Page 46 of Kissing Flynn

I know the basics––Barnard opened a small bicycle repair shop in San Diego when he was still a teenager, and his empire was built on its foundation.

What I didn’t know was that the shop wasn’t a shop at all in the beginning. A teenaged Barnard actually started his business on a street corner near the beach. He painted a sign that explained he offered bicycle repair services. He waited there every day with a pitifully sparse set of tools, hoping the cyclists would remember him when they experienced problems with their bikes.

And it worked. People remembered the sign, and after a few tightened chains and brake repairs, word of mouth spread until he was busy every day. He scrimped and saved until he turned eighteen, then rented a space near that corner to open an actual bike shop.

I’m thoroughly impressed by the time I finish reading, and I’m champing at the bit to get started. I briefly wonder if Flynn was given the same topic or something different, then push the thought aside. Before I left his room earlier, we agreed to keep our topics secret. Not only would discussing it most likely break the contract and non-disclosure agreements we signed, we both want to keep this competition fair and even. Knowing each other’s topics could give one of us an edge we wouldn’t hold over another competitor.

Sitting cross-legged in the middle of my bed, I pull the laptop into my lap and open it. It’s bare-bones, with nothing more than a popular word-processing software installed. Just as Barnard promised, there’s no browser and no wi-fi connected. I could enable my phone’s data and use the hotspot to install a browser if I really wanted to, but there’s no way I’d cheat like that. And I know Flynn won’t either.

Hell, it doesn’t matter anyway. Even if I did cheat and find a way to search for more information, I wouldn’t find it. There’s precious little on the internet about Barnard, and the mystery of him is why we all came here to fight for this job. To be the one person who could tell his story.

I decide to go the storytelling-route, painting a picture so the reader can visualize young Barnard, hungry for success as well as food, as he patiently waits for cyclists to come to him for repairs. The pleasure he must’ve felt at receiving that first ten dollar payment. Then the next, and the next, and so on until he’d saved enough to open an actual repair shop. That street corner and that tiny shop were the first two stepping stones of his career, steps that lead him to become the sporting goods mogul he is today.

I work on the piece until my stomach starts to grumble in protest, and when I check the time, I realize it’s nearly noon. Closing the laptop with a sigh, I slip my feet into a pair of shoes and head downstairs in search of sustenance.

The dining room is deserted, so I make my way into the kitchen. I skid to a halt when I find Barnard there, the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up to his elbows as he stands in front of the stovetop. He has a spatula in one hand, the handle of a frying pan in the other, and a wide grin on his lips when he looks up and spots me.

“Hello, Maxine. I was just making myself a grilled cheese sandwich. Would you like one?”

Barnard eats grilled cheese? And not only that, he makes them, himself?

My stomach grumbles again at the thought of the crispy, cheesy goodness, so I nod quickly and slip onto the barstool on which Flynn and I found Bethany crying the night of the murder mystery.

“This is my favorite meal,” Barnard says, tapping the spatula against the sandwich sizzling in the frying pan. Then he chuckles. “You’d think I’d never want one again after basically living on them, along with ramen noodles, in the early days.”

That’s a little tidbit of information previously unknown to me, something that would add a bit of flavor––pun intended––to the piece I’m writing. I breathe out as I toss the idea. I need to stick to the facts outlined in the instructions I was given. I can’t have Barnard think I came down here to trick him into talking about himself so I’d have an edge over Flynn.

“I love grilled cheese, too,” I say. “My mom used to make them for me with those individually wrapped cheese-food slices, and I loved it. I can’t stomach the stuff now, but they sure did melt good.”

“Nothing but real cheese here,” Barnard says. “The kitchen staff keeps a mix of shredded cheddar, jack, gouda, and havarti in the refrigerator for when the mood strikes me.”

“Sounds delicious,” I say as he expertly flips the sandwich with the spatula.

I watch as it rotates through the air before Barnard catches it on a plate with a flourish and a bow. I laugh and applaud him, and he grins before passing the plate over to me.

“Do you like sourdough?”

“Oh, no. This one is yours. I’ll take the next one,” I say despite the sudden roaring of my belly at the scent of grilled, buttery goodness.

“Nonsense,” he says, ignoring my attempts to pass the plate back to him. “It would get cold while I cook one for you, anyway. Eat. Eat.”

“Thank you,” I say, relenting under the weight of his logic.

“Grab the potato chips out of the pantry, will you?” he says as he coats two fresh slices of sourdough bread with butter.

“Sure,” I say, sliding off the stool and heading for the open door in the corner. Seeing a few choices, I lean over to peek through the door at Barnard. “Regular, barbecue, or sour cream and onion?”

“Sour cream and onion for me,” Barnard calls back over his shoulder.

“These are my favorite, too,” I say as I carry the bag back to the center island and climb back onto my stool.

Opening the bag, I pour a handful onto my plate before setting it aside. Unable to resist another second, I pick up the sandwich and take a bite. An involuntary groan slips out of me before I can stop it, and Barnard chuckles as my eyes roll back with pleasure.

“Good?” he asks, humor twinkling in his eyes.

“Delicious,” I say once I’ve swallowed the bite in my mouth. “Best grilled cheese I’ve ever had.”

“Why, thank you,” he replies with a bow of his head, then flips his own sandwich onto a plate much the way he did mine.

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