Chapter two: Kitchen encounter
Lara carefully examined the fresh wound on her little finger and shot a dirty look at the object that had caused her the pain. The electric can opener stood there on the counter as if nothing had happened. Thankfully the cut wasn't too deep, but it hurt nevertheless. The chef reached into the pocket of her chef's uniform where she kept her band aids, just in case.
Lara had known that this day wasn't going to be her day from the moment she had woken up on her couch, still in her tank top and panties from the night before, covered in dried sweat. One glance at her wristwatch had told her she had overslept. She had taken a hurried shower, thrown some clothes on herself, packed some clean uniforms into her bag and hurried out the door. And now, here she was, in the country club's kitchen, looking at the fingers on her left hand-save for the thumb-being wrapped up in tight rubber to protect the wounds from potential infections. The redhead was used to injuring herself at work. In fact, it happened quite frequently and so the rest of the kitchen staff hardly paid any attention to their sous chef's cursing. Recently those incidents were occuring more often, thanks to a certain hot tennis player Lara couldn't stop thinking about. Having taken care of the newest wound, the sous chef checked what else needed to be prepared for lunch time and later on dinner.
"Sliced peepers, lettuce (cleaned)...", it read on the list. Deciding that would keep her occupied for quite some time, and thus away from thinking about Dana, Lara wandered off to the storage room to get the required peppers.
A little while later the pile of sliced pepper had grown in size and the redhead found herself running out of peppers.
"Palmira, could you get me some more of these peppers, while I go to clean the lettuce?", she addressed one of the line cooks.
"Sure, Lara.", the other woman simply answered and went to follow the chef's request.
While her hands were busy cleaning the fresh lettuce, Lara allowed her mind to relive last night's events, starting with the locker room kisses, and found that she was able to stay relatively calm when thinking about these rather intense experiences, due to the fact that she had gotten most of the sexual tension threatening to overwhelm her out of her system. A small smile found its way on the sous chef's lips as she thought of the object of her affection and she quickly wondered if Dana would come to have her lunch at the club after what had happened the other night.
"She will show up, Lara.", she reassured herself. "After all, she did kiss you back, didn't she?"
Lara took the box with the now cleaned lettuce and made her way back to her working station, where the peppers were already waiting for her return. Letting out a small sigh, she put the lettuce down, picked up her chopping knife and returned to slicing the peppers.
"Hey!"
The sudden, unexpected sound of a familiar voice startled Lara. She quickly turned her head in the voice's direction and couldn't help but smile widely at the person who stood in front of her, while her heartbeat quickened notably.
"Hey!", she greeted back, still not able to stop smiling.
Suddenly a stinging pain shot through her body and she dropped the knife, wincing in pain.
"Stupid, Lara, you're just so stupid.", she cursed herself in her thoughts, while looking at her bleeding thumb. "Why the hell did you keep on chopping the peppers while talking to Dana? You know that you can't concentrate when she's around and now you made a total fool of yourself in front of her."
"Jesus, you're disfigured!", Dana nearly screamed, sounding totally worried about the chef's condition.
Lara shook her head. "I'm not disfigured." She was amazed at how much the tennis player seemed to care about her.
"But I could have killed you when you were, you know...", Dana rambled on, while moving her head up and down, imitating the chopping movements.
"It happens all the time.", the redhead said, trying to calm Dana down, while she wrapped her thumb up in tight rubber.
"But should we call a doctor?", the tennis player asked, still staring at the injured thumb.
"Dana!" Lara couldn't help but chuckle at Dana's exaggerated worry about a small cut on her thumb. She found it insanely cute and felt the need to show her that those kind of injuries came with her work.
"Second degree burn from béchamel sauce...", she said, holding up her left hand and wriggling her index finger a little, so that the brunette would know which one she was talking about.
It had happened the other day, right after she had gotten back from changing her chef's uniform. She had been so nervous because of the unexpected encounter with her secret crush that she hadn't been able to concentrate on what she was doing with the ladle and had somehow ended up burning her finger.
"...runaway shish-kebab..."
This one had happened this morning, although Lara had no idea how the skewer had ended up in her middle finger, probably lack of concentration again and a rather great amount of clumsiness.
"...an attack of an extreme hostile life lobster..."
Also happened the other day, early in the morning. This one hadn't been her fault. Lara winced, remembering the pain that had flooded her whole being when that lobster had grasped her ring finger in its claws.
...and, um, electric can opener."
This one had happened not that long ago and still hurt a little.
The redhead shook her head slightly, not believing her own clumsiness, as she watched Dana. The tennis player's eyes were still glued to the wounded fingers that were on display, but they returned to Lara's the moment the chef dropped her hand again.
"Is there anything I can do?", Dana asked, obviously trying ease her own awkwardness.
Lara grinned at that. "You could kiss it and make it better.", she suggested and watched the blush creeping up the athlete's face.
As the smaller woman averted her eyes to hide her obvious embarrassment, Lara couldn't help but fall in love with her even more. She found herself totally drawn to how timid and shy the athlete was around her and resisted the sudden urge to kiss her right there. Meanwhile Dana seemed to be struggling to regain her composure. She took a deep breath and then another, before she lifted her eyes again to lock them with the sous chef's.
"I was wondering if maybe sometime...", she started her little speech, but was cut off mid-sentence by Lara, who had figured where this was leading and hadn't been able to suppress her anticipation.
"I would love to."
Then there was a pause. Neither woman said a word, they just looked into each other's eyes, Lara trying to assure Dana that she was serious.
"Really?", the brunette broke the silence, still looking for confirmation in Lara's eyes.
The sous chef simply nodded, the smile on her face being replaced by the most serious look she could muster.
"Really?", Dana asked again, her whole face lighting up at the chef's wordless answer.
It seemed to Lara as if a huge weight had been lifted off of the tennis player's shoulders, all the tension that had engulfed her suddenly being gone.
"Is thursday night okay?", the brunette asked, a huge smile playing on her features.
The sous chef thought for a second, turning her eyes away from the other woman. She didn't have to work on thursday, so that would be just perfect. "Thursday night is great.", she said then, returning to look into Dana's sparkling eyes again, finding it impossible not to smile giddily.
"Where do you wanna go?"
The redhead couldn't care less about where they'd be going, all that mattered to her was that they would be going out.
"Anywhere you're going.", she said with a smile.
"Yeah, but you're a food's person. So I wanna take you someplace really good.", Dana told her and paused for just a moment. "Like L'Orangerie.", she suggested then.
Lara knew that place. It was totally upper-class and had the best reputation-a dream for every chef to work at-but way too exquisite for a first date.
"No. No, no...that's way too expensive.", Lara answered, sounding rather alarmed at Dana's suggestion.
"I know. I'll take care of it.", Dana stated somewhat matter-of-factly, seemingly wanting to go to L'Orangerie.
As much as she appreciated the offer, Lara didn't want the athlete to be paying for her dinner. She hadn't needed any kind of financial support since she was living on her own and she had no intention of starting it now. If there was going to be a relationship with Dana-and the sous chef really wanted there to be-she wanted them to be equal partners.
"We're not starting out that way.", was all she said, closing the subject.
Another short silence evolved between them, both women turning their gazes away from each other, thinking of some other place to have their date at.
"Umm..." This time Lara broke the silence, facing Dana again. "There's...there's this little place in Korea Town that I've been dying to check out.", she suggested to the other woman who seemed to stick to her words, nodding to every word leaving the chef's lips.
"Do I need to make a reservation?", the tennis player asked, seemingly nervous once again.
The redhead's smile broadened at the prospect of a date with the woman in front of her.
"How about if I take care of that part and you just pick me up at eight?", she asked, tilting her head to the right while speaking.
Dana's face lit up once again, smiling the most beautiful smile Lara had ever seen, making the sous chef melt at her knees.
"Okay.", Dana said, her smile broadening.
"Okay.", Lara said.
"Okay.", Dana said once again, sighing in relief.
"Okay.", Lara repeated, her voice barely audible.
"Okay, bye."
With that the tennis player turned around and started to make her way out of the busy kitchen. But before she could completely disappear, Lara called after her. Dana spun around and eyed the sous chef questioningly.
"Thanks for asking me out.", Lara told her.
Dana grinned at that.
"Oh, yeah. No problem.", she said, trying to sound all cool.
The two women continued to smile at each other, while Dana was walking backwards. Caught in each other's eyes, neither of them noticed the waiter approaching from behind and so Dana collided with the man. She gave a quick apology and retreated from the kitchen, leaving Lara in a state of pure anticipation. Biting her bottom lip to keep the goofy grin off her face, the redhead returned to work.