“I’m not joining a monastery, Flint.”
“No one would believe you if you tried.”
I felt the laugh break out of me. Flint watched it happen, and for one second the camera, the meadow, and the prize money slipped too far back.
Caprice lowered her sunglasses half an inch.
“Cut,” she said.
Ed lowered the camera. “Did we get something, or are they just doing whatever this is?”
“We got something,” Caprice said slowly. “I’m not sure what, because apparently the cook-off is now discussing footwear genealogy.”
“It’s brand continuity,” I said.
“It’s something,” Caprice said. “Take five. Then we’re getting ingredient B-roll without all this bickering in the foreground.”
“I wasn’t bickering,” Flint said.
Caprice looked at him the way Joelle looked at unstable cream. “I don’t have time to explain your face to you.”
Flint stared at her.
I bit the inside of my cheek so hard I deserved hazard pay.
Joelle stepped in with two small containers. “Sunny, honey butter base and fruit syrup base. Which table?”
“Put them on the cold side for now,” I said. “Keep them away from the fire blanket.”
“That’s good.”
Flint moved to lift the cooler before Joelle could. I reached for the same handle. Our hands landed together, his fingers over mine.
The cooler didn’t move.
Neither did we.
“Seriously?” Ed said from behind the camera. “Now the dairy is romantic?”
I pulled my hand back. “I was lifting.”
“I was helping,” Flint said.
“You were hovering.”
“I was standing beside a cooler.”
“Men have built whole mythologies on less.”
Caprice put both hands on top of her head. “I need five minutes without chemistry near perishables.”
“I’m a professional,” I said.
“Then professional somewhere six inches farther from Flint.”
Flint picked up the cooler and carried it to my table. He set it exactly where I’d pointed, then leaned close enough that only I could hear him.
“Then I should probably stand farther away.”
