And then she slammed the glass on the table and began to laugh.
With every passing second, she laughed harder.
London couldn’t do anything but stare.
“You,” she said eventually, wiping at her eyes. “You made lamb that was so, quote, magnificently cooked that it looked like Audra Carnegie wanted to kiss you,andyou managed to not spill your entire plate while busting your ass on national television, but sure, you’re having a bad day. All right.” Dahlia rolled her eyes, gathering her breath back after her laughing fit. She took another massive slurp of bourbon.
London felt their cheeks flame, even more so than usual. “Audra Carnegie did not want tokissme,” they said. “And they liked your fish tacos, too. After they let you reassemble them,” they added, more lightly, scratching the back of their neck again in an attempt to dispel their secondhand embarrassment.
“Yeah, well.” Dahlia finished her bourbon with another eye roll.
She shouldn’t be that put out, really. The judges had already sampled her tacos before she made her dramatic on-screen tumble. Filming the judging portion of the show took so long that the food normally got cold. So most of the judges’ assessments came from taste testing they did throughout the actual cooking process. This had been one of the first things Janet had told them. Dahlia’s feat of aerodynamics had been impressive, but it didn’t actually threaten her spot on the show. London had watched her make those tacos. They could tell they were good.
“Hey, can I get another one of these?” Dahlia called out to the waitress as she was about to fly by their table again, motioning to her empty glass. The waitress raised an eyebrow, likely at how quickly the glass had been drained, but it was clear Dahlia didn’t much care. She scanned a greasy placard that was at the edge of the table. “And . . . some chips and guacamole! Yeah, awesome. That would be awesome.”
“Awesome,” the waitress repeated, deadpan, before floating away.
London felt much the same.
“Just to clarify,” they said, leaning slightly forward. “Are you mad at me?”
London understood thatChef’s Specialwas a competition. That they should not care what Dahlia Woodson thought of them. They had spent the last few years of their life working hard at not caring what people thought of them.
But it felt wrong anyway, that they could make a stranger angry so quickly, for reasons they still didn’t one hundred percent understand. For some reason, they didn’t want Dahlia to be mad at them, however strange she might be.
“Nah.” Dahlia shrugged a shoulder. “Honestly, I’m not that good at being angry, in general. Whenever I’m angry about something, I always end up getting sad in the end instead, so I try to avoid it. And . . . that was too much information. Yikes, I need food in my system.” She paused. “It was a valiant effort, though, right? At being angry?”
“You called me a jerk,” London affirmed.
Dahlia grinned. “See? That felt weird coming out of my mouth, but I said it anyway! Look at me.” She reached out and grabbed London’s glass. “Why are you not drinking this?” She took a long sip and winced, as if it had hit her throat too fast, before pushing the glass back across the table. “Anyhoo, so I’m done. Now tell me about your horrible day.”
She really just . . . did that. She drank London’s bourbon.
Dahlia Woodson was a real piece of work.
The chips and guacamole arrived before London could think of what to say, along with Dahlia’s second bourbon on the rocks. She crunched into a chip the moment the waitress placed them on the table, and her eyes went wide. “Oh man. Oh wow. They do not have chips like these on the East Coast. You should have some.”
London did not reach for a chip, but they finally took a sip of their own bourbon again. They felt harried, like they were constantly one step behind in this conversation, like they never knew what Dahlia was going to say or do next, and they had no idea how to extricate themself from this sad, poorly lit bar.
“So, your bad day. I’m all ears.” Dahlia prompted again as she dug into the guacamole, chomping on another chip, smiling now, like she was suddenly having the time of her life.
“Why weren’t you at the meet and greet yesterday?” London asked instead.
Her smile drooped, and she looked slightly shamed. “Oh. The whole idea of that gave me supreme social anxiety. I told a PA I was having bad cramps.”
“Are you serious?” London burst out, incredulous, their mouth suddenly working again. “It gaveallof us social anxiety! This entire show is like, an exercise in surviving social anxiety! And you usedcrampsas an excuse?”
“Hey!” Dahlia frowned. “My menstrual cramps arereally bad, okay! When I have them! Don’t judge me.”
But Londonwasjudging her. In fact, they were pretty angry athernow, irrationally or not. Because they were going to have to come out to her now, to get it over with, and if she had just shown up for the dumb meet and greet, they wouldn’t have to do this again. If she just had some control over her fucking hair, London would have said good luck back hours earlier, or reacted in whatever way Dahlia found acceptable, and she wouldn’t be here, right now, ruining London’s moment of peace.
They took a breath.
“Last night, at dinner, I came out to everyone as nonbinary, so everyone would know my pronouns, which are they/them. I thought it would be good for everyone to know right away, so there wouldn’t be awkward misgendering, and I could actually just be me on this thing. But some people didn’t take it great, which I should have expected, but it still threw me off a little, because I had been too optimistic, so I was a little off today. There. Okay? Are you satisfied?”
London motioned to the waitress for another drink. Dahlia was quiet now, which made London feel smug, but smug in a way that didn’t actually feel good at all.
“Who didn’t take it great?”
