Love & Other Disasters(6)

Her hair was up now, drawn into an enormous, slanting bird’s nest on top of her head, the mechanics of which, honestly, London couldn’t compute.

When she collapsed into the seat across from them, unceremoniously shoving her bag onto the floor, a few more strands escaped, floating around her face, her tanned skin. She looked exhausted, but somehow that skin still seemed to glow anyway, even in this dim bar lighting. Which was, London thought, scratching at the back of their neck, scraping across their own ghostly skin, extremely unfair.

“Can I get something for you?” A petite waitress, the roots of a fading dye job clear in her sloppy blond bun, stopped by the table. There was an orange stain on her left shoulder. She, too, looked exhausted.

It was a real party in this hotel bar tonight.

Dahlia jutted her chin toward London’s glass. “What’s that?”

“Bourbon.” London still felt tongue-tied, trying to process this whole interaction, but their brain remembered this.

“Yeah, that. That sounds good.”

The waitress nodded and walked away.

Dahlia sighed, rubbing a hand over her face. She was wearing a loose knit purple dress over leggings, and when she’d sat down, the scoop neckline of said dress had slipped over one of her shoulders, revealing a black bra strap and a delicate stretch of collarbone.

London had barely talked to this woman, and they already felt like they knew too much about her. That she had peed her pants—but just a little—in the fourth grade. How vulnerable her face looked after falling on national TV, a bit of crema on her cheek. That she was wearing a black bra. That she had been nervous today.

London hadn’t actually felt that nervous, somehow. Only generally disgruntled.

The waitress returned, slipping the glass into Dahlia’s hands before disappearing. Dahlia took a good slug, and London cleared their throat. They weren’t quite sure why Dahlia was still here, why she had decided to sit down, but if London smoothed this over maybe she’d leave faster.

“I didn’t mean to be rude to you today, if I was. I’ve, uh, had a rough couple of days.”

Dahlia looked at them over the rim of her glass, freezing for just a moment.

And then she slammed the glass on the table and began to laugh.

With every passing second, she laughed harder.

London couldn’t do anything but stare.

“You,” she said eventually, wiping at her eyes. “You made lamb that was so, quote, magnificently cooked that it looked like Audra Carnegie wanted to kiss you, and you managed to not spill your entire plate while busting your ass on national television, but sure, you’re having a bad day. All right.” Dahlia rolled her eyes, gathering her breath back after her laughing fit. She took another massive slurp of bourbon.

London felt their cheeks flame, even more so than usual. “Audra Carnegie did not want to kiss me,” they said. “And they liked your fish tacos, too. After they let you reassemble them,” they added, more lightly, scratching the back of their neck again in an attempt to dispel their secondhand embarrassment.

“Yeah, well.” Dahlia finished her bourbon with another eye roll.

She shouldn’t be that put out, really. The judges had already sampled her tacos before she made her dramatic on-screen tumble. Filming the judging portion of the show took so long that the food normally got cold. So most of the judges’ assessments came from taste testing they did throughout the actual cooking process. This had been one of the first things Janet had told them. Dahlia’s feat of aerodynamics had been impressive, but it didn’t actually threaten her spot on the show. London had watched her make those tacos. They could tell they were good.

“Hey, can I get another one of these?” Dahlia called out to the waitress as she was about to fly by their table again, motioning to her empty glass. The waitress raised an eyebrow, likely at how quickly the glass had been drained, but it was clear Dahlia didn’t much care. She scanned a greasy placard that was at the edge of the table. “And . . . some chips and guacamole! Yeah, awesome. That would be awesome.”

“Awesome,” the waitress repeated, deadpan, before floating away.

London felt much the same.

“Just to clarify,” they said, leaning slightly forward. “Are you mad at me?”

London understood that Chef’s Special was a competition. That they should not care what Dahlia Woodson thought of them. They had spent the last few years of their life working hard at not caring what people thought of them.

But it felt wrong anyway, that they could make a stranger angry so quickly, for reasons they still didn’t one hundred percent understand. For some reason, they didn’t want Dahlia to be mad at them, however strange she might be.

“Nah.” Dahlia shrugged a shoulder. “Honestly, I’m not that good at being angry, in general. Whenever I’m angry about something, I always end up getting sad in the end instead, so I try to avoid it. And . . . that was too much information. Yikes, I need food in my system.” She paused. “It was a valiant effort, though, right? At being angry?”

“You called me a jerk,” London affirmed.

Dahlia grinned. “See? That felt weird coming out of my mouth, but I said it anyway! Look at me.” She reached out and grabbed London’s glass. “Why are you not drinking this?” She took a long sip and winced, as if it had hit her throat too fast, before pushing the glass back across the table. “Anyhoo, so I’m done. Now tell me about your horrible day.”