Chapter Two | FLINT
Chapter Two
FLINT
By eight Saturday morning, I’d walked the cook site twice and still didn’t like the wind.
It wasn’t dangerous yet. It slid low across Cinder Ridge Meadow from the west, warm and steady, pushing through the dry grass with a soft scrape that made every old habit in me pay attention.
The correct permit clearing sat forty yards from yesterday’s drenched mess. This one had bare dirt around the fire rings, a wider break from the pine edge, and enough open space that a person could roast a marshmallow without trying to turn Fire Mountain into breaking news.
At least, that was the goal.
I crouched beside the nearest cold ring and pressed two fingers into the ash. Nothing live. Nothing warm. No sparks hiding under gray powder.
The ring was clean.
Behind me, Ed Barlow grunted as he hauled a tripod out of the production van. “All this for s’mores.”
“They’re crackers with goo,” I said.
“For once, I don’t hate your attitude.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
Joelle Bellamy crossed the clearing with a clipboard tucked under one arm and a bin of clean aprons balanced on her hip. “Cook stations stay cold until safety check is finished. Sunny said that twice before she let Caprice have coffee.”
That pulled my attention to the camper.
The door opened.
Sunny stepped down into the morning like the whole mountain had been waiting for her cue.
She wasn’t wearing yesterday’s yellow gingham.
Today, she wore a cherry-red camp shirt knotted at her waist, dark high-waisted shorts, and a white apron folded over one arm.
A red-and-white scarf held back most of her coppery curls, though a few had already escaped around her cheeks.
The outfit was safer than yesterday’s, but it still hugged every soft, stubborn curve like the mountain had lost and the woman had won.
Her shoes were white platform sneakers with actual tread.
The mountain had not fully won, but it had forced negotiations.
She caught me looking and lifted one foot. “Mountain-approved glamour.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“No one asked you to go far. Just notice I’m trying.”
“I noticed.”
That came out lower than I meant it to, rough enough that I looked back at the fire ring before I said anything worse.
Sunny’s smile sharpened. The expression wasn’t sweet or camera-ready. It told a man he’d stepped too close to something hot and didn’t have the sense to back up.
Behind her, Caprice Calloway leaned out of the camper with a paper cup in one hand and a phone already pressed to her ear.
She wore black utility shorts, a white sleeveless button-up, gold hoops, and a headset around her neck.
“Yes, I understand the brand wants the title card to say gourmet. The title card can say gourmet after everyone stops arguing long enough for us to film one usable sentence.”
“I don’t argue with everyone,” Sunny said.
Caprice covered the phone. “You’ve argued with two people, a shoe, and one squeeze bottle since sunrise.”
“The shoe deserved it.”
Caprice pointed toward the clearing. “Safety check, then cameras, then s’mores. I’m begging everyone to save personal commentary for after we get the shot list.”
Ed adjusted the tripod leg. “My personal commentary is that this hill is too tall for marshmallows.”
Caprice uncovered the phone and turned away from him. “No, not you, Greg. We’re thrilled. Everyone is thrilled.”
Sunny came down the camper step and crossed the clearing with her apron over one arm.
She smelled like clean soap, vanilla, and the kind of sugar that made a man remember he hadn’t eaten breakfast. I looked back at the fire ring because I had sense, even if Sunny was already making a strong case against it.
Joelle set the apron bin on a table. “Safety check?”
I pointed toward the rings. “Cold stations only until we’re ready.
Keep the water buckets here and here. Sand bucket beside each ring.
Fire blanket on the center table, not under a stack of napkins.
No paper packaging near the coals. Nobody crosses behind a live station with camera cords.
If the wind shifts east hard enough to lay smoke flat, we pause. ”
Sunny lifted a hand. “Question from the formerly hosed.”
“You get one.”
“How do I know the wind has shifted hard enough to annoy you versus the wind simply existing and hurting your feelings?”
Ed made a choking sound behind the camera.
I looked at Sunny. Her eyes were warm brown in the hard morning light, sharp with challenge and still soft enough at the edges to make a man stupid if he didn’t keep his boots planted.
“When smoke stops rising and starts running sideways,” I said.
She held my stare for a beat too long. “That answer was annoyingly helpful.”
“I’ll try to be more useless next time.”
“Please don’t. I’m already dragging a producer, a camera operator, and several pounds of artisan chocolate uphill. I have enough useless.”
“Hey,” Ed said.
“I said several pounds of artisan chocolate. Obviously, you’re valued.”
Ed nodded once. “Accepted.”
Caprice ended her call and slid her phone into her pocket. “Beautiful. The sponsor is on standby, the revised permit confirmation is in my email, and I need twenty-seven fewer interruptions than yesterday. Welcome to Round One of the Get Fired Up! Cook-Off.”
Sunny tied her apron around her waist. “You make it sound like we committed a felony.”
“I spent last night explaining the phrase spot fire to a snack-brand executive named Greg. Let me have my tone.”
I walked the second fire ring again. “Before cameras, we’re clear on the permit?”
Caprice’s expression changed from bright to flatly practical.
“We’re clear. Yesterday’s GPS pin was wrong.
The north access clearing was the approved zone.
This is the approved zone. The sponsor’s location contact confirmed it in writing, and Joelle printed it because Joelle trusts paper more than all of us. ”
Joelle raised her clipboard. “Correct.”
Sunny’s chin tipped up. “Translation, I didn’t personally lead a dessert rebellion into forbidden grass.”
“No,” I said. “You didn’t.”
The answer cost me less than I expected.
Her face changed a little. The tightness around her mouth eased, and I noticed because apparently I was doing that now.
“I still think yesterday’s setup was too close to the grass edge,” I added.
“There it is,” she said.
“But the bad pin put you there.”
She paused with her apron strings in hand. “Was that your version of an apology?”
“No.”
“Shame. I was about to have Joelle mark the date.”
“I don’t apologize for putting out fire.”
“I don’t apologize for wanting people to recognize I can read a permit.”
“Then I guess we’re both burdened by principles.”
Sunny laughed, quick and surprised, and the sound hit harder than it had any right to.
She pulled the apron around her waist and tugged the strings tight behind her back.
The fabric skimmed over her breasts, dipped at her waist, and failed completely at making her look less distracting.
My cock twitched, traitorous and inconvenient, before I stopped watching.
Not fast enough.
She caught me.
One red brow arched. “Safety inspection, Flint?”
“Wardrobe hazard.”
“My shorts?”
“My concentration.”
For one second, nobody spoke.
My own words hung between us, hotter than the cold fire ring at my feet.
Sunny’s lips parted. Color climbed her throat, bright and pretty, and my jeans got tighter before I could look away. Then her smile came back slow enough to make my grip tighten on the handle of the shovel.
“Well,” she said, voice smooth as melted chocolate. “That’s the first thing you’ve said all morning that deserves a title card.”
Caprice looked up from her clipboard. “No title cards until someone gives me a clean intro. I don’t know why every conversation in this meadow turns into a detour.”
Joelle’s mouth twitched. “Because you scheduled a competition between two stubborn people.”
“I scheduled a clean content pivot with deliverables,” Caprice said. “Stubborn people weren’t in the budget.”
I cleared my throat and looked at the empty ring. “Can we light the coals now?”
“See?” Sunny reached for a bin. “He flirts once and needs fire immediately. Concerning.”
“I didn’t flirt.”
“You announced my shorts as a workplace hazard.”
“That was a safety note.”
“That was a cry for help.”
Caprice pointed her pen at both of us. “I need fewer cry-for-help jokes and more round-one footage before the light shifts.”
“I don’t know how anyone works in these conditions,” Ed muttered.
“You point the camera at food,” Caprice said. “That’s the condition.”
We lit the coals under my supervision and Sunny’s commentary, which mostly involved accusing me of hovering like a handsome park ranger with unresolved marshmallow issues.
“I’m not a park ranger,” I said.
“You’re very attached to accuracy for a man who called my entire professional field crackers with goo.”
“That was s’mores.”
“S’mores are a category. An experience. A cultural touchstone. A platform for innovation.”
“They’re crackers with goo and chocolate.”
She set a tub of huckleberries on her table with enough care that the berries barely shifted. “Those are fighting words.”
“They were meant to be.”
Her eyes met mine across the space between the two cold prep tables.
Heat moved through the clearing in a way that had nothing to do with the coals. It slid under my shirt, settled low in my gut, and made my cock jerk once behind my zipper before I could tell myself to ignore it.
Sunny looked away first, but she did it smiling.