It had been a stressful few days for everyone. First gathering intel, then getting to Kazakhstan, capturing the war criminal and finally, to top it off, crash landing in the forest. Then, not long after getting back, Matty sent them on a new mission to Kuwait.
As a result, the usual celebratory meal had been postponed. But now that everybody was back, Bozer and I were busy in the kitchen.
"How many do you think we need?" I called out, piling ingredients in my arms.
"7 or 8, at least," Bozer called back. "We're feeding Jack, remember."
"I think we have enough flour and eggs then."
I carried everything to the kitchen counter, spreading it out.
Rolling up my sleeves, I looked at Bozer.
"You can do the honours, signorina." He gestured at me.
I dumped handfuls of flour on the bench, then eggs and water into the well. On another bench, Bozer was setting out toppings. While I kneaded dough, he chopped peppers, mushrooms and ham, or dumped other toppings into bowls.
Roughly, I separated the big lump of dough into eight equal portions, covering all except one with a damp tea towel. The last segment I placed back on the counter and started attacking it with the rolling pin.
Mac walked in the front door as I finished rolling that piece of dough into a pizza base.
"Hey, looking good," he said as he came up to me.
"Me or the pizza?" I asked jokingly.
Mac wiped a stripe of flour off of my face. "The pizza, though you look good too."
"Hey man," Bozer called. "When are the others getting here?"
"Jack said he's waiting for Riley. They'll be here in probably 15 minutes."
"Good," I nodded, "Shall we start topping this one or do we wait for them?"
Mac and Bozer shared a look and Mac peaked a look at how much more dough I had.
"Nah, we'll start this one." He said. "They can help with the others."
Bozer brought some of the bowls over with a jar of tomato sauce.
"This one shall be a supreme," he announced, opening the sauce.
I turned to take a jar of herbs from the bench.
"If we're doing this, we're doing it properly," I said, scattering herbs over the sauce spread on the pizza base.
Bozer narrowed his eyes at me but acquiesced, while Mac just laughed and grabbed a handful of ham.
The first pizza was done by the time Jack and Riley arrived. When they arrived, Jack bearing beer and cider, Mac made his way outside. He had created a pizza oven and was starting to stack the wood to light it. It was large enough to fit two of the pizza inside at a time.
By the time my blonde genius had the fire going in his pizza oven (it wasn't a traditional pizza oven, we are talking about Angus MacGyver), all bar two of the pizzas had been made. It was quick work with four people rolling and topping them. The pizzas were sitting lined up ready for Jack to transport to the oven. They were sitting in pairs, two each of supreme, meat lovers and Hawaiian. The toppings were still being placed on the garlic margherita ones.
I had a small ball of dough in my hand. It wasn't quite enough to make another pizza, not the size of the other ones at least.
Mac walked in, Jack trailing behind.
"The first lot are in the oven," Mac announced. "What are you going to do with that?"
I tossed the dough between my hands, thinking.
"What about a banana pizza?" Mac suggested. "Just a small one."
"Banana pizza?" Bozer asked incredulously. "I love you Mac, but no way man."
Jack and Riley were both in agreeance with him.
"You come up with some strange ideas, brother. But that's just too far." Jack commented.
"I didn't come up with it," Mac said defensively. "It's a Scandinavian thing. They really enjoy banana pizzas, so I figured we could try it."
Riley looked vaguely nauseous at the suggestion and Bozer was shaking his head. Behind Mac I could hear Jack muttering something including 'Scandinavians, rotting fish and insane.'
"I think that's a 'no' to the banana pizza, Mac," I smiled.
He nodded, "Yea, possibly." He looked from the dough to the cupboard with a look in his eyes. We knew that look all too well. MacGyver had an idea and he was going to make it happen.
He strode over to the cupboard and stared pulling out marshmallows and chocolate sauce before moving to the fridge and grabbing a punnet of strawberries.
"It's not banana pizza, but strawberries and marshmallows kinda make a s'mores pizza," he said.
I nodded, rolling out the dough to make a base.
"Why do you have mini marshmallows? They're pointless," Riley asked.
"I use them for rocky road," I replied. "Easier than cutting up the big ones."
Riley thought about it then nodded in agreement.
By the time the dessert pizza was finished, the first two savoury pizzas had finished cooking and I had chocolate sauce smeared on my face. In retaliation Mac had icing sugar from the marshmallows on his top and in his hair. The kitchen however, was clean. Bozer and Riley had cleaned all the dishes and put ingredients away. They didn't trust us to mot make more of a mess with the dishwater if left on our own.
Jack walked in with more cooked pizza, placing them on the clean counter to be covered in foil.
"The kitchen is clean, but you two are a mess." He gestured between me and Mac.
"No one messes up Bozer's kitchen," Mac said seriously.
"Human beings in the kitchen, on the other hand," I shrugged, before reaching for the aluminium foil.
"Yea, you two get cleaned up and meet us by the fire pit," Jack instructed. "Food's not too far off being ready and the beer's still cold."
He grabbed more uncooked pizzas as we made our way to the bathroom to clean up. The sauce on my face was sticky and not going to be the easiest thing to wash off. At least I had experience washing off chocolate sauce.
We were sitting around the fire pit, each holding an open bottle of drink. The smell of the pizzas wafted to us, making my stomach grumble loudly.
"We could cut up the already cooked pizzas and start now, you know," Jack commented.
"I'll be right," I replied. Then a moment later. "Which ones are already cooked?"
"Supreme and Hawaiian," Bozer replied.
My stomach growled again and I looked at it in defeat.
"You know what? Get the pizzas, let's get started."
It was later in the evening, and most of the savoury pizzas were completely demolished.
Jack was trying to explain the lightning-bottle-phone charger contraption that Mac had built, but he was failing hilariously. Mac took over the explanation, talking at 100 miles per hour until he got to the part about placing the bottle in the clearing. He stopped and looked at me, before saying the last part.
"Sorry," he said sheepishly.
I shook my head at him. "It was dangerous, yea. But if you hadn't been able to call for help then you would all have been in far more danger."
"Hell yea," Jack commented. "Did you see the sorts of fire power those guys were packing? They were serious, man."
Bozer looked pale. "You're gonna give me a heart attack, Mac."
I laughed. "Since when is that anything unusual, Bozer? He's perfectly capable of getting into trouble no matter what he's doing."
"You're not upset about the 'nearly getting electrocuted by lightning' thing?" Mac looked at me quizzically.
"No," I replied simply, "For two reasons. The first being that if you hadn't tried it you would almost certainly have been killed. So it was the lesser of the two evils. And the second, well, it's you. You knew what you were doing and how to make it work. You aren't lucky, you're just that good."
Jack looked at the two of use as Mac pulled me into a hug.
"He's a little bit lucky," Jack countered.
"Jack's right," Mac began, but I put a hand over his mouth.
"Nope, no, you're wrong. Mac's just that good," I replied, turning to Jack. "Just let me have that belief, yea?"
He pointed his bottle at me and then nodded.
"So, when are we putting that s'mores pizza on?" Riley asked, breaking the moment.
Bozer and Mac eyed each other.
"Now I suppose, if everyone thinks they'll eat it,'" Mac replied.
"Right on, brother. Let's get this thing in!" Jack was incredibly enthusiastic about it.
With a look at Jack, Bozer stood to get the sweet pizza.
"This is why we needed eight pizzas," he said to me, before walking inside.
Jack shrugged. "What can I say? You guys cook some good grub."
Once the pizza was cut and placed on the table outside, Jack almost dove for a piece. He picked it up with his fingers, but very quickly dropped it onto his plate. He shook his burnt hand.
"It's really hot," he complained.
"Of course it is," Bozer exclaimed. "It's covered in sugar and just came out of the oven."
"What does sugar have to do with anything" Jack asked in confusion, wrapping his hand around the cool beer bottle.
"Sugar has a low melting point," Mac began. "So it gets hot really easily. As it gets hot it melts, but holds onto the heat, sort of storing it. Add the stored heat to how sticky the warm sugar is and you're guaranteed to get burnt if you pick up something warm and sugary straight out of an oven."
""Thanks for that science lesson," Jack grumbled.
"Hey, you asked," Mac countered.
A few minutes later I reached over and poked a piece of pizza before picking it up.
"It's cool enough to eat now," I said. "I think."
With that announcement, everyone went for the pizza.
"We should make pizza more often," I said sleepily as we lay in bed.
"The pizza oven did work well," Mac mused. "And it cooked them in less time than a normal pizza oven."
I hummed in agreement.
"Imagine the different sweet pizzas we could make. Or even savoury ones, Bozer's sure to have some ideas." Mac said excitedly.
"Another day, Mac," I mumbled. "Go to sleep."
With that I switched off the light and rolled over. Mac threw an arm around my middle and drifted off to sleep.