Chapter Six | FLINT #2
I stirred sausage into the skillet, scraping browned bits from the bottom before adding flour.
The smell rose thick and savory, pepper and pork and hot fat.
Sunny’s peach compote started bubbling across the way, bright and sweet over smoke.
Her candied bacon was set over indirect heat, glistening with maple and spice.
My stomach tightened even though I’d eaten enough scraps to count as dinner.
She glanced toward my table. “Are those biscuits getting honey butter?”
“No.”
Her eyebrows rose.
I set the spoon down and reached for the little crock I’d made after seeing hers at breakfast. “Maybe.”
Sunny’s face changed in a way I wanted to put my hands on. “Flint Sparks. Are you plating with a finishing element?”
“It’s butter.”
“It’s honey butter.”
“It’s still butter.”
“That is adorable.”
“It’s functional.”
“It’s growth.”
“It’s breakfast.”
“It’s love, actually.”
I looked up.
Sunny’s smile faltered, just enough that I knew she’d heard herself.
My chest went tight again.
Caprice walked between the stations with a producer’s smile and eyes that missed nothing useful. “I’m going to need one of you to either say something about food or stop looking like I should invoice the sponsor for emotional labor.”
Sunny reached for a towel. “The honey butter supports the biscuit.”
“The honey butter supports my will to live,” Ed said.
I spooned gravy into a small pot and checked the potatoes. “Thirty percent of this shoot has been you complaining.”
“Great art requires suffering.”
“Then you’re making a masterpiece.”
Joelle glanced over her clipboard. “Please don’t encourage him. I’m nearly out of battery cards and patience.”
The final half hour moved fast.
Bacon fat popped in my skillet as I shifted a strip with the tongs. The flame below licked higher for half a second, catching the edge of the pan where grease had pooled. It wasn’t a fire yet. It wasn’t even close. But it had the look of one bad breath becoming a problem.
Ed leaned in with the camera. “That flare reads great. Can you hold that angle?”
Caprice looked up from her phone. “Safely, if you can. We need one stronger flame insert.”
I already had the pan off the hottest coal before she finished the sentence.
“I’m not holding that angle,” I said.
The flame snapped up once more as grease slid toward the lip. I set the pan onto the cooler side of the grate, covered it with the lid, and shut the flare down under black iron. The hiss died fast.
Ed stopped moving.
Caprice’s mouth opened.
Sunny was already beside her own station, griddle pulled back, towel in hand but not crowding me. “He’s right. Grease flame isn’t a beauty shot.”
Caprice looked at her. “I said safely.”
“And the safe answer was no,” Sunny said. Her voice was clear enough for Ed’s mic. “If you want this food on camera, we don’t feed bacon fat to fire for drama.”
The clearing went quiet for one beat.
I kept my hand on the skillet lid and checked the coal bed.
Sunny didn’t look at me for permission. She didn’t soften it. She stood there in her cream blouse, steady on the dirt, copper curls slipping from that navy scarf, and backed my call like it was hers too.
Something low in my ribs loosened.
Caprice’s expression shifted away from annoyance and straight toward footage.
“Ed,” she said, “get the reset. Sunny, say that again with the pan in frame.”
Sunny pointed at the covered skillet. “The food is the drama, Caprice. The mountain doesn’t need a stunt double.”
Ed grunted. “That one’s better than the flame.”
Caprice’s phone buzzed in her hand. She glanced at it, typed fast with one thumb, and smiled without looking away from the screen. “Sponsor agrees. Safety is suddenly very on-brand.”
I lifted the skillet lid carefully. The flare was gone, the bacon was saved, and nothing had scorched.
Sunny caught my eye across the coals.
This time, I didn’t look away first.
The round kept moving.
Sunny built her plate with more restraint than I expected.
Two cornmeal griddle cakes stacked slightly off-center, peach compote spooned over the top, candied bacon angled against the side, and whipped honey butter in a soft curl that started to melt as soon as it touched the heat.
It was bright without being fussy and pretty without apologizing for being food.
I split one biscuit, spooned sausage gravy over half, set a fried egg beside it with the yolk still glossy, and tucked firepit potatoes and bacon around the edges.
Then I put the honey butter on the other biscuit half because Sunny had been right about finishing touches, and I wasn’t too proud to learn from the woman I wanted in my bed and my life.
She walked past with her plate for the beauty shot and slowed near my station.
“Your beige food cleaned up nice,” she said.
“Your fancy pancakes look edible.”
“They’re griddle cakes.”
“They look edible.”
“That may be the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to cornmeal.”
I leaned a little closer, low enough that Ed wouldn’t get much. “They look good, Sunny.”
Her mouth parted, then closed. Pink climbed beneath the freckles on her cheeks.
“Thank you,” she said.
She held my gaze for one quiet beat.
I wanted to kiss her right there with gravy on my hand and cameras running.
Instead, I set my plate on the tasting table.
Caprice stepped in, back in producer mode. “Final plates are down. We’ll get the judges’ reactions hot, then beauty shots. Nobody breathes aggressively near the egg yolk.”
Ed lowered his camera. “Why would I breathe aggressively near an egg?”
“You’re a mysterious man, Ed. I plan for variables.”
Joelle stepped forward with her fork. “I’m judging before the butter collapses.”
The tasting should’ve been the easy part. We’d cooked. Plates were down. I’d done what I came to do.
But watching Sunny stand on the other side of that table while three people lifted forks felt worse than waiting on a weather call during lightning season.
Joelle tasted Sunny’s griddle cake first. Her lashes lowered for half a second. “The cornmeal has real texture. The peach is bright but not candy. The bacon keeps it from turning into dessert.”
Sunny’s shoulders dropped by a fraction.
Ed took a bite next, grumbled, and then took another. “I hate that this works.”
Sunny smiled. “That’s been my business plan from day one.”
Caprice tasted last. “This is camera gold. It’s pretty, it’s understandable, and it tastes like summer showed up wearing lipstick.”
“Caprice,” Joelle said.
“What? That was food commentary.”
“It was something.”
Then they moved to mine.
Joelle cut through biscuit, egg, and gravy in one bite. She chewed, nodded once, and looked annoyed. “That biscuit is excellent.”
“Thank you.”
“I wanted it to be drier.”
“It isn’t.”
“I noticed.”
Ed took a bite of potatoes and bacon with enough seriousness for a land survey. “This is what breakfast-for-dinner should do. It makes you want to sit down and stop talking.”
“Please eat more,” Caprice said.
Ed pointed his fork at her. “I mean everyone else.”
Caprice tasted the biscuit. Her attention moved from my plate to Sunny, then back to me.
I braced.
“Oh, that’s irritating,” Caprice said. “Flint, who told you to become marketable?”
Sunny laughed into her hand.
“I’m not marketable,” I said.
“You plated food like you knew cameras existed. That’s growth I can sell.”
“It’s still a biscuit.”
“It’s a biscuit with lighting potential.”
Sunny looked at my plate, then at me. “It’s a really good biscuit.”
Her voice was soft enough that the prize money went quiet for a second.
“Your griddle cakes are good,” I said. “They’re better than good.”
Sunny swallowed.
Ed kept filming.
Joelle wrote something on her clipboard. Caprice stared at both plates like she wanted them to fight and sign contracts at the same time. Her phone buzzed twice more during the silence. She stepped back, typed fast, and glanced toward Ed’s camera to make sure he still had the plates.
Finally, Caprice set her fork down. “I hate this.”
Sunny’s chin lifted. “That’s usually not the reaction I aim for.”
“No, I hate this because the answer is obvious and inconvenient.” Caprice looked at Joelle. “You first.”
Joelle tapped her pen against the clipboard. “Sunny wins technical balance, color, originality, and brand clarity. Flint wins fire control, satisfaction, category comfort, and execution under rough conditions.”
Ed nodded. “I’d eat Flint’s after a long shoot and Sunny’s on purpose where people could see me.”
Sunny blinked. “I accept whatever that means.”
“It means I want both.”
Caprice pointed at him. “That is the entire problem.”
The meadow went quiet except for the low crackle from the cookfire and a bird calling from the pine line.
My pulse hit slow and heavy.
Sunny looked at Caprice. Her fingers curled once in the edge of her apron, then smoothed the fabric flat. Her chin stayed up, but her eyes never left Caprice’s face.
I wanted to reach across the table and cover her hand.
I didn’t.
Caprice lifted her phone. “The sponsor has been on the live review thread since tasting began, and they’ve confirmed I can make the final call on camera.”
Ed muttered, “I knew the phone had drama.”
Caprice turned toward his lens. “After three rounds of the Get Fired Up! Cook-Off, the final decision is that the sponsor agrees with the judges. The best outcome isn’t one of these competitors beating the other.”
I stopped breathing for half a second.
Sunny’s eyes widened.
Caprice smiled at the camera. “The official result is a tie. A collaboration win. The twenty-five-thousand-dollar prize will be split between Sunny and Flint. Sunny’s share seeds the first Fire Mountain summer-night pop-up.
Flint’s share goes where he chooses, and the sponsor has already offered to match a donation to local wilderness and fire-safety education. ”
I looked at her. “They’ll match it?”