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The next time I look up at the stage Drew’s leaning casually over the judges’ table, but this time I can spot Cooper just off to one side, someone pinning a microphone to the lapel of the shirt.
Speaking of good-looking men. Lord, have mercy.
Coop’s got that hot hipster thing down to a T—the tailored button-down shirt, sleeves rolled up to show off the tattoos creeping across his forearms, perfectly fitted jeans. He was cute in college, handsome in a nerdy kind of way. Now he’s flat-out hot.
I’m more than a little weirded out that my body’s having such a strong reaction to Cooper only moments after salivating over Drew, but I’m a grown, unattached, hetero woman. I have eyes in my head and a functioning sex drive. It would be weirder if I didn’t notice them both. Probably.
Evie gets me out of my head by dragging me over to the supply station and we speculate on the surprise ingredient, trying to come up with the wildest competition scenes we can recall, from Japanese seaweed to obscure French mushrooms. Before long a noise from the stage calls us back to our stations.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Sizzle TV’s very first cooking competition,” Drew’s voice booms over the loudspeaker, momentarily drowned out by raucous applause. He waves down the crowd from his spot at the center of the stage. When the noise dies off, he starts again. “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome. You’re here to witness our first ever amateur cooking competition. We’ll get started in just a moment, but before we do, I’d like to introduce you to your host. He’s curator of several blogs and vlogs, not to mention an enormously popular video channel on YouTube. Please welcome Cooper Lawson.”
Cooper takes the stage, smiling and waving. I’ve never seen him like this before—completely at ease, absolutely hamming it up, even blowing kisses at the audience, many of whom are screaming his name.
He looks like a total rock star, a far cry from the skinny lab partner I knew ten years ago.
Coop takes the mic from Drew. I doubt anybody in this whole crowd besides me notices the smug challenge on his face as Coop extends a hand for Drew to shake. Drew doesn’t fall for it, though. Instead he pulls Coop in for a hug, clapping him on the back hard enough my own shoulders twitch in sympathy.
Coop takes it in stride though, laughing and taking the microphone.
“Thanks, Drew,” Coop says, turning to the crowd. “How’s everybody doing today?”
He spends the next several minutes winding up the crowd. I have to give him credit; he knows exactly how to play an audience. Inside of five minutes, the crowd is near to frothing with enthusiasm.
“Now that we’ve got the introductions out of the way,” says Cooper, “contestants, I need you at your stations. Everybody ready?” A resounding “Yes!” echoes up from the competition floor.
“Great,” says Cooper. He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out an envelope. “I have here in my hand today’s secret competition ingredient. You’ve all been advised of the rules, but just as a reminder: whatever you choose to make has to be an edible dish. It has to be of your own concoction, so no prewritten recipes allowed. No cell phone use, no crib sheets.” Cooper wags a finger, drawing laughter from the crowd. “And, of course, you must actually use the secret ingredient in whatever you choose to fix.” Coop nods at somebody standing offstage.
“All right, folks. Everybody ready?”
“Here we go,” Evie mutters to me.
“This secret ingredient is…” Cooper opens the envelope with a flourish. “Green tea leaves.”
The next twenty-five minutes are a blur. I’m too busy scrambling to find what I need to register much from the people around me, except the insane amount of noise produced by the chaos.
Evie and I bump into each other repeatedly, darting to and from the supply shelves. She’s a good sport, unlike the rest of our group. Sizzle has staff manning every set of supply shelves but there’s no way to ward off the elbows trying to push me out of the way.
I don’t let it get me down. Between the adrenaline rush I get every time I look at that massive countdown clock on the big screen and the stress of focusing on the task at hand, I don’t notice much of anything else until the vegan vegetable soup I pull together finally starts to taste the way I want.
Green tea isn’t only for drinking, but I don’t think very many people here know that, considering the number of blenders I hear running, and the number of people fighting over espresso machines.
The buzzer sounds a few seconds after I take one last satisfied taste of my dish, prompting groans from all over the competition floor and cheers from the audience at large.
“And that’s it, folks!” says Cooper, striding to the center of the stage. The applause is deafening as staffers move in to make sure everybody has stepped away from their workstations. Evie and I shake hands with the rest of the people from our group.
“All right, everybody,” says Cooper, waiting for the noise to die down. “Now as you might expect, with two hundred entries to judge, this is gonna take a few minutes. Before we get to that, the judges have asked me to remind you of the rules. Y’all remember what they are?”
The crowd shouts affirmatively.
“That’s right,” says Cooper. “Rule number one: must be an edible dish. Those of you produced a beverage of any kind, will you please step out into the aisles.”
I was right about all those blenders. More than half the competitors shuffle to the wide aisles between the workstations.
Cooper waves them forward, drawing them toward the stage.
“Folks, I’m sorry to tell you that based on rules of the competition, if your entry is a beverage of any kind, at this point you have been disqualified.” Sighs and jeers and shocked cries sound from the crowd.
Cooper shakes his head. “Rule number one, remember? Has to be an edible dish. No beverages will be submitted for judging.”
