“I’ll try to be more useless next time.”
“Please don’t. I’m already dragging a producer, a camera operator, and several pounds of artisan chocolate uphill. I have enough useless.”
“Hey,” Ed said.
“I said several pounds of artisan chocolate. Obviously, you’re valued.”
Ed nodded once. “Accepted.”
Caprice ended her call and slid her phone into her pocket. “Beautiful. The sponsor is on standby, the revised permit confirmation is in my email, and I need twenty-seven fewer interruptions than yesterday. Welcome to Round One of the Get Fired Up! Cook-Off.”
Sunny tied her apron around her waist. “You make it sound like we committed a felony.”
“I spent last night explaining the phrase spot fire to a snack-brand executive named Greg. Let me have my tone.”
I walked the second fire ring again. “Before cameras, we’re clear on the permit?”
Caprice’s expression changed from bright to flatly practical. “We’re clear. Yesterday’s GPS pin was wrong. The north access clearing was the approved zone. This is the approved zone. The sponsor’s location contact confirmed it in writing, and Joelle printed it because Joelle trusts paper more than all of us.”
Joelle raised her clipboard. “Correct.”
Sunny’s chin tipped up. “Translation, I didn’t personally lead a dessert rebellion into forbidden grass.”
“No,” I said. “You didn’t.”
The answer cost me less than I expected.
Her face changed a little. The tightness around her mouth eased, and I noticed because apparently I was doing that now.
“I still think yesterday’s setup was too close to the grass edge,” I added.
“There it is,” she said.
“But the bad pin put you there.”
She paused with her apron strings in hand. “Was that your version of an apology?”
“No.”
“Shame. I was about to have Joelle mark the date.”
“I don’t apologize for putting out fire.”
“I don’t apologize for wanting people to recognize I can read a permit.”
“Then I guess we’re both burdened by principles.”
Sunny laughed, quick and surprised, and the sound hit harder than it had any right to. She pulled the apron around her waist and tugged the strings tight behind her back. The fabric skimmed over her breasts, dipped at her waist, and failed completely at making her look less distracting. My cock twitched, traitorous and inconvenient, before I stopped watching.
Not fast enough.
She caught me.
One red brow arched. “Safety inspection, Flint?”
“Wardrobe hazard.”
“My shorts?”
