Several episodes later, we’re opening our second bottle of wine, and I’m shouting, “No! Don’t try to use the ice-cream machine! You just said you’ve never used one!” at a contestant who is most certainly about to get chopped for abusing mascarpone.
“This is what always happens in the dessert round!” Drew says, sloshing a bit of wine out of his glass. “They either make a boring-ass bread pudding or they go buckwild with that damn ice-cream machine.”
I snort-laugh and send wine flying out of my mouth. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk about something so passionately.”
“Oh,” Drew says, “I’m plenty passionate. About lots of things.”
I steal a glance at him out of the corner of my eye as the chef on TV complains about his ice cream not freezing properly, which, duh, of course it didn’t. Drew’s cheeks are flushed from the wine, and he looks like a little kid who just came in from playing in the snow. It’s unexpectedly endearing.
The episode ends, and our wine-drunk Chopped spell breaks.
“It’s late.” He takes a look at his phone. “I should . . . I should probably go.”
“It is late,” I say, drawing out the words. “And you should probably go.”
Because he probably should. But the real question is, do I want him to?
No, I answer my silent question in my head. I want him here, with me, because this house is so not empty when he’s here. I don’t want to be alone and I want to be with Drew and my thoughts are running around each other in tipsy circles, but he’s already standing up and walking toward the door.
I don’t know how long we’ve been here—that’s the wonder of Chopped, I’m realizing, that it renders time meaningless—but when he opens the door, we both gasp.
There’s easily a foot of unshoveled, unplowed snow on the steps, the sidewalks, the street. A black lab and his owner walk down the center of the street, past buried cars, but other than that no one’s out. A blanket of silence hangs heavy over everything.
“It . . . snowed,” I say, watching the flakes fall in the light from the streetlamps.
“It sure did,” Drew says, holding his coat but making no move to put it on.
I don’t know what it is—if it’s the confidence I got from Tommy’s pep talk, or the way-too-much wine I had, or the fact that Drew and I kissed tonight and I would really, really like a repeat performance, but I’m feeling bold.
“Well, um.” I clear my throat. “That’s a lot of snow, and you might get stuck in it.”
“Get stuck?” Drew asks with a smile, turning to me.
I nod vigorously. “Frankly, this looks pretty dangerous. I think you need to stay here tonight. For, you know, purely safety-related reasons.”
Drew nods, shuts the door. “Are you sure?”
“Do you want more wine?” I ask. “And we can watch more Chopped.”
Because that’s the thing about Chopped. It’s always on.
* * *
• • •
I’m honestly not sure how many episodes of Chopped we’ve watched by the time we finish the second bottle of wine. It all runs together in a stream of chefs who are trying to prove something to their parents, judges who don’t think dishes are well-executed or creative, and contestants forgetting to put all their basket ingredients on their plates.
At some point we ate an entire frozen pizza and a bag of microwave popcorn, but the abundance of wine is making my tongue pretty loose.
“Where’s Don, anyway?” Drew asks.
“Oh!” I say. “A convention in Chicago. He’s a Wookiee.”
“Of course he is,” Drew says. “He’s got the build for it.”
I nod once, but my head keeps nodding of its own accord. “If you’ve got it, flaunt it. That’s what I always say.”
Drew laughs and I put my feet in his lap. “Why do you have to go to New York?” I ask.
“Because.” Drew puts his hands on my feet and rubs them. “God, your feet are cold. I have to be on Good Morning USA to talk about the zombie movie I have coming out this week. We actually made it two years ago, but it took forever to find distribution and . . . this is boring. You don’t care.”
“What’s it called?” I squint, trying to remember. “A Zombie for Christmas?”
He snorts. “No. That sounds like a weird Hallmark movie. It’s called Winter of the Undead. It’s . . . I’m gonna be honest with you, it’s not a very good movie.”