I laugh at her over-the-top flirting. “Keep that up for the cameras, Emerson Alva.”
“I absolutely will.”
If Ilene wants us to lean into the flirtation, she’ll sure get it at today’s stop—a restaurant that leaves little to the imagination.
Maybe this is our first opportunity to step up our game and throw down for that spot at the table.
Long Food restaurant, I’m ready.
14
Long Food and Childhood Dreams
Emerson
* * *
Long Food in Chelsea, with the rainbow flag in the window, boasts a menu of phallic food. Popsicles, pickles, corn dogs, breadsticks, fried asparagus, and ice cream cones. It’s so niche it’s beyond niche.
But the pop-up restaurant is killing it with its marketing. The imagery all over Instagram of red lips and food like dicks lures the crowds.
A busty woman named Lucía runs the joint. She wears a black corset, her ample breasts spilling out over the top. Two men in matching leather vests prep the food while Lucía plucks a cherry-red popsicle from a freezer and presents it to us as an offering.
“Oh, baby. That better have my name written all over it,” I say, making grabby hands.
“What if I want one too?” Nolan asks in his most charming voice.
“Bring this man a popsicle,” I say as I take the red one, and the owner hands Nolan an icy treat as well.
“Yum.”
I turn to my co-host. “But do you know what makes popsicles truly sexy, Nolan?” My eyes linger on his mouth while the camera captures our je ne sais quoi.
“Please share,” Nolan says, encouraging me.
“It’s not the licking or the sucking.” I beckon him closer, playing it up for the audience too.
He leans in as called for in the script. “Tell me what makes them sexy.”
I drag a finger along my bottom lip. “How it makes your mouth . . . so deliciously red.”
Nolan doesn’t answer right away—just stares at my lips, then blinks. “Like you’ve been kissed,” he says.
“Hard and passionately,” I add.
“Best kind of kissing,” he says. The husky sound makes flames dance down my spine.
I don’t know if we’re saying our lines or living them.
I half wish I weren’t attracted to Nolan. Mostly though, I wish I was alone with him. But I’m not, so all I can do is play it up for the camera. I lick the popsicle some more then give my killer groan.
“Mmm,” I murmur. “So good.”
My co-host stares hotly at me as I make out with the cherry ice, then he releases a long, heavy sigh laced with sexual frustration. Is that real or for the cameras?
“Yeah, I’d say that’s pretty good,” he says, his voice cracking.
It sounds as real as I feel, and I better judge this popsicle soon, or I’ll need to stick it in my pants to cool off.
“I declare this an eight point seven five,” I say, holding it high.
Nolan gives it a seven. “But would you do it again?” he asks.
Yes.
The thought of doing him again is too delicious to deny.
“Perhaps,” I reply. “I could put this popsicle in my mouth over and over.”
Because we have to give the network what they want.
Once we’re done with the rating, we segue to the interview. Surely, talking to Lucía will be easier for Nancy and me to handle.
“So, why Long Food? What inspired you?” I ask.
The bosomy babe has confidence for days. She drags a bright pink nail along the counter, then her eyes drift to the two men in the vests cooking up corn dogs and prepping pickles. Her expression goes a little loopy and warm. “My two guys. We’re together—the three of us. We like to have fun in all sorts of ways. I wanted people to come here and have a good time, and to think about maybe what they could do afterward,” she says, owning her sexuality and her business, just like that.
I file that away—how she blends both those things, along with romance. This is a woman who is making it all work.
“So, food is foreplay,” Nolan chimes in.
Lucía’s warm brown eyes glitter. “It is if you let it be. Speaking of, you should try the strawberry shish kebabs dipped in chocolate,” she urges with a purr.
Nolan turns his dreamy hazel gaze on me. “Want some?”
My chest feels all kinds of flippy from the question. Want some? I want everything.
“I do,” I answer. If the viewers like “what-if,” we’ll give it to them.
The what-if.
Lucía hands him the chocolate-dipped stick of fruit, and he offers it to me. I bite into a juicy strawberry, savoring the taste of the chocolate and the fruit. A gust of breath coasts over his lips as I eat. If he were a cartoon hero, he’d be drooling puddles right now—a bespectacled, muscled, charming, hot nerd hero, his carved jaw all agape.
And . . . I’m fantasizing about cartoon men now.
Great. Just great.