Coming here was without a doubt the most asinine idea he’d ever had in his life.
“So your next challenge is . . .” DJ was back at the mic.
Ashna squeezed her eyes shut. Again. Like someone saying a prayer while stuck in the path of a speeding train.
Music crescendoed from the speakers and DJ went on: “To make a favorite comfort food from your celebrity’s childhood.”
The audience applauded, and a wave of half-relieved, half-enthusiastic reactions swept through the competitors. Ashna’s grip on the rolling pin tightened.
“But first the fun part,” DJ said. “Chefs, you get to guess your partner’s favorite comfort food growing up. Bonus points for getting it right.” Groans rose around them. “Stars, please write it down on the flashcard in front of you without letting your chef see.”
It was a rather obvious icebreaker activity to bring out the celebrity and chef personalities, but at least it distracted Ashna enough that she was breathing again.
DJ started with Song and Miguel. Poor Miguel went through everything from shrimp chips to Korean barbecue and finally gave up.
Rico laughed and Ashna raised a brow at him.
“Come on,” he said under his breath. “Think, numbskull.”
“You know a lot about Ms. Woo and her favorite foods?” A hot spark of something replaced the tortured look in her eyes, and for a breath all was right with the world.
Rico shrugged. “It’s got to be tacos.”
Ashna was halfway through an eye roll when Song turned her flashcard over to reveal the word taco written in cursive so perfect it looked like a printed font.
It could have been any Mexican food, and Rico thanked his stars that the theory of probabilities had worked in his favor.
The surprised tightening around Ashna’s mouth shouldn’t have been quite so satisfying, but it totally was.
Next, it was their turn. Naturally, Ashna knew exactly what Rico’s favorite comfort food was. One look at her told him that she hadn’t forgotten. Was this cheating? It wasn’t guessing if she already knew.
There used to be this Brazilian restaurant in San Francisco that was very creatively called Rio. Rico’s birthplace, his hometown. It was the only place in the entire Bay Area back then where you got churros filled with doce de leite. They didn’t begin to compare to the churros he had bought from the hand cart vendor down the street from his Leblon home, but still it had been something. Naturally he’d taken Ashna there too often.
“Mr. Silva?” DJ asked. “Any clues?”
“It’s not mac and cheese?” he said, making the audience laugh.
Ashna let a smile slip too—the first bloom of it was even real, then all her other feelings turned it into a lip-stretch again. Would she pretend not to know? She bit her lip, and he knew she was wondering if he had mentioned mac and cheese on purpose, if he still felt the same way about it. Her obsidian gaze bored to the center of him. Everything was different about them, and yet nothing was.
“Definitely not mac and cheese,” she said, her eyes revealing a flash of something they had both lost.
Her red-painted mouth twisted in mock confusion. “He grew up in Rio de Janeiro. So, it could be so many things. Such a rich tradition of comfort foods. Maybe not something entirely traditional. Umm . . . churros?” She said it exactly the way he had taught her to say it, many moons ago, while feeding the crisp-on-the-outside, pillowy-on-the-inside confection into her mouth and then tasting the sticky sweetness on her lips.
Her huge irises turned smoky.
Far too much knowing sparkled in the air between them.
She’s just a girl I dated in high school.
DJ turned to him. “Is she correct?”
With the barest shrug Rico flipped over the flashcard.
CHURROS, the card said in careless all caps.
The audience lost it, screaming and clapping.
From their competitors, several pairs of envious, even suspicious, eyes turned on them.
“Wow! That easy?” DJ said, studying Ashna like someone who thought he knew her and suddenly found he might not after all.
Welcome to my life, mate!
“What can I say, I’m predictable,” Rico said for the cameras. “Maybe I should’ve lied and gone with mac and cheese?”
That got him a half-fake, half-real smile from Ashna.
He disliked mac and cheese. She did too. It feels like an incomplete dish, they had loved to say. Like it’s missing an ingredient or seasoning or something. How they had loved agreeing on things, finding common threads, even though every thread of the fabric he was made of had already been tied to her.
“You better be careful if she can read you that easily,” DJ said.
Too late. But he smiled for the cameras. “Hey, having teammates who can read you wins you games.”
Another gleeful cheer swept the studio. DJ went through all the chef-celebrity pairs but Ashna and Rico remained the only ones who got it right. This seemed to fuel the audience’s anticipation for whatever they had seen in that video. The competition had barely begun, and Ashna and he were already the undisputed favorites by miles.
As an athlete, Rico knew the value of having an edge. Ashna looked like she had just stolen candy from a toddler. Her guilt, her terror, feeling it all in his gut was doing nothing to ease his restlessness. This was not why he was here.
“You have half an hour.”
As soon as the words left DJ’s mouth, Ashna’s skin turned ashen again. She looked seconds from hyperventilating.
He stepped close to her. “What on earth is going on, Ashna?”
She turned to him, hands shaking, eyes wide and blank.
He slipped an apron over his head. “Can you tie this for me, please?”
As though he’d thrown her a life vest, she stepped behind him and started tying, his body shielding her from the cameras.
“I can’t do this.” Her breath fell in nervous puffs against his spine.
“Do what?” he said without turning around.
“Cooking . . . c-c-cooking in front of the cameras . . . I— I—” Her hands were having a hard time making knots.
Before she could say more, DJ spoke again. “Oh, there’s something I forgot to mention.”
The competitors groaned. Rico could feel Ashna’s grip tighten on his apron strings.
“The chefs don’t cook today. Just the celebrities. Chefs, you get to give instructions, but hands off or your team will be instantly disqualified.”
Commotion broke out across the workstations. Some teams had already started prepping and they stopped with loud exclamations of “Come on!” and “You’ve got to be kidding me!”
Tatiana, the dog whisperer, flung the handmixer she was holding across her station, knocking over a set of glass mixing bowls. Glass shattered all over the floor.
Crew rushed toward Tatiana’s station amid gasps. Jonah called a break, telling everyone not to move until the mess was cleaned.
Behind Rico Ashna’s trembling exhale warmed his skin. Her head fell forward, resting between his shoulder blades. He could feel her shaking. The fact that his body was shielding hers from the cameras, from the eyes in the room, turned all the confusion inside him to relief.
It took her a few moments—he counted them off with his breaths—to finish tying his apron and step away. The commotion from Tatiana still took up everyone’s attention.