Chapter 22
Cory volunteered to drive back to the house after the shower had passed. It didn't rain for very long, maybe only ten minutes, but it absolutely poured. I hadn't seen such heavy rain since the one time I decided to rough out a summer vacation in Florida during a hurricane. But even though we were covered by the overhead of the rock we were standing under, the wind still managed to blow the rain towards us, making our clothes nice and damp. Luckily, we found our shoes right where we had left them, although I still hadn't found my shoes from the previous time we were there. Those were probably long gone by now – which is sad, because I loved those shoes.
As I sat next to Cory, though, with his left hand on the wheel and his right hand stretched out and draped around my shoulder, I came to a sudden realization. That rock that we had found on the beach together… that was our special place. Sure, Cory and the guys had found the beach, and because other people had known about it, it couldn't have been ours. But that rock – that formation that we found in the rain – that was ours. Something that the two of us can always have together. Somewhere that we can go when we needed time away from the rest of the world. That somewhere only we know.
I reached up and clutched onto Cory's hand around my shoulder. His skin was warm. I squeezed onto his hand tightly as I looked towards him. "All in all, I think this was a pretty great vacation," I smiled.
"Yep, it was pretty good if you ask me," he replied, looking over at me quickly. The sun had peeked through the clouds and it shone into the front windshield of the car. Both of us had to put a pair of sunglasses on to make driving against the light easier. He focused his eyes quickly back on the road.
"I just can't believe we all go home tomorrow."
Cory shrugged before making a left-hand turn onto the main street in La Jolla. "Where did the time go? I feel like I just picked you up from your dead car up in Los Angeles, and then in probably 24 hours from now, I'll be dropping you off at that same, very dead car."
"Don't remind me," I shook my head. "I'll probably need to get it towed somewhere to get a new battery or whatever it needs. Probably oil and whatever other fluids it needs too. I don't even know when I was supposed to do all of that stuff."
"You mean an inspection?" I could hear him smile, even though I didn't see it.
"I guess," I chuckled. "It's a good thing I have a man like you now in my life. I can now ask Cory the boyfriend to take my car in to the shop for this inspection. Cory the boyfriend probably would have laughed in my face before pointing me in the right direction."
"Hey! That's not true," he laughed. "I would have probably driven you to the inspection guy. That car has enough problems, it doesn't need you at the wheel."
"Thanks a lot," I smirked before hitting him lightly on the hand that was still draped around my shoulder.
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We all wound up in the kitchen that night. The sun was beginning to set over La Jolla. All of our windows and the sliding glass door were wide open to let as much as the ocean breeze in as possible. We were all completely comfortable and dressed down. Most of us had been working on getting our laundry done and all packed up to go home the next day, and we ended up working ourselves until we were starved.
"What's for dinner?" Chris asked as he leaned over the kitchen counter with his cell phone in his hand. "What do we want to order in?"
"We're not ordering in," Kevin replied before walking over to the refrigerator.
"Then what are we doing?" Heather asked as she walked over to Kevin. The two of them stared into the refrigerator together.
"We'll have a cook-off," Kevin suggested, and right away, it was clear that he had been watching a Top Chef marathon.
I couldn't help but laugh. "How are we going to do that? All you guys know is how to work the barbeque."
"Not true," Darren smiled. "We're better cooks than you all think."
"Really?" Dianna chimed in. "Cups of ramen noodles and chicken nuggets don't count, you know."
"Sausage and peppers do, though," Chord smirked.
At that moment, all of us vegans practically choked on our tongues. Gross, we don't know how any of them can eat that stuff. But then again, they all make weird faces when we break out our tofu.
"Fine," Jenna spoke, making her way towards the middle of the kitchen. We all looked at her intently. "Guys, you'll be cooking dinner. Remember, we need vegetarian options. Girls, we'll take on desserts. No cheating and no ordering-in. We have two hours."
"Deal," Cory said, nodding his head. "You're on."
Quickly, he kissed me on the top of my head before whispering, "This is war."
I laughed and scurried to join the girls while all of the guys huddled together. Swiftly, we planned out our dessert menu. Cupcakes and cookies. It needed basic ingredients that we knew we had. It wasn't anything fancy or special, but we knew they were going to be damn good.
While we worked on gathering our ingredients and bringing them over to the dining room table to start preparing our batters, we could overhear the guys quarreling over the meals that they would attempt making. Through it all, we were able to figure out that they would try their hand at making basic pasta with tomato sauce, sausage and peppers, and stuffed mushrooms.
It took both groups of us longer than expected to prepare our meals. Us girls had it harder – none of us knew how to make these things from scratch off the top of our heads, so we needed to do a bit of searching for a decent recipe for which we had all of the ingredients. The guys seemed to work a bit quicker, but we all knew that none of them had any idea what they were doing.
Maybe a half hour after we found a good recipe and prepared it, we were ready to pop it in the oven. Dianna walked the tray of cookie dough into the kitchen and I followed closely behind with the cupcake pan.
The guys were franticly working, stirring things in pots, poking other things with forks, and tasting bits of sauces, careful not to burn their tongues. Chris even had an apron tied around his waist. We popped our trays into the oven before gathering plates and utensils to set the dining room table that the rest of the girls were cleaning off. We decided to give the guys a break, really let them focus on their meal.
About twenty minutes later, long after us girls finished setting the table and our conversations about manicures, pedicures, and spa treatments, and even after pulling our cookies and cupcakes out of the oven to cool, the boys started to bring their meals over to the table.
"This should be good," Jenna smiled as she took her seat at the table.
"So glad they made a salad," Dianna sarcastically stated, which brought a stern-faced reply from Mark as he placed the bowl of pasta and sauce on the table.
And like a scene out of a movie, as Chord was carrying his plate of stuffed mushrooms over to the table, he stumbled on virtually nothing and fell to the floor, sending his mushrooms rolling on the hardwood floor and the ceramic plate shattered into a million pieces. It was one of those things that you just wished that you had a camera to capture so you could send it into a television show and make an easy $10,000. We all broke out hysterically laughing, even the guys, and Cory scampered right past Chord to save the mushrooms. "Five second rule!" he squealed as he collected them all from the floor.
Turns out, though, none of them could be saved. They all had some shards of porcelain in them from the initial break of the platter. After Chord found his way back to his feet, he worked on cleaning up chunks of the platter while Cory tossed the mushrooms in the garbage. The guys were now down to two plates.
"The sausage and mushrooms might be a little…" Darren paused as he placed the bowl on the table, searching for the right word before continuing, "smoky."
Out of curiosity, us girls looked into the bowl, to find the sausage and peppers with a nice charred coat, clear that everything had burned. None of us were going to attempt to eat that, especially us vegans. Down to one.
I can't lie, Kevin's pasta and sauce didn't look terrible. After all, it was the one dish that was saved, and the only vegan option on the table. We all took a few minutes to collect ourselves and clean up the mess that Chord had created before finally deciding to sit down and dig in to the last chance that dinner had.
We all spooned our pasta and sauce onto our plates. And after we all had our portions, we toasted to our last dinner in the house with our glasses of wine or bottles of beer, before digging in.
Now, I think we were all trying to be nice. As soon as I took the first bite, I knew that this meal wasn't going to fly. The pasta was severely undercooked, and the sauce was terribly bland. I wasn't the only one who had this understanding, though – as soon as I formed my opinion, I looked up around the table and I saw matching sets of weird expressions as they chewed statically on the meal. Now, the real test… who was going to be the first to say something?
Of course, I should have assumed that it would have been Naya to pipe up first. "What are you trying to do, bee, kill us?" she quipped as she dropped her fork to the plate after hesitantly swallowing her food.
Mark reached for his bottle of beer to wash down the taste of the food. "Yeah, man, I understand we were cooking on the same team and everything, but this is rough."
Kevin could only laugh as he put his head in his hands. "I guess watching Top Chef doesn't make me a good chef."
"Guess not," Heather smiled as she got up and started collecting everyone's plates. "We're not wasting calories on this meal. Tonight, let's just do cupcakes and cookies for dinner."
"But the cupcakes aren't frosted yet," I pouted. Everyone knows the best part of cupcakes is the frosting.
"Who cares?" Cory asked as he stood up to help Heather collect the plates. "We'll frost them together and then eat them. Cook-off battle is off."
"Oh, because us girls won and you guys don't want to admit a loss?" Dianna smiled before taking a sip of wine.
"Sure," Darren nodded.
We all managed to make our way into the kitchen. The food we didn't eat went straight into the garbage – we wouldn't want to save it or donate it to anyone. That's just cruel. Instead of really cleaning up after dinner, we ended up tossing everything into the sink and taking our cookies, cupcakes, and frosting to the deck by the pool. Together, we sat there with our butter knives and cups of frosting and decorated our cupcakes to our liking.
It was the most wonderful time, and I don't want to get cheesy or sappy or anything. But just all of us being together, just laughing and talking and doing something as simple as decorating cupcakes and eating dessert for dinner, it just completes me in a way that nothing else can. I'm just so thankful for my best friends – nothing comes close to the way they all make me feel. And with Cory at my side, well, it just doesn't get any better.