Chapter Five | SUNNY #3
I looked at Flint. He looked at me. We both wisely said nothing.
Ed gave a tired thumbs-up.
Caprice stood behind him, angled her clipboard, and nodded. “Sunny, give me prep.”
I smiled at the camera. “The score is tied one-one, which means today’s final round decides whether gourmet campfire food gets justice or Flint gets to spend the rest of his life saying things like ‘plain marshmallows are enough’ with entirely too much confidence.”
Flint crossed his arms. “Plain marshmallows won Round One.”
“Because the judges were vulnerable to nostalgia.”
“Because they had taste.”
“Because Caprice was emotionally compromised by browning.”
Caprice pointed her pen. “I was professionally moved by clean execution.”
“See?” Flint said.
I held up a labeled jar. “Today, I don’t know what the final prompt will be, so I’m prepping flavor families: sweet, savory, smoke, brightness, heat, and texture. Whatever Caprice throws at us, I’ll be ready.”
“Fire safely,” Flint added.
I looked at him. “I was getting there.”
“Were you?”
“I was.”
“Go on.”
“Thank you for your generous permission, Station Grandpa.”
Ed made a small noise behind the camera.
Flint’s eyes warmed. “You’re calling me Station Grandpa?”
“You checked my water buckets with your whole personality.”
“That’s because you put them in the right place.”
My smile almost slipped into something softer. I caught it before Caprice could pounce.
“Safety,” I said to the camera, lifting the jar higher, “is part of the prep. So is flavor. So is looking cute enough to make your competitor nervous while standing on tread that won’t betray you near live coals.”
Caprice whispered, “Good. Good, good, good.”
Flint looked down at my sneakers. “That tread might survive the day.”
“They’re Liza Minnelli’s cousins, the sensible branch of the family.”
His gaze lifted to my face. “They still have mustard laces.”
“I’m not joining a monastery, Flint.”
“No one would believe you if you tried.”
I felt the laugh break out of me. Flint watched it happen, and for one second the camera, the meadow, and the prize money slipped too far back.
Caprice lowered her sunglasses half an inch.
“Cut,” she said.
Ed lowered the camera. “Did we get something, or are they just doing whatever this is?”
“We got something,” Caprice said slowly. “I’m not sure what, because apparently the cook-off is now discussing footwear genealogy.”
“It’s brand continuity,” I said.
“It’s something,” Caprice said. “Take five. Then we’re getting ingredient B-roll without all this bickering in the foreground.”
“I wasn’t bickering,” Flint said.
Caprice looked at him the way Joelle looked at unstable cream. “I don’t have time to explain your face to you.”
Flint stared at her.
I bit the inside of my cheek so hard I deserved hazard pay.
Joelle stepped in with two small containers. “Sunny, honey butter base and fruit syrup base. Which table?”
“Put them on the cold side for now,” I said. “Keep them away from the fire blanket.”
“That’s good.”
Flint moved to lift the cooler before Joelle could. I reached for the same handle. Our hands landed together, his fingers over mine.
The cooler didn’t move.
Neither did we.
“Seriously?” Ed said from behind the camera. “Now the dairy is romantic?”
I pulled my hand back. “I was lifting.”
“I was helping,” Flint said.
“You were hovering.”
“I was standing beside a cooler.”
“Men have built whole mythologies on less.”
Caprice put both hands on top of her head. “I need five minutes without chemistry near perishables.”
“I’m a professional,” I said.
“Then professional somewhere six inches farther from Flint.”
Flint picked up the cooler and carried it to my table. He set it exactly where I’d pointed, then leaned close enough that only I could hear him.
“Then I should probably stand farther away.”
The words went straight down my spine.
I turned my head. “That would be safer.”
His eyes stayed on mine. “You want safer?”
I dipped a spatula into the honey butter because busy hands were safer hands. Unfortunately, my busy hand slipped against the rim. A pale gold smear landed across the back of my wrist.
Flint reached for a towel.
I lifted my wrist out of reach. “I can handle it.”
His eyebrow rose.
“I know where this goes.”
“I was getting a towel.”
“You say that like towels have never lied.”
He took my wrist anyway, slowly enough that I could pull away. I didn’t. His thumb swept over the smear, warm and rough against my skin. Then, with the steadiness of a man testing whether a coal had caught, he lifted his thumb to his mouth.
For half a second, I had no useful thoughts left.
Flint licked the honey butter off his thumb.
Joelle dropped a metal spoon into a bowl.
Ed said, “I’m charging extra.”
Caprice shouted, “Cut! Why are we cutting when we weren’t rolling? I don’t know, but cut anyway.”
I yanked my wrist back and grabbed a towel. “It was honey butter.”
Caprice marched toward us. “I know what it looked like. I have eyes.”
Flint wiped his hand on a cloth. His expression gave away nothing, which was deeply unfair because my face had probably turned fire-engine red.
Caprice pointed between us. “I don’t know why the pre-round footage keeps turning into whatever this is, and I don’t currently have emotional bandwidth to define it.
I need competitors. I need food. I need one final round that doesn’t turn into a lawsuit, a wildfire, or a dairy-adjacent workplace incident. ”
“That was cleanup,” Flint said.
Caprice stared at him. “Flint Sparks, you’re a terrible liar for a man with that many practical pockets.”
Ed nodded once. “She’s got you there.”
Flint looked mildly offended. “The pockets are useful.”
“Enough,” Caprice said. “Sunny, return to your prep table. Flint, go back to your side. Joelle, guard the honey butter from further workplace incidents.”
Joelle lifted the container. “With my life.”
I turned back to my work and focused hard.
I put flour into the dry bin, folded towels, sheathed knives, nested pans, chilled fruit, covered butter, and smoothed label tape with the side of my thumb.
My hands knew how to do this. They’d known since fairground mornings when I was ten and standing on a milk crate behind my parents’ concession trailer, portioning batter while my mother told customers I was our cute little helper.
The old refrain rose in my head: cute little Sunny with her cute little hands rolling dough, her cute little smile selling lemonade, and her cute little self drawing comments before skill.
I tightened the lid on the spice box.
Then I moved the garnish tray one inch farther from the cook edge and kept working.
“Sunny,” Caprice called. “Can you give me a touch more visual drama on the table? Maybe cluster some ingredients closer to the flame path once we light for B-roll?”
“I’m not doing that.”
Caprice blinked. “You said no?”
“I’m not. It’ll look prettier for three seconds and be in the way for the entire round.”
“The shot needs depth.”
“The shot can have depth from an angle that doesn’t put a jar of honey beside a hot pan.”
Ed lowered the camera. “I could get depth from the other side if the cable snake gets to live behind Flint.”
Flint turned from his station and looked at me.
I held the no myself.
Caprice tapped her pen against the clipboard, checked the shot line, the hot zone, and Ed’s angle, then nodded. “Fine. Ed, change the angle. Joelle, mark the boundaries again. Sunny, keep your pretty jars where they won’t become evidence.”
“Thank you,” I said.
Caprice aimed a finger at me. “Don’t sound smug. We’re still behind.”
“I’m not smug. I’m safe and glamorous. It’s a new category.”
Flint’s laugh came from his side, low and brief.
I looked over before I could stop myself.
He was already looking at me.
Daylight sat on Flint’s shoulders instead of firelight. My pulse still jumped, but this time I had clipboards, cameras, and Ed’s resentment toward cables waiting ten yards away.
I walked to the supply table for more towels. Flint arrived there at the same time, reaching for a roll of tape.
For once, neither of us pretended it was accidental.
The supply table sat behind the camper, just out of Ed’s current frame and far enough from Caprice that her headset muttering blurred into production noise. Pine shade cut across Flint’s shoulder. A breeze moved through the grass, lifting the edge of my apron.
Flint took the tape. “You handled Caprice.”
“I handle Caprice all the time.”
“You told her no on safety.”
“I told her no on table logic.”
His gaze stayed on mine. “Same thing today.”
I swallowed. “Maybe I finally listened to one of your many lectures.”
“I only lectured when necessary.”
“You lectured about shoes.”
“That was necessary.”
“You lectured about towels.”
“That was also necessary.”
“You lectured about the spiritual dangers of basil.”
“That was charity.”
I laughed, and his thumb brushed the tape roll once, restless and controlled.
I wanted that thumb on my wrist again. I wanted it on my mouth.
I wanted yesterday and tomorrow and the next quiet morning at his cabin, which was an extremely dangerous want for a woman with a tied score and no idea what the final challenge would be.
Flint stepped half a foot closer. “After today—”
My breath caught.
“Sunny!” Caprice called from the clearing. “I need you in two.”
I looked toward her, then back at Flint. “She has terrible timing.”
“She has a gift for it.”
“What were you going to say?”
His jaw worked once. He looked past me toward the meadow, then back to my face. “After today, we talk, but not on camera and not with Caprice timing us.”
My ribs felt too small. “Talk about what?”
“I mean us.”
The answer hit my ribs and stayed there. It wasn’t a full promise, but it wasn’t nothing.
I nodded, because if I opened my mouth too fast, I might say something reckless like yes, please, or I already want that.
Then I ruined the tenderness because I was still me. “Should I bring cue cards, or are you going to improvise?”
His expression warmed. “You’d hate my cue cards.”
“Would they say practical things?”
“They’d say direct things.”
My pulse kicked. “That’s worse.”
“Maybe it is.”
Caprice clapped twice. “Sunny!”
I grabbed towels from the table. “After the final round.”
“After the final round,” Flint said.
I walked back into the clearing with the towels held tight against my chest and my heart trying to beat its way out through my apron pocket.
The meadow had shifted into final-round prep.
Ed moved the cable snake. Joelle marked boundaries with bright tape.
Caprice paced near the camera, phone in hand, headset live, sunglasses sliding down her nose.
Flint returned to his side, shovel propped nearby, pans set with old-school simplicity beside his fire ring.
My own table waited bright and ready under the Sunday sun.
Caprice stopped pacing and lifted her voice.
“Everyone, reset. We’re shooting the final-round tease now.
The actual reveal is at six, after wardrobe reset and one last station check.
Competitors, get on your marks. No one opens the sealed card until I say so.
Ed, I need Sunny and Flint in the same wide shot now, then tight reaction later.
Joelle, confirm both setups are cold. Flint, do not glare at my camera angle unless something is actively unsafe.
Sunny, give me face, fire, and food destiny. ”
“I charge extra for destiny,” I said, tying my apron tighter.
“You charge extra for everything,” Ed muttered.
“I heard that.”
“You were meant to.”
Joelle passed my table and tapped the edge. “Your table is cold, clear, and ready.”
“Thank you.”
Flint’s voice came from across the clearing. “Wind’s steady west.”
I checked the grass before I answered.
Smoke would rise once we had flame. Cords were clear. Water and sand sat within reach. The fire blanket waited uncovered. My sneakers gripped the packed dirt.
“Then we’re good,” I said.
Flint looked at me across the space between our tables.
I put my fingertips on the prep edge. The metal was warm from the sun. My mustard laces stayed clean against the packed dirt, my jars stayed where I’d put them, and Flint’s gaze stayed on me.
Caprice held up the sealed envelope for Ed’s teaser shot.
“Round Three,” she said. “This is the final round, and winner takes the title.”
Flint’s eyes met mine.
I lifted my chin toward Ed’s camera.
“I’ll be ready,” I said.
Caprice lowered the envelope without opening it. I kept my smile on for Ed’s camera and counted the hours between me and whatever came next.