“It’s THC-infused aloe. I make it. It works great, but I have to dump it every time I go to a state without legal weed. This stuff could literally get you high.”
“High-wrist behavior?”
“Oh my god, Sullivan! How can you say your family makes puns and you don’t.”
Kia laughed, as warm and wide as the sunshine in July. She held out her hand for Sullivan’s again.
Sullivan hadn’t been aware of the raw heat of the burn until Kia placed a few drops of cool salve on the inside of her wristand smoothed it in with her fingertips. Her touch was so gentle, tender… loving?
“Is that better?” Kia continued to cradle Sullivan’s hand.
Her skin was better. Her heart ached. Sullivan nodded.
“We’d better take the video again without evidence that a Yukon Gold jumped out of my hand to scald me. Evil little thing.”
“We don’t need to redo it,” Kia said. “That’s what it’s like to be a chef. We have to curate some of what we show the world, but curating doesn’t mean hiding what’s real.”
Sullivan almost said,Like our marriage?She didn’t, but Kia added, “I know the marriage isn’t real, but your restaurant is. The dangers of cooking evil Yukons are real. Tonight is real.” She brushed at a drift of hair that had fallen across her forehead. “It’s real that I’m happy to be here with you.”
Sullivan stroked her thumb across the back of Kia’s hand. Kia closed her eyes and sighed.
“I’m happy to be here too.”
Sullivan was in so much trouble.
chapter 21
Kia watched Sullivantransfer a slip of spicy honey-garlic aioli onto the back of her spoon and pass the spoon over her tongue. The gesture was just as sexy as it had been in school.
“Now that you’ve tasted my food, do you question your life choices?” Kia teased.
“Everything about you makes me question my life choices.”
That could have been a diss except the way Sullivan said it, the slight roughness in her voice, the way her eyes lingered on Kia’s face…
“That was a compliment,” Sullivan added through a mouthful of honey-coated fried beet.
“Do I make your life gourmazing?”
Kia sat on her hands to keep from picking up her phone and taking a thousand pictures of the warm fair light caught in Sullivan’s hair, like every gold wheat field Kia had driven through at sunset, only more beautiful. She wished she had her digital camera so she could take those pictures where the internet couldn’t touch them.
“Yes,” Sullivan said. “You make my lifegourmazing.”
The wordsfor nowhovered between them. Soon Judge Harper would either rule in Mega Eats’ favor and ruin Kia and Sullivan or, hopefully, he’d do the right thing and rule against Mega Eats. But then Kia would start work on Taste the Love Land. Sullivanhad hinted that she’d leave town while Kia had the land logged. Maybe Sullivan would stay away for the whole development. And Kia had to get back on the road. Her followers missed Kia Gourmazing’s travels.
Kia pushed the thoughts away.
Sullivan finished her food. “Want to take some pictures?” she asked like someone who didn’t loathe social media.
They got up. Kia took Sullivan’s empty plate and plastic fork and dumped it in a trash can. She waited for Sullivan to say something so Kia could defend plastic. Biodegradable forks made out of cornstarch cost ten times as much, and growing corn took energy too. Everything humans did was bad for the environment, but they weren’t going to sit on a rock and eat lichen for their whole lives. But Sullivan didn’t say anything, and Kia felt a wave of sadness for the waste the fair would leave in its wake.
Her sadness ebbed away as they headed into the crowd of fairgoers. They fell into the kind of conversation that felt silly and meaningful at the same time. What was their favorite toy as a child? Did they ever dream they were naked in public? (No for Sullivan. Yes, cooking naked in the Diva for Kia.)
“Ever dream you’re taking naked pictures in the living room when your innocent wife of convenience walks in?” Sullivan rested her hand on Kia’s lower back as she said it, the gesture so confident and subtly seductive, Kia knew why every man at the Jean Paul Molineux School of Culinary Arts fell for Sullivan.
“Ever dream that you forget sage when you’re makingsageand butternut squash risotto?”
What were their favorite movies? If they were an animal, what animal would they be and why?
