Chapter Fourteen
“DID YOU PREP the rice?” I ask as my chubby alligator avatar dashes across the screen to chop the fish for our sushi roll before time runs out on our latest order—the last shot we have of earning enough in tips to make it past this level.
“I thought you were on the rice?” Ivan asks as his (raccoon? Wolf? Other gray mammal?) avatar washes the same dish I swear he’s been washing for the past ten minutes.
I bite down on my tongue until I’ve calmed down enough to not breathe fire the second I open my mouth. “You said you’d be on the rice if I handled the fish and the seaweed.”
“I meant just for that last order.”
“Then you should’ve said that.”
“I did,” Ivan says through gritted teeth as a grating ding-ding-ding announces the end of yet another unsuccessful round.
“Great,” I say with what I already know is too much bite as I toss my controller onto the couch beside me. “We were only a hundred dollars short this time.”
“Better than two hundred,” Ivan mumbles, every word dripping with sarcasm.
It doesn’t seem possible, but this was our most productive round so far. We managed to serve three whole orders before we got derailed by Ivan’s avatar careening off the side of the cliff our kitchen was conveniently built on, throwing off our entire flow for the remaining two minutes of the round.
“It shouldn’t be this hard,” I say, more to myself than to Ivan—my voice thicker than I expected it to be. None of this—the game, the academy, pretending with Ivan—should be so hard.
“Isn’t that the whole point of this?” Ivan gestures to the screen. “Forcing us to work as a team?”
“And we’re clearly doing an awful job.” I hate the way my voice gets higher pitched the more I talk, but I especially hate the way I feel like I can’t look at him head-on.
Like it’ll tip or break something inside me.
And that feeling—that fluttering beneath my skin whenever I look at him for too long—is the most terrifying thing so far.
“All right. New game plan for this next round.” Ivan nods to himself, like a coach running through plays in his head before calling his choice for the team. “What do you actually like doing here?”
“Like on Earth, or …”
“In the game.”
“Not cooking,” I say. “Too many little indicators for when everything’s done.”
“So that’s dishes and serving for you. Stays the same every time. I’ll do the cooking and assembly and call out orders.”
“Is that what you like doing?” I ask.
“I’m working with what I got,” Ivan replies, and clicks us back into a new kitchen.
“And you won’t forget the rice?” I ask with a raised brow. Ivan forgetting about the existence of rice is what destroyed us in the last round.
“I will never again, for as long as I live”—Ivan nods before turning to give me a smile that makes my stomach feel like I just swallowed a bag of Pop Rocks—“forget your rice.”
He is so full of it. Ignoring my traitorous desire to keep looking at him, I focus my attention back on the screen and tap in for the next round.
We play in silence at first. The round always starts off easy—orders coming in slow enough that we think we’ve got a handle on things.
“Orders one and two are ready,” Ivan announces as he sets two completed sushi rolls on the counter opposite my avatar.
“Yes, chef,” I reply, moving on pure instinct to get the food served and dishes washed and ready for Ivan to plate up the next order.
And that’s the way it goes. Silence except for the occasional call out that a dish is ready to be served or that I’ve set a fresh stack of plates on the counter or that we need more sashimi to be chopped.
Our movements feel strangely synchronized—like we’re performing a waltz even while five feet apart.
The subtle clicks of our fingers mashing buttons and sharp inhales as we race against the clock ground me like my own personalized ASMR soundtrack.
The sound of the timer signaling the end of the round catches me so off guard I almost leap out of my seat.
I clutch at my heart like a damsel with her pearls as I will my body to stop trying to sabotage me every few minutes.
By the time I can feel my heart slowing beneath my fingertips, our score has been displayed.
We haven’t just made enough tips to pass the round, but also enough to earn us a perfect three gold stars. Our little chefs finally move up the path on the map.
“Let’s go!” Ivan shouts at the exact same moment I jump into the air with a battle cry of “Yes!”
My adrenaline spikes with that sweet feeling of winning as Ivan whips around to face me, his smile as bright as the glow of Times Square.
I swear I can see my reflection in his eyes—beaming like I’ve won it all.
The final battle royale. The mentorship.
The dream life I’ve always pictured for myself.
And with the way my cheeks are aching from my ear-to-ear grin, I might even think it was real and not some kind of weird lens distortion.
Even with the round over, we still move in perfect synchronicity.
Our hands fly up into the air, meeting in a high five so powerful it echoes through the room and sends a sharp sting of pain all the way down to my elbow.
But for once it’s the good kind of pain—the thrill of knowing you absolutely freaking crushed it.
We come down from the high together, as if we listened to Trieu and went skydiving instead, our chests heaving as we collapse back onto the couch.
We’ve somehow gotten physically closer together since we started the round too, close enough that Ivan’s knee brushes against mine when he flops back onto the cushions.
“Not so awful, huh?” he teases before I can linger on the fact that our skin is touching and I didn’t spontaneously combust.
I bite back a snort and take the opportunity to pull my knees up to my chest—an extremely safe distance from any more unexpected contact. “Speak for yourself.”
Ivan pouts and holds a hand against his heart as if I’ve wounded him. “That’s not very fake girlfriend-y of you.”
This time I don’t hold back my snort of a laugh. And while normally I wouldn’t care what Ivan thinks about me or the noises that come out of my mouth, embarrassment trickles down my spine until goose bumps sprout along my arms. “I’m off the clock.”
If Ivan’s put off by my laugh, he doesn’t let it show.
Instead, he smiles. Really smiles. Not the perfect shiny white smile he gives for the cameras or Brian or his adoring fans.
Something softer and more intimate. More …
real. The kind of smile you won’t find if you Google his name or scroll through his socials.
That, if I were a weaker person, I might think is special.
“So am I,” he says, eyes lingering on mine long enough that the fluttering in my stomach threatens to come back full force if I stay here any longer than I have to.
“Next kitchen?” I propose, yanking my attention away to grab my controller off the couch between us—my pinky finger brushing against his. The contact lasts for barely a second, but it’s still enough to send a jolt through me.
I can hear Ivan let out a quiet sound of amusement. “If you think you can handle it.”
If I weren’t actively avoiding contact, I’d shove my knee against his. Instead, I settle for sticking my tongue out at him moments before we load up the next round—a very civilized and mature response.
As expected, the next level is more challenging than the first. We’ve upgraded to burritos and the occasional fireball launching at us from out of nowhere.
People aren’t kidding when they say the service industry is hell.
My stomach sinks when we miss moving on to the next round by a single order, a groan threatening to escape my lips, but I owe it to our fake relationship to be optimistic for once.
“We’re just getting the lay of the land,” Ivan says before quickly opting in for a second match.
Thankfully, for both Ivan’s and my sanity, it seems like he was right.
We’re able to find our same rhythm from the first round now that we know what to expect.
Dodging fireballs comes with its own set of complications, but with Ivan on meats, rice, and washing dishes and me on tortillas and serving, we’re able to make it through the round with two gold stars and no bodily or mental damage done to either of us.
The silence is welcome as we move on to the next round, and then the next.
Our routine gets more and more solidified with every passing round.
Within just a few minutes we’re masters of communication—at least when it comes to the virtual kitchen.
Whether that skill development will carry over to our real-life interactions is still up in the air, but progress is progress.
“What’s your favorite color?” Ivan asks midway through the fifth—or is it sixth?—level. We’ve upgraded to burgers, fries, and chicken tenders all at once. Guy Fieri would be so proud.
“What?” I ask, brows furrowing as I focus on dashing toward the fryer to grab the chicken before it can burn.
“You strike me as a red type,” Ivan continues, effortlessly gliding across the screen to deliver our latest order. From the lack of frantic button-mashing sounds, he’s not nearly as focused as I am. “But I could see blue.”
Unlike him, I need my full attention to concentrate. Once we’ve finished off the level, barely making enough to move on to the next stage, I work on processing what the hell he just asked me. “Why?”
For all I know he could be trying to find new ways to throw me off.
I wouldn’t put it past him to have a spreadsheet of people’s favorite things on the off chance he runs into them on the street.
Just a trick to make them feel special, like he remembered.
Then again, if they do end up feeling special, does it matter how he remembered? I don’t enjoy this line of thought.