“My concentration.”
For one second, nobody spoke.
My own words hung between us, hotter than the cold fire ring at my feet.
Sunny’s lips parted. Color climbed her throat, bright and pretty, and my jeans got tighter before I could look away. Then her smile came back slow enough to make my grip tighten on the handle of the shovel.
“Well,” she said, voice smooth as melted chocolate. “That’s the first thing you’ve said all morning that deserves a title card.”
Caprice looked up from her clipboard. “No title cards until someone gives me a clean intro. I don’t know why every conversation in this meadow turns into a detour.”
Joelle’s mouth twitched. “Because you scheduled a competition between two stubborn people.”
“I scheduled a clean content pivot with deliverables,” Caprice said. “Stubborn people weren’t in the budget.”
I cleared my throat and looked at the empty ring. “Can we light the coals now?”
“See?” Sunny reached for a bin. “He flirts once and needs fire immediately. Concerning.”
“I didn’t flirt.”
“You announced my shorts as a workplace hazard.”
“That was a safety note.”
“That was a cry for help.”
Caprice pointed her pen at both of us. “I need fewer cry-for-help jokes and more round-one footage before the light shifts.”
“I don’t know how anyone works in these conditions,” Ed muttered.
“You point the camera at food,” Caprice said. “That’s the condition.”
We lit the coals under my supervision and Sunny’s commentary, which mostly involved accusing me of hovering like a handsome park ranger with unresolved marshmallow issues.
“I’m not a park ranger,” I said.
“You’re very attached to accuracy for a man who called my entire professional field crackers with goo.”
“That was s’mores.”
“S’mores are a category. An experience. A cultural touchstone. A platform for innovation.”
“They’re crackers with goo and chocolate.”
She set a tub of huckleberries on her table with enough care that the berries barely shifted. “Those are fighting words.”
“They were meant to be.”
Her eyes met mine across the space between the two cold prep tables.
Heat moved through the clearing in a way that had nothing to do with the coals. It slid under my shirt, settled low in my gut, and made my cock jerk once behind my zipper before I could tell myself to ignore it.
Sunny looked away first, but she did it smiling.
Caprice stepped into the cleared space, phone away now and clipboard in hand. “Here’s the setup. Round One: s’mores. Sunny Burns brings salted caramel huckleberry s’mores. Flint Sparks brings classic toasted s’mores. Joelle, Ed, and I taste. Camera gets process, final plates, and reaction shots. Nobody monologues for more than twenty seconds, nobody sets packaging near coals, and nobody says the word rustic unless they can define it.”
“I feel targeted,” Sunny said.
