Page 13 of Unexpected Pickle

HEX, FIRE TWO

I ’ve just gotten off the phone with the woman who schedules my travel when my spine tingles, like there’s something I don’t quite know.

Probably it’s the snowfall, which was pretty at first, but has become unnerving. I peer out the curtains. The front of the cabin, facing the sidewalks to the lobby, has been managed. But on the back side, there are impressive snow drifts forming around the outbuildings in the woods.

And I can’t get a flight out today or tomorrow. Carly said that there have been a slew of canceled flights, so I better hang tight to the one I have on Friday after the retreat has ended. The airport is a mess, but the heavy snow should pass before then.

So apparently, I’m stuck here for four more days.

I’m not going back to the retreat. I’m messing up Jeannie’s opportunities. I’m a liability. A problem.

That tingly feeling comes over me again. What is it?

Then I hear the soft knock.

Was that on my door?

I’m not afraid of whoever might be there. I’m about to enter the heavyweight title circuit in mixed martial arts. Come at me.

But I take a step back when I throw it open.

“Jeannie?”

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?”

I nod.

“But that was an important belt! If I understood it correctly, you’re now in the top tier?”

“I qualify to challenge for the title.”

“Will you?”

I shake my head. “Not yet. The managers have to do their work. It’s partly about skill, of course. But you also have to be a moneymaker to get a chance at that level. People need to be willing to pay a lot of money to watch.”

“I saw the clips after it was over.”

“It’s expensive to watch live. You can go to a bar and see the fights. Some restaurants, too. They pay to drum up business.”

“I can’t imagine going to a bar to watch MMA.”

“I can get you tickets. Some fights are in LA. Most are in Vegas, though.”

“Vegas?”

“It’s a fun city. Have you been?”

She shakes her head.

It’s a revelation, having a normal conversation with her. She’s not being harsh or short. It’s real talk.

“I could take you,” I tell her, then realize how forward that sounds.

She laughs. “From kitchen acquaintance to a trip. You do work fast.”

Even though she’s smiling, I sense the unease there. I’m moving too quickly. The months I’ve visited her at the deli don’t count for anything, not yet.

“You would be a guest. You could bring someone else. I could get a room for you. But I understand. It’s not everyone’s bag. It’s a lot more intense in person than on a screen.”

“I bet.”

I catch her staring at the scar on my jaw. I imagine her touching it and my head swims. If only.

“Do you have a lot of scars from fighting?”

“Mostly from the early days.” I roll up the sleeve of my chef jacket. “The backs of your elbows take a lot of abuse, particularly in workouts.”

She reaches out to shift my arm toward the firelight. My whole body buzzes at the feel of her skin on mine.

But then she says, “Oh, wow. That’s some serious scarring.”

I tug the sleeve down, not wanting to gross her out.

“I guess since we’re revealing work wounds, I can show you one of mine.”

She lifts her sleeve like I did. She has a collection of small burns, then a long slash of pink appears.

I take her arm like she did mine. “Whoa, Nelly. What happened here?” Another buzz zips through me at touching her.

“Just pure clumsiness while taking a very heavy stew pot out of an oven. I brushed against the top. Managed not to drop the stew, though.”

She pulls away and rolls up the other sleeve. There’s an odd collection of pink dots.

“What caused that?” I reach out to press my fingers to each circle. It’s heady every time I connect with her.

She seems unfazed. “That was me being a total idiot. I was making chocolate dots and for some dumb reason I slid the parchment paper of them onto my arm right after piping them. I don’t know why I thought they’d be cooled.”

“It did that before you could take it off?”

“It stuck to my skin. Took a few seconds to peel it off.”

“I’m not sure which profession is more violent,” I say. “Yours or mine.”

She laughs. “Yours, for sure. I’ve seen how it goes for the other guy.”

The conversation stops, but it doesn’t feel awkward, not with the fire and the steady fall of snow.

“What are all the chefs doing this afternoon?” I ask.

“Cooking meat without added calories. There was nothing to learn.” Her gaze casts down, and I suspect there is more to this.

“Are you okay?” My concern gives way to anger. If that French guy did something to upset her, I’ll crush him with my bare hands.

“I needed a break. Thought I’d use it to see how you were.”

“I’m good.”

“Did you get to eat? You ran out on lunch.”

“I have an entire bag of food.” I lean over to pat my duffel full of snacks. “I have to keep my macros on track. I knew it might be a challenge here, even if we were allegedly making sports nutrition.”

“Your nutrition might be more intense than theirs.”

“Exactly.”

“There’s a break between the course and the cocktail hour,” she says. “I could cook you something. The chefs have been taking over the kitchen as often as they like.”

Jeannie, cook for me?

“I’d like that.”

She stands. “Just let me know your macros and we’ll fit them in. Like a mini-course for the two of us.”

I like how she said that. A lot.

“You going to go back to the class?”

She shakes her head. “I’m going to take some time off. It’s been a whirlwind from the awards ceremony to traveling here to meeting everyone.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Stare at the ceiling, probably.”

I see my chance. I’m going to have to be bold, but careful. “I have a ceiling,” I say, pointing up. “And a fire. And snacks.”

She watches me for a moment. “Do your snacks suck?”

Am I getting somewhere? “They are amazing. Some were made by those chefs you hate.”

That gets her attention. “They’re not prepackaged?”

“Only about half.”

“Oh! What are the ingredients? The binding agent?”

Now she’s interested. Well, in the snacks. I’ll take it.

“I’ll tell you all about it. Then maybe we could watch a movie by the fire in a snowstorm?” I barely hold my breath as I wait for her to answer.

“You gonna spring for the movie channels?”

“Hell yes, I am.”

“Sold.”

And as we sort through my bag and then search through the available movies, I know that all my humiliation today was completely and totally worth it.