knew each other better.

But as the numbers dwindled, the stakes felt higher.

Dahlia turned around, sensing London’s presence. She was getting good at this, just knowing when London was there, when they wanted her to turn around and smile at them. Like she did now.

Then again, London wanted her to turn around and smile at them always. So maybe it wasn’t a particular talent.

“Did you know I love Barbara?” she said brightly.

“Yes.” London attempted a tight smile back.

“Hey.” Dahlia tilted her head. “You okay?”

London nodded. Which meant, of course, that they weren’t. Dahlia frowned, understanding this, but then Janet gave the signal, and the cameras started rolling, and she faced forward again.

She was wearing a floral-print dress today, hibiscus and plumeria and birds-of-paradise scattered around a black background. It was lovely. London wanted to collapse into it.

They focused on this, Dahlia’s dress, the dark waves of her hair that swished over her shoulders, instead of the idea of everyone they knew showing up at their house tonight in Nashville to watch them on TV. Dahlia would put up that hair in approximately twenty minutes, London guessed. They knew her hair schedule by heart.

Moments later, the demonstration table was rolled out onto the Golden Circle with a single appliance displayed at its center.

Dahlia bounced lightly on the balls of her feet, squeezed her hands behind her back.

A pasta roller.

London knew pasta was one of Dahlia’s favorite things to make. She would do well.

The thought eased the tension in their shoulders slightly.

An hour later, though, things were not going so well for London. Things were not going well at all.

Their dough was too sticky, and then too dry when they tried to balance it, like they were an amateur who had never made dough before in their life. The contestants had a brief break in the middle of the cooking time to help the dough rest, during which London rubbed their sore arms and scowled a lot while Dahlia chatted with Cath. But even after their dough had rested, it kept getting stuck in the damn roller.

Sure, London had not worked with pasta a lot, but it was supposed to be simple. Soothing to work with, even. Why hadn’t London practiced making more pasta before coming here? This was worse than the fish. They felt incompetent, flustered.

By the time their ravioli were on their plate, London knew it was far from their finest work. The filling was good, but the shaping of the ravioli was inconsistent, and there was too much sauce, which was too thin, but they didn’t have time to fix it. Fuck.

“It’s not that bad,” Dahlia said, and London almost jumped when she put her hand over theirs, just for a second. They hadn’t even known she was so close. But of course she was. This week, after Monday, Dahlia always seemed close by.

London was trying hard not to be dramatic about it, but the ten minutes they walked home in the dark had invariably turned into London’s favorite part of the day. They wanted, at this moment, nothing more than to skip forward to that ten minutes today. Dahlia was looking up at them in concern and her eyes were like a hug, earnest and open. They were almost too much, today. Because she was being too kind when she called their ravioli not bad.

They had tasted Dahlia’s Bolognese earlier. They had been surprised she would try to pull off Bolognese in only an hour, but of course she would, and of course it was ridiculously good. Rich and flavorful, but not too heavy. Her pappardelle were perfect, soft and chewy. Everything about watching her make it—from pounding the dough with her palms, to lifting the wide, delicate strands of pappardelle through her fingers, to how she constantly brought that wooden spoon to her mouth to taste her sauce—had all felt overwhelmingly erotic.