Page 39 of Unexpected Pickle
She shivers in her chef uniform. “A-a-are y-y-you ok-k-k-kay?”
I pull on her arm to draw her into the warmth. “Where is your coat?”
She steps in gratefully. “I d-didn’t w-want t-to exp-plain m-myself.”
“Get over here.” I walk her to the sofa in front of the fireplace, a feature that makes the cabins far superior to any hotel room I’ve ever had. “Let me get this going.”
She sinks onto the brown leather cushions as I kneel in front of the gas starter. Logs are already placed on the iron rack inside the stone hearth. I fit the key into the lock for the gas jets and press the button to emit a spark into the gas.
The jet flares into life along the metal tube beneath the logs. It’s bright orange and cheerful.
“It’ll take a moment to catch,” I say, turning to Jeannie. “I promise not to set fire to anything that’s not supposed to burn.”
She lets out a little laugh. She’s less blue in her cheeks already. “I was worried about you,” she says, mustering control of her chattering teeth. “You didn’t come back.”
“I’m not going back. Not after I set fire to your lunch.”
Her body relaxes. She must be warming up.
I turn to the fire. The wood has caught on the edges, creating a mesmerizing wall of flames around the logs. It’s easier to look at than Jeannie, even though generally I like looking at her.
“I don’t want you to miss out on the coursework,” I tell her. “I’m fine. I’ve learned my lesson about learning to cook on professional equipment.”
“It’s a steep learning curve,” she says. “Hey.” The last word is gentle, maybe the softest word I’d ever heard from her sharp-edged vocabulary.
I don’t turn around, staring into the fire. I’ve blown it. I know. I was a problem. Trouble. I ate up time from her breakfast competition. I torched her lunch. And now I’m taking her away from the afternoon.
I shouldn’t have come.
It’s quiet in the cabin, just the crackle of the fire as the logs expand with the heat. The leather creaks, and Jeannie sits on the rug beside me.
“Even if you don’t want to cook anymore, you should come to the cocktail hour tonight.”
She’s near, too near, and all the hair on my arms lifts like I’ve come too close to a ghost.
“I don’t know. It’s hard to be the worst at something.”
“Hex! That would be like me stepping into the Octagon and being upset that I got body-slammed in the first ten seconds.”
I tilt my head. “You know about body slams? And the Octagon?”
Her cheeks go pink.
“You watched a match! Did you watch my match?”
Now she’s closer to red. “Maybe?”
“Which one? Where I KO’d HammerFist? Or when Jerry O’Malley tapped out because I headlocked him?”
She shakes her head. “The most recent one.”
“The qualifier. That was a good fight. You really watched?”
Jeannie shifts on the floor to sit cross-legged. Wisps of her dark hair have escaped her white cap. “I was curious about what you do. How do you not get beat up and bruised every match?”
“I’m not half bad at it.”
“That was the belt you brought me, wasn’t it?”
