Chapter 4 #3
“That’s not my title,” she protests, but she’s fighting a smile.
“It is now.”
I take a bite of her chili, and damn. It’s good. Really good. The beans add texture and substance, and she’s balanced the spices perfectly.
“This is...” I start to say.
“Incredible,” Boone finishes, going back for another spoonful.
“Not bad,” Wyatt admits grudgingly.
“Not bad?” Callie repeats. “This is fantastic chili.”
“It’s decent chili with beans,” Wyatt corrects.
“Try yours,” she challenges.
We move to Wyatt’s pot, and I have to admit, his chili smells pretty damn good too. Different from Callie’s, but definitely appealing.
One taste confirms it. Wyatt knows what he’s doing.
“Okay,” I say, “this is actually really good too.”
“Of course it is,” Wyatt says. “I don’t make bad chili.”
“Neither do I,” Callie adds.
“So we have two excellent chilis,” Boone observes. “Problem solved.”
“There’s no problem to solve,” Callie says.
“Then why are you glaring at Wyatt’s pot like it personally offended you?”
“I’m not glaring.”
“You’re definitely glaring.”
“I’m... evaluating.”
That’s when I get an idea. A probably bad idea, but an idea nonetheless.
“You know what this needs?” I say, dipping my spoon back into Callie’s chili.
“What?” she asks.
Instead of answering, I flick a spoonful of chili at her shirt.
The red sauce hits her with a splat that echoes through the kitchen.
“Hey, asshole!” she shrieks, looking down at the stain on her shit.
“Oops,” I say, not looking sorry at all.
“Oops? OOPS?”
She grabs her own spoon and retaliates, catching me across the chest with a generous helping of bean-filled chili.
“Now we’re even,” she says with satisfaction.
I look down at my shirt, then back at her. “We’re definitely not even.”
Before she can react, I’ve scooped up another spoonful and caught her on the shoulder.
“Food fight!” Boone yells gleefully, grabbing his own spoon.
“Don’t you dare,” Wyatt warns, but he’s too late.
Boone catches him with a shot to the arm, and suddenly we’re all armed and dangerous.
What follows is probably the most ridiculous three minutes of my adult life. Chili flies through the air. Someone slips on a splatter and goes down. Boone gets chili in his hair.
And through it all, Callie’s laughing. Really laughing, the kind of laugh that comes from the belly and makes her whole face light up.
When we finally call a ceasefire, we’re all covered in various shades of red sauce and breathing hard.
“That,” I announce, “was the best chili tasting ever.”
“We wasted half our practice batch,” Wyatt points out.
“Worth it,” Callie says, wiping chili off her cheek with the back of her hand.
I reach over and catch a spot she missed with my finger and because I’m incapable of making smart decisions around this woman, I lick the chili off my finger.
“Definitely worth it,” I agree, maintaining eye contact with her the entire time.
Her cheeks flush pink, and she suddenly finds the floor very interesting.
“We should probably clean up,” she says quietly.
“Probably,” I agree.
Neither of us moves.
Cleaning up after a four-person chili fight turns out to be more work than you’d think. The kitchen looks like a crime scene, if crimes were committed with beans and tomato sauce.
“This is going to take forever,” Callie says, surveying the damage.
“Many hands make light work,” I tell her, grabbing a roll of paper towels.
“Many hands made this mess in the first place.”
“Details.”
We split up to tackle different areas of the kitchen. Wyatt takes the far counter, Boone handles the floor near his station, and I start working on the splatter patterns around the tasting table.
Callie’s cleaning the area around her station, humming something under her breath while she works. She’s changed out of her chili-stained shirt and borrowed one of the community center’s volunteer shirts, which is about two sizes too big and keeps sliding off her shoulder.
I’m trying very hard not to notice how the shirt makes her look smaller, or how she keeps pushing her hair back, or how she’s got this little crease of concentration between her eyebrows.
“Jesse,” Wyatt calls from across the kitchen, “you missed a spot.”
I look down at the counter I’m supposed to be cleaning and realize I’ve been standing here with a paper towel in my hand for the past five minutes, accomplishing nothing.
“Right,” I say, starting to clean. “Got it.”
“You’re distracted,” Boone observes, appearing at my elbow with a mop.
“I’m focused.”
“On what?”
“Stuff.”
“You haven’t moved in five minutes.”
“I was planning my approach.”
“Your approach to wiping a counter?”
“It’s a very dirty counter.”
Boone follows my gaze to where Callie’s standing on her tiptoes, trying to clean chili off the overhead light fixture.
“Ah,” he says with a knowing grin. “I see the problem.”
“There’s no problem.”
“The problem is you’re staring at Callie’s—”
“Finish that sentence and I’ll drown you in the mop bucket.”
“I was going to say ‘cleaning technique.’”
“Sure you were.”
“Although now that you mention it—”
I grab the mop out of his hands. “Go help Wyatt.”
“But this is more fun.”
“Boone.”
“Fine, fine. But you might want to actually help her instead of just watching. That light fixture’s pretty high.”
He’s right. Callie’s stretching as far as she can reach, but she’s still a good six inches short of the chili splatter.
I walk over just as she’s giving up on her tiptoes and looking around for something to stand on.
“Need a boost?” I ask.
“I can handle it,” she says automatically.
“I’m sure you can. But I’m taller.”
“Being tall doesn’t make you better at cleaning.”
“No, but it makes me better at reaching things.”
She considers this for a moment, then steps aside. “Fine. But don’t make a mess.”
“I never make messes.”
She gives me a look that clearly says she remembers the chili fight from ten minutes ago.
“I never make intentional messes,” I amend.
I reach up and easily wipe away the chili splatter, then turn to hand her the paper towel. “See? Easy.”
“Thank you,” she says, and there’s something in her voice that sounds almost surprised, like she’s not used to accepting help.
“Anytime, pretty girl.”
“I told you not to call me that.”
“And I told you we’re teammates now. Teammates have nicknames.”
“What’s Wyatt’s nickname?”
“Grumpy.”
“And Boone’s?”
“Disaster.”
“Those aren’t nicknames, they’re character descriptions.”
“Same thing.”
“We should finish cleaning,” she says, but she doesn’t step away.
“Should,” I agree, but I don’t move either.
That’s when Boone, determined to prove his nickname accurate, decides to ring out his mop directly over the bucket without looking where he’s aiming.
Water sloshes over the side of the bucket and spreads across the floor. “Damn,” he says, looking down at the mess.
“Seriously?” Wyatt demands from across the kitchen.
“It was an accident!”
“Your middle name should be Accident.”
Callie takes a step backward, probably to avoid the spreading water, but she’s still looking at me instead of watching where she’s going.
Her foot hits the edge of the puddle, and suddenly she’s falling.
Three things happen simultaneously. Wyatt drops his paper towels and lunges forward, I reach out and catch her around the waist, and Boone grabs her arm.
I can feel the warmth of her skin through the thin volunteer shirt. Can feel the way her pulse is racing under my palm. Can see the exact moment when she realizes how close we all are, how intimate this accidental arrangement has become.
“You all right?” I ask.
“Damn, that could have been bad,” Wyatt adds, his voice rougher than usual.
“Quick thinking, guys,” Boone adds, and there’s something serious in his tone that I don’t usually hear.
For a heartbeat, maybe two, we’re all frozen like that. Connected. Touching. Something electric passing between us that has nothing to do with the accident and everything to do with the way Callie fits perfectly.
Then reality crashes back, and Callie jerks away from all of us, her cheeks flaming red.
“Callie,” I start to say, but she’s already grabbing her purse from the counter.
“This was a mistake,” she mutters, more to herself than to us. “All of this was a mistake.”
“It was an accident,” Boone protests. “I didn’t mean to spill the water.”
“Not the water,” she says, looking at all three of us. “This. Whatever this is. I can’t... we can’t...” She doesn’t finish the sentence. Just shakes her head and heads for the door.
“Callie, wait,” I call after her.
“Practice tomorrow at nine,” she says without turning around. “Try not to flood the kitchen.”
The door closes behind her with a click that sounds way too final.
“Well,” Boone says into the silence, “that went well.”
“Shut up,” Wyatt and I say in unison.
But even as we finish cleaning up the kitchen in uncomfortable silence, I can’t stop thinking about the way Callie felt in my arms, or the way she looked at me in that suspended moment.
Can’t stop thinking that maybe, just maybe, she felt it too.
The electricity. The connection. The sense that something’s shifting, something that goes way beyond a simple fundraiser partnership.
Something that’s probably going to get us all in trouble.
Something I’m pretty sure I’m not going to stop.