Audra Carnegie hustled over and whispered, “Dahlia, who cares about the mess! You have no time! Keep going, keep going!”
Dahlia cared about the mess. London was neat and precise. They were currently methodically filling two rows of tart shells, boom, boom, boom, each application smooth and consistent. Perfect. Dahlia watched the muscles just visible under the freckled skin of their forearms, their flop of strawberry hair hanging over their eyes as they worked. It looked shiny and clean under the lights.
Of course Dahlia didn’t have time to clean her station. She had two minutes and thirty seconds, exactly, to fill all of her pastry shells.
But she didn’t want to be messy, sloppy Dahlia around London. She hated how much she didn’t want that right now. Because ugh, why? Maybe she was a little messy. Who cared? What was wrong with her?
She glanced over at London with thirty seconds to go.
They were arranging nasturtium flowers along the edge of their tarts, bright and delicate and lovely.
Motherfucker.
By the time the clock ran out, Dahlia had filled eight tarts. She had plopped her assortment of berries right in the middle of each one, while London had elegantly placed them off-center. In all twenty of theirs. She was embarrassed beyond measure.
Tanner Tavish merely gave her a look when he got to their station. A look she deserved.
“Very nice, London.” Tavish nodded. “Very nice indeed.”
Dahlia could not wait for the cameras to turn off, to run to the restroom and scroll on her phone for cute pictures of puppies.
“Hey,” London said, once the PAs gave the official signal, before she could run away to the digital comfort of floppy ears and soft fur. London wiped their hands on a dishcloth and turned to her, crossing their arms and bumping their hip against the table. Dahlia glanced at them quickly, noting, tragically, what a good look that lean was on them. “It’s okay,” they said gently. “We all have off mornings.”
“Do we?” Dahlia snapped, grabbing one of London’s picture-perfect tarts and chomping into it viciously before the crew came to whisk them away.
A corner of London’s mouth turned up slowly. “Yes. We do.” Then their mouth flattened and they cleared their throat. “Um. How was your weekend?”
Dahlia swallowed down the rest of the delectable tart and looked down.
“It was fine.”
She closed her eyes briefly. She hated this, how awkward this felt. Her toes itched, wanting to run away more than ever. But if she wanted things to get back to normal between them, she had to try. So even though she didn’t feel like it, Dahlia forced more details out of her mouth.
“I went to Venice Beach on Saturday. It was really crowded and smelled bad. I loved it.”
London smiled fully at that.
“I went to the Griffith Observatory, walked around,” they said. “I tried going down this trail that leads to the Hollywood sign.”
Dahlia brightened a bit. She looked at them for real this time.
“Really? That’s on my list. Was it amazing, seeing the sign up close?”
“I don’t know. The trail was dusty and hot, and crowded as hell. I turned back after like a quarter mile.”
Dahlia grinned. “You could hardly move on Venice Beach, there were so many people. You would have hated it.”
London smiled back. “Probably.” A pause. “Any time you want to use my rental car, on weekends or days off or whatever, you can. Just text me.”
Dahlia hesitated. “Isn’t that against your rental agreement?”
London shrugged and pushed off from the table.
“Consider us reckless rule breakers, Dahlia.” They gave another small smile and walked away.
Dahlia ate another tart, one of her own. It might have been ugly, but it still tasted good.
It helped, just slightly, to cover the taste left in her mouth at the idea of driving London’s car around Los Angeles, alone, without them.
And then she sat in a corner and looked at Twitter. It was full of people who were cooler than her, being more hip and charming than her, explaining news she felt guilty for not knowing enough about. She felt a little bit worse with each passing minute, but she kept scrolling anyway.
They were called back to their stations. Before the cameras started rolling, before Sai Patel revealed what the secret ingredient for their Ingredient Innovation would be today, Barbara reached over and squeezed her hand.
“You okay today, Dahlia?”
Dahlia looked down at their intertwined hands, at Barbara’s fingers, weathered yet soft, clutching hers so confidently.