I kiss him.
It’s slow. Like we are figuring each other out. Figuring out how exactly to kiss each other and touch each other and how to be this thing we didn’t think we were but we are now. He kisses me like we have nothing but time, like the summer isn’t running on a ticking clock. I kiss him with tongue, which Riya would be happy about, and I think I don’t mind so much that we know what each other’s mouths taste like.
Because now I know what his hipbones feel like against my legs, and what his fingers feel like trailing over my spine.
I know a lot of things about Reid that no one else here knows.
And I like it.
I’m not panicking for five seconds, because I like it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The next challenge comes, and this time it’s a speed round. It’s kind of a shock to the system after the last long-form thing, but we have thirty minutes to throw together a dessert that would be equally pleasing to a crowd of wealthy adults and to their toddler children. And for the first time, Reid and I aren’t working against each other.
Reid is power-walking from one end of the kitchen to the back with the ingredients like he owns it, and I am in charge of whipping this chocolate into submission while Reid takes care of the pomegranate, and for once—for once—I don’t feel like I shouldn’t be here. The chocolate bubbles perfectly and melts into this total silk, and the tiny cakes we have in the oven puff exactly right. Everything, everything goes exactly right. Reid catches my eye when he comes back from picking up some powdered sugar and winks. My whole body flashes hot, and to be honest, it’s done that basically every time he’s looked at me in this kitchen, but for a thousand different reasons.
The thing I feel, mixing these pomegranate seeds in with this chocolate, is confident.
I feel like I am allowed to be here, in this kitchen.
I feel like I deserve to be here.
I feel like maybe I could win.
We set out our dishes and judging goes well, like we both knew it would, and we head out of the kitchen.
“Doing a little charity work?” I hear from behind us.
“What?” I say.
Andrew jogs up and gets in front of Reid. He cocks his head at me. “Helping those less fortunate, eh, Yamada?”
Reid narrows his eyes. He doesn’t stop walking, and Andrew doesn’t move so Reid winds up shoulder-bumping him and Andrew makes this noise like it just hurt so much. He’s way bigger than Reid; I doubt it even stung. But Reid is sharp. Maybe his shoulders are too.
I tighten my fingers in Reid’s and Andrew says, “What the hell?”
Reid says, “We have somewhere to be.”
Andrew says, “Yeah, I bet you do.” He smirks and it’s gross and I don’t even know what he’s trying to do. “Nice of you to put so much time into this little thing, though. She could use the help. In and out of the kitchen.”
I stop short. “What is your problem, Andrew?”
Andrew smiles with his teeth. “My problem is you shouldn’t be here.”
Reid gets a little taller, his hand on mine a little tighter. But he doesn’t speak. He waits for me to, because he knows I’m going to. I’ve spent the whole summer fighting against him; I can take this asshole.
“Scared?”
Andrew laughs. “Hell no.”
“Then why are you wasting your breath on me?”
He raises his eyebrows. “Maybe I’m pissed I’ve seen a bunch of guys go home while you stay. There’s a billion more dude chefs than girls and this program is like 50/50. Everyone knows that’s like affirmative action or whatever.”
I blink.
“I was on a team with you. You spend half your time screwing up. Maybe I’m pissed we’re this close to the end and you’re gonna stay another week because you got lucky enough to be paired with Yamada here. It’s bullshit.”
Something twists in my chest and I just deflate.
I don’t want to.
I want to be one of those people who has witty retorts that stick with people months after you fire them back. I’ve been that person, with Reid. Whip sharp, firing off these little zingers without a thought. But Andrew doesn’t make my veins feel like lightning is crackling through them. Andrew makes them feel like sludge.
I deserve to be here.
I deserve to be here.
Reid says, voice so low I can barely hear him over the sound of my own brain, “Turn the hell around before I kick your ass.”
Andrew has the nerve to look surprised. He says, “Whoa, Mr. Miyagi, we don’t need to resort to violence.”
Reid says, “Yeah?” And takes a step forward.
Andrew’s face moves from surprised to nervous.
“Shut your mouth,” I say to Andrew because I have somehow found my words.
Andrew doesn’t look at me. He looks at Reid, and Reid’s hand—fingers tapping his thigh like they’re itching to curl.
“I don’t want to start something,” Andrew says.
Reid says, “You already did. So how about you head the hell out before I finish it?”
Andrew just scoffs and takes a look at me, raises his eyebrow like the point stands. And leaves.
I’m furious.
I’m furious and I’m suddenly so tired because that balloon expanding in my chest back in the kitchen? Popped. Just like that.
I can’t stop thinking Charity case, charity case, charity case.
Am I lucky I was paired with Reid? Is that true? Like the kid who can barely sink a two-pointer who gets picked for the varsity basketball player’s team in P.E.?
Five minutes ago, I would have said no, and now I’m not sure.
Solid foundation of confidence here.
Reid says, “That guy’s an asshole,” and we walk.
Past the quad, through the doors, all the way up to his room.
I close the door behind us and slide down it to the floor, hands linked across my shins. “Yeah.”
“Carter. You know what he said is bullshit, right?”
I glance up at him. “Yeah,” I say, but there’s no resolve behind it. “Yeah. Of course—of course it is.”
“He said that shit because he’s scared of you. He knows you’re good and it offends his dick. Can’t stand it that a girl is better than he is.”
I half-smile. Why is this bothering me so much?
Reid drops down to my level on his haunches. He says, “Look at me.”
I do.
“Dude’s a bigot, okay? First night we got here, he asked me where I was from. I said Colorado and he said No dude, I mean where are you from from? That’s like the fifth time he’s called me Mr. Miyagi. He’s an asshole. He’s weird about me being Japanese, he’s weird about you being a girl, and he might be a good cook, but he’s not as good as me and he’s sure as hell not as good as you.”
I kind of blink, momentarily distracted from my own issues. “He’s said all that shit to you?”
“Like I said. Asshole.”
“I should kick his ass.”
Reid’s mouth tips up. “God, I would pay money to see that.”
“You didn’t . . . you didn’t need to like, step in and defend my honor.”
“I know,” he says. “I wanted to though. That okay?”
I think about it for a second. And say, “Yeah. Yeah, it’s okay.”
I don’t know if I’m okay. I don’t know because I’m not sure how to get “charity case,” which I have heard about ten thousand times for ten thousand different reasons growing up, out of my head. But it’s okay that Reid wanted to knock Andrew’s teeth out.
It’s okay that I think he might have backed up that threat.
Maybe it’s because I’m very strongly considering doing the same thing.
“What do you need?” says Reid.
I say, “I’m good. I’m fine.”
I stand up and brush myself off even though the floor in here isn’t dirty.
And I climb up onto Reid’s bed.
&n
bsp; He’s eyeing me like I’m full of crap, but he slides up there with me and lets me lay my head on his chest. Runs his fingers up and down my arm.
We turn on a cooking show, which is kind of ridiculous and obsessive, but hey, and I try not to let Andrew’s words drown out the feeling of Reid’s hands.
It’s two a.m. when I wake up and text Reid. I haven’t been able to sleep tonight. Playing and replaying the whole conversation and there’s some kind of weird comfort knowing that Reid is probably up doing the same thing downstairs, for a different reason.
I reach over the side of my bed to brush my fingers over the care package that came in from my parents and Jillian today. It’s nothing big—some candy, a little individual cherry cordial hot cocoa mix (my favorite), and a pair of aloe-infused polka dot fuzzy socks. I’m wearing the socks right now. I don’t want candy in the middle of the night; I just wanted to feel the cardboard on my fingers. Tangible proof that I am known.
Touching the reminder that I am believed in.
I want to get my hands on a skillet or a pot or something and believe it, too. Prove to myself that I’m not here because I’m a girl.
It’s a ridiculous thing to say, I know in my brain. When well over half of chefs are dudes, statistics would say that maybe he’s here because he’s a dude. But that doesn’t matter a whole lot to my heart.
I’ve spent way too much time getting sneered at because I joined a club on scholarship or won something and got told it was because I was poor or economically disadvantaged or in the right demographic, and it’s something I kind of want to talk to Riya about, because I’m sure she’s gotten that crap WAY more than I have because she’s Indian. Totally bullshit.
But she’s asleep. And it seems inconsiderate to wake a girl up in the middle of the night to say, “Hi, can you please unearth some racial pain so I can feel a little better about my poor white girl problems? A boy said something mean.”
Reid is awake, though.
And Reid will talk to me.
Carter: meet me in the cafeteria.
Reid: Yes ma’am.
He’s standing there, even though we’re not supposed to be in here after hours. It’s just the tiny caf kitchen, so it’s not a huge deal. But it’s against the rules.
“Look at you, little rebel,” he says.
“I’m not the one standing in the kitchen after hours.”
“See what I get for trying to follow instructions for once.”
I grin.
“So cross the line, princess. Equal opportunity incrimination.”
I lock eyes with him and slide into the kitchen.
“I want to make drinks. You make two cups, I make two cups. And then I want to go outside. And try them.”
He knows exactly what I’m doing. Trying to prove to myself in the smallest way possible that I have earned my spot. That I can win something.
He doesn’t let on, though.
He leans over the kitchen island, weight on his forearms, and says, “You’ll lose.”
I say, “Indulge me.”
He grins like he has fangs.
The game is on.
I can breathe.
The category, we decide, is hot beverages, because we are drinking these outside at three a.m. and that seems right.
It doesn’t take either of us longer than ten minutes.
And then we’re sneaking out the back door and disappearing over the hill and down the riverbank.
The river isn’t running high right now. It’s low and quiet, babbling more than rushing. Crickets are out and it’s dead dark out here. I turn on my cellphone so we can see each other’s faces.
“You are trouble,” Reid says. His eyes are smiling.
“Don’t stall. Drink.”
Reid raises an eyebrow and the little insulated paper cup. He drinks at the same time I do. It is my best approximation of butterbeer, and it is good.
“Oh wow,” he says. He downs the rest of it and my chest warms. From the drink in my throat, and the validation, and just watching him drink.
“My turn,” he says.
We drink again.
His is this hot cranberry thing. It’s sweet and spicy—ginger or something maybe? Could be some kind of chili; I can’t pick it out—and dammit. His is better. We both know it’s better.
We lock eyes and I say, “Moment of truth,” and it is.
He looks at me, right into me, for a long moment. Then says, “Mine’s better, freckles.”
I blush. I’ve always been weirdly self-conscious about my freckles but it doesn’t sound like a taunt coming from him; it’s an endearment.
And I smile. That balloon expands back in my chest. Because he’s right. His is better. And what that means is that he isn’t lying to me when he says I’m good, when he says he thinks I’m as good as he is, when he says that he thinks I should be here.
He’s telling me the truth now, and I hate that I need his validation, that I need anyone’s, but that’s where I’m at right now.
And what I do is slide my hand up into his hair and kiss him.
His hands are strong on my back and he pulls me up into his lap so my legs are around his waist. And it doesn’t feel like this is a lie either.
It doesn’t feel like a lie when I pull his shirt off or when he slides mine over my head. When I say, “You can touch me,” into his mouth and he slides his fingers up under my bra, knuckles bumping past the underwire. When he kisses me so deep and slow I think maybe I’ll die and my back is on the grass, river running beside us, and he scrapes his teeth down my neck.
It doesn’t feel like a lie when I decide to touch him through his boxers and he says that’s okay, too, and it doesn’t feel overwhelmingly like this is going to end.
Even though it’s going to.
I’m not suffocating on the nerves of it.
We don’t go any farther than that. It’s enough to kiss each other and touch each other in the dark by the river while everyone is sleeping.
I don’t feel worthless, like Andrew laced into my brain.
I feel like I should be here, in this program.
I feel like I’m allowed to be here, on this grass with this boy. And maybe I’m lucky but maybe he is too.
I don’t make it back to my dorm ’til five a.m.
I’m going to hate myself in an hour when Riya wakes up and I have no choice but to wake up with her.
But I don’t care about the morning.
I care about now.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
When morning comes, I do, in fact, care about it.
But I don’t regret staying out until a million o’ clock. I am bleary and my eyes hurt, but I don’t regret it. It’s easy around Reid, shockingly easy, really. Judging comes and goes, and then there are six.
I kind of can’t believe it.
There’s Andrew, Addie, Will, Riya, Reid, and me.
The final six.
My total joy at somehow having made it here overshadows the little knife of annoyance that Andrew is here, too. The guy is a complete dick wagon but he can cook.
It’s night and we’re all hanging around by the fireplace, which I feel . . . almost possessive about. Like none of them are allowed to be here because this is where Reid and I go in the middle of the night. That is, of course, ridiculous. It’s a common room. But I feel a little clench in my belly anyway when I come back from the kitchen with a glass of water.
I sink down on the loveseat next to Reid and he throws his arm around my shoulder without even looking at me, without taking a breath in this story he’s telling. Like it’s natural. Like we’re A Thing. My mouth curls up and Riya catches my eye.
She smirks like HA. I KNEW IT. And I can’t even say anything about it. She did know it.
I’m toast.
I shift a little closer to him so my hip presses against his, rib against rib. He says, “So yeah my mom reads ‘the whole egg’ on the box and thinks it means the literal whole entire egg and just tosses three w
hole eggs into the cake batter.”
Addie says, “Shell and all?”
“Shell and all.”
Riya is straight-up cackling. “White people, why.”
Reid points at her with one hand and takes a drink from his bottle of root beer with the other, and says, “A question for the ages.”
Now everyone’s laughing, even Andrew, who looks a little grumpy at that last comment, but it’s hard not to laugh at someone throwing actual egg shells into a cake.
“So she bakes the whole cake and gives it to her siblings and she has like ten million siblings, and everyone just eats it without saying anything. My grandpa is like, I like these crunchies, what texture.”
I’m laughing so hard I’m actually crouched over, afraid I’m going to spill my water and I think it’s because of the story but also because Reid is here and I’m so freaking glad that I am, too.
“My dad, unsurprisingly, did most of the cooking.”
“I don’t know,” says Addie, “I kind of want to try eggshell cake now.”
“I’ll go in halfsies with you on that,” I say.
Will is being particularly quiet, I’m noticing, and I wonder if anyone else notices. Every time Riya laughs, his ears practically perk up. He’s sitting at this carefully calculated distance from her, palm up, fingers relaxed and curled like he is dying for her to hold his hand.
I can’t not see it.
Riya shoulder-bumps him and he laughs, then looks at the floor and sips his cream soda.
Addie is texting now, I don’t know who. Maybe Cute Girl who got eliminated a couple weeks ago. There are definitely zero sparks between her and Andrew, thank the lord, because I would’ve had to have found some way to save her from herself.
But no. Addie would never.
Night gets darker, and everyone gets quieter, and I wonder if everyone is thinking what I am: that it feels like things are about to change.
The question hanging in the air: when are they going to split us back into individuals?
When does all this easy camaraderie split just a little further into fissures?
It feels like something coming to a close, and it makes me sad.
When it’s midnight, late enough that I wonder if Reid will even be up at two, people start to head out. Tomorrow is our next challenge. No one wants to be sleepwalking through it.
The Art of French Kissing Page 15
