One Week with the Marine (Love on Location)

He grasped her shoulder before pushing past her. “All part of the strategy.”

When he closed the bathroom door, he searched on his phone for the closest delivery place in a ten-mile radius, and found the phone number of a restaurant a few blocks away. He thumbed the link and dialed.

After the usual pleasantries, the guy on the other end asked, “That going to be the usual, then?”

“The what?”

“Usual. For that address. Large number two, extra sour cream. Small number four, extra guac. Week’s worth of forks?”

“Yeah, that sounds good. Thanks.”

“All right, man. It’ll be

there in twenty minutes.”

Holden hung up, and a pit lodged itself in his stomach. He knew the smart thing would be to accept defeat, especially when this was the freaking Kobayashi Maru of tasks.

And since it was, he’d have to play it like Captain Kirk.

The only way to win was to cheat.

Now his lone task was pretending to like the monstrosity she was sure to serve him.

For the next twenty minutes, he bustled about the kitchen while she worked. Her hair had come completely undone, and the string of pearls had been abandoned near the trash can.

She pulled a gallon of milk out of the fridge and inspected the perimeter before twisting off the cap with a struggle that looked a little too intense. A putrid smell filled the air, worse than old skunk or seventh-grade-dance sweat.

“That’s bad, right?” She shoved the container toward him, and it was all he could do not to retch.

He grabbed the container from her. The contents didn’t slosh around. In fact, they didn’t bother to move at all. The consistency was somewhere between yogurt and gravel. Absolutely horrifying.

“Why is this solid?”

“I can’t answer that. I’m working.” She turned to dig around in the fridge, and he put the cap back on the container before tossing it into the trash.

When she turned back around, she was opening a package of hot dogs.

“You think you’re going to win this thing with hot dogs?”

“No, I think I’m going to destroy this thing with hot dogs. You’ve never had wieners like these. Besides, I can’t see any real action over in your court. What’s your deal? You just want to surrender to my sexuality? It’s pretty overwhelming, I know—”

“Yeah, it’s definitely that.” He chuckled.

She popped her hot dogs into the toaster oven and sprinted back to the fridge, emerging with a mushy object in hand that looked mysteriously like vegetation that had survived a nuclear holocaust.

“You’ve got, like, five minutes until this is on the plate, you know. There’s no time for dillydallying.”

She was pouring all sorts of things in containers, mashing other objects that couldn’t have possibly been edible, and all while avoiding placing a single pan on the stove. She must consider herself quite the culinary savant.

By the time she’d set a drink and entrée in front of him, there was a light sheen of sweat along her hairline, but she still presented the concoction with a proud flourish.

“Now where’s my plate?” She collapsed into a chair opposite him, rubbing her hands together.

“Let’s not worry about that.”

“I’ve got a pretty good feeling anything you do at this point is cheating, so I hope you’re prepared to do the weird stuff, sir.” Her bright white smile lit up her face. “Still, my dish was going to win anyway, so I don’t know why you’d even bother.”

He prodded the concoction with his fork.