MAX MIGHT BE RIGHT. They could win this.
The sky arched blue above Grace, the day shiny and brilliant. When the announcer introduced Max, the crowd went wild.
Grace stood behind Max, raising her hand when the announcer—a local newscaster by the name of Palani—introduced her as Max’s sous-chef for round one, appetizers. Every team had to have a head chef and a sous-chef, and she’d volunteered Max for head chef before he could make the mistake of pushing her to the front.
Now he stood fully inhabiting his Maximoto, ninja chef, persona, a warrior in the kitchen, his short military cut giving him a steely demeanor.
Of course the crowd loved him. She loved him.
Loved, at least, the hero he’d turned into over the past two days. He’d made her believe she could fly—on water, anyway. More, he’d made her believe that if she reached beyond herself, she might find something amazing.
She might not have won his heart, but she’d won his admiration when she had called Keoni and asked him to give them another chance.
Keoni had already chosen them for the competition.
They spent yesterday in their interviews, and she’d managed to sit in a chair, stare at the camera, and somehow communicate her desire to start a catering company.
She had no idea what Max said after he kicked her out of the studio.
Now she sorted through what Max had taught her as she stared down the competition—the hippie couple from North Beach, the Pearl Harbor father-and-son soldiers, the Hawaiian sister-and-brother team, and the two women from their cooking class. Max had dubbed them the Twinkies.
She didn’t want him calling her anything but the best sous-chef he’d ever seen.
Last night, he’d spoken the magic words. “You’re ready.”
He said it over a dinner of shrimp tacos from Lola’s, across the street from the Waikiki pier, just before he took her back out in the water.
She’d gotten up on her board a total of ten times. One of these days she might even learn how to read the waves, catch one without Max’s help. Until then, she let him push her out with the wave, trusting him and paddling hard to find her groove, get her balance. Ride the swell to shore.
“Chefs, are you ready?” Palani said.
Max, standing beside her, nodded, and Grace mimicked him.
“Then take your stations.”
They would cook live at outdoor kitchen stations before a grandstand audience—a discovery that had nearly turned Grace around at the edge of the stage. But Max kept his hand on the small of her back, nearly pushing her forward, and what could she do?
Now he took her hand, probably fearing she might bolt. But she hung on, letting the strength of his grip sweep through her.
We make a great team. Yes, those words, too, had been said last night as he looked into her eyes, so much in his that it shucked her voice from her.
He felt something for her; she just had to believe it.
Please, God, help me not be a fool.
She followed Max to their station. The hippies were next to them, the military team on the other side.
Palani stated the rules, the time limit, and then introduced the ingredients. “Today, chefs, you’ll make us an appetizer out of ahi, ramen noodles, black poppy seeds, and . . . oranges.”
Grace stared at the basket of ingredients as everything hollowed out inside her. Seriously?
But a glance at Max’s game face shored her up.
“Go!”
She ran for her basket, scooped it up, returned to Max. He had already pulled out two knives.
“What are we going to do?”
His mouth tightened to a grim line. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know—but you looked so confident!”
“Never let them see you sweat, baby. Okay, listen, we’ve got ahi, so we could make a sort of sushi—”
“Oh, that’s it. What if we boiled the noodles al dente and made a shell out of them, like spaghetti pie. Then you’ll do your ahi massage in a little vinaigrette, something sweet that goes with poppy seeds.”
“Right.” A spark lit his eyes. “How about shoyu sauce and oil? We can add some mirin . . .”
“What?”
“It’s, uh . . . Japanese sweet rice wine. Just trust me.”
“I do.” She had already found a pot, was filling it with water.
He grinned at her and began to clean the tuna.
Grace set the water to boil and grabbed the oranges. One in each hand, she looked at Max. “What if we supremed these, then blackened them a little?”
“Nice work, swim buddy. Way to use your mad culinary skills.”
She found a cutting board, then cut off the ends of each orange. Setting one on the cut end, she worked her knife between the inner edge of the skin and the meat of the fruit, ever so gently removing the pith and skin and leaving behind the juicy fullness of the fruit. She cleaned the extra pith off with a paring knife. Then, holding the orange in her hand, she cut along the membrane of each section, slicing on the inside to separate the fruit meat from the membrane wall. She removed each segment of meat from the shell.