“How long did you cook this?” Sai Patel sputtered.
“I tried to tell Jeffrey that these pans—”
“Your rugelach, though. Truly spectacular.” Dahlia snagged a bite fresh out of the oven. London tried not to stare at how she licked her fingers after, and utterly failed.
“Thanks, friend,” London repeated.
As it turned out, the salmon was overcooked and rubbery.
“We probably should have helped,” Dahlia whispered an hour later, as they worked on breaking down their stations. The judges had seemed genuinely pissed.
“Oops,” London said.
Their team lost.
When the contestants finally collapsed on the bus for the return trip to the hotel, the daylight was draining from the sky, a stripe of hazy purple hovering at the horizon. London turned to Dahlia after they plopped down into the same seats they had taken before. She leaned her head back against the headrest, holding her elbows across her stomach, her eyes closed. London’s mouth hung open, ready to say something foolish, but the sight was so arrestingly intimate that they stopped.
Dahlia must have sensed their stare anyway.
“What?” She cracked one eye open, lifted an eyebrow.
“I had a good time. Cooking with you today.”
London felt their neck turn pink.
Dahlia smiled. “Me too. And you know what?” she added after a minute. “You haven’t grunted at me in two whole days. It’s like I don’t even know who you are anymore, London Parker.”
CHAPTER SIX
A week later, the contestants of season eight piled onto another bus at the crack of dawn. When Dahlia felt someone drop into the seat next to her, she turned, a grin already growing on her face. She’d had a horrible night, and she needed aimless banter with London Parker more than ever before.
But familiar strawberry hair did not greet her today.
Lizzie touched the corner of her glasses nervously.
“Hello, Dahlia.”
Dahlia groaned internally, turning back toward the dark window, working to keep her exhausted, cranky sigh contained.
“Lizzie,” she acknowledged.
Dahlia, somehow, had learned more than she ever needed to know about this woman over the last week and a half since their Face-Off. She had learned that Lizzie’s husband’s name was Chance, that he was a long-distance trucker. That Lizzie was a dental hygienist who had harbored a dream of opening her own bakery for years. That they lived in San Diego. That her two sons’ names were Billy and Lucas. That Billy was in the Navy. That Lucas was graduating from high school this year and planning to attend a local community college and live at home next year to save money.
Dahlia did not ask for any of this information about Lizzie and her seemingly decent, hardworking, middle-class family, but Lizzie simply spilled it anytime Dahlia was around her. She was unflappably nice to Dahlia, even when Dahlia tried her darnedest to ignore her, and Dahlia felt worse and worse about it with each interaction. She did not want niceness that was only granted because she appeared to fit into the boxes deemed acceptable by society.
With a shudder, the bus pulled away from the lot. Lizzie was blessedly silent for a peaceful ten minutes.
And then she cleared her throat.
“So, Dahlia,” she started, her voice low, confidential. “I’ve noticed you’ve become friends with London.”
Oh, dear lord. Dahlia closed her eyes, willing herself strength from whatever deities were up there.
From what Dahlia had been able to tell, Lizzie and London avoided each other like the plague on set. London hadn’t mentioned anything else about her since that first night in the bar. Dahlia had been hopeful that meant Lizzie wasn’t bothering London too much, and that London accordingly hadn’t wasted too much of their brain space on her.
“And I just worry,” Lizzie went on now, “that they might have told you some inaccurate things about me.”
Except Lizzie didn’t say they.
Dahlia’s eyes popped open.
“I know we didn’t get off to the best start, but honestly, Dahlia, I’m just trying to look out for—”
“Lizzie,” Dahlia interrupted, working hard to keep her voice equally low. How hard was it, really, to use the right word? Dahlia wanted to throw the last twelve hours of her life into a dumpster and set it on fire. “I’m going to stop you right there, because it’s way too early, and I’m tired, and honestly, if you want to be friendly with me, or whatever it is that’s happening here, you can start by not misgendering my friend in front of me. Or anywhere, actually, ever.”