“Mrs. Brooks,” Haruto said, a grin on his lips. “Ready to play catch?” he asked and held up a shrimp on his spatula.
Immediately, anxiety clenched my stomach. I wasn’t good with food-style games. Truthfully, I wasn’t good with objects flying at my face, period. I needed to shut this down before things got out of hand.
“Ohno.No, no thank you,” I responded through a nervous giggle. “Not me.” I shook my head and held up both hands in a universal sign of“Hi, I’m an anxious person who gets super awkward and weird when she’s put on the spot. Please don’t try to make me catch the shrimp in my mouth.”
Evidently, though, Haruto was determined. “You can do it, Mrs. Brooks! We believe in you!” He cheered me on. “Right, Mr. Brooks? We believe in her!”
“You got this, baby.” Kline nodded, playfully oblivious to my internal state of impending doom, but the instant his eyes met mine and his brain registered my wide eyes and my irrational anxiety about catching a tiny piece of seafood in my mouth, he tried to divert the attention on to himself. “Actually, Haruto, why don’t you toss that my way? Let me give it a shot first. Break the ice, so to speak.”
“Ah, Mr. Brooks, but ladies first.Always,” Haruto persisted.
“No, really. I don’t need to be first,” I protested. Haruto grinned, his spatula still aimed at me, and I shook my head. “Not me. Him.” I pointed maniacally at my husband with one index finger. “Do him. Make him catch the shrimp. He loves shrimp. Right, Kline? You love them so much!” More nervous giggles spilled from my lips, and I swear to God, my cheeks were so red, I’d need no costume to audition for the role of a lobster.
“Open up and sayah, Mrs. Brooks!”
“No, no, no—” I tried to stop him again, but he was determined to toss that damn shrimp into my mouth. Haruto, the pushiest spatula-shrimp-pusher that had ever pushed shrimp.
Peer-pressured into an awkward corner I couldn’t escape, I finally nodded like a bull rider in the chute, and no joke, he just let the suckerfly.Directly at my face without any prep or warning at all.
Like watching sand through an hourglass or water boil in a pot on a stove, it happened in slow motion at first. Hell, it was so slow, it gave time for a small part of me to woman up and believe that I could actually do it.
So, with my mouth open, I leaned back in my chair and tracked the shrimp as it floated through the air.
You guys, I swear, I’m trying. I really am. But it’s not going to happen.
In an instant, I went from a woman on a shrimp-catching mission to a woman feeling said shrimp bounce off her forehead as her chair jolted too far back, causing an outright free fall toward the ground.
A squeal jumped from my lips, my stomach lurched, and my hands reached out to try to stop the momentum, but there was nothing I could do. As I flailed like a lunatic, my chair continued its descent toward the ground, and I slammed one of my strappy heel-covered feet on something so hard that it felt like I’d inadvertently amputated my toes from my body.
Pain shot behind my eyes like a bullet. “Ah, hell!”
But that pain was swiftly made second priority whenbam!
Impact engaged.
In a crash-landing, my chair hit the floor with a harsh blow, and my whole body bounced out of it and onto the cool tile.
“Georgie! Shit!” Kline shouted, concern raising his voice as he jumped from his own chair to help me.
“Oh no, Mrs. Brooks!” Haruto’s voice joined in. “Are you okay?”
Between the pain from banging my damn toes on something and the shock of my body smacking into the ground, I had to blink a few times before I could even register their questions. The wind had officially been knocked out of my lungs and, consequently, right out of my special hibachi dinner sails.
“I’m fine—” I started to reassure them, but Yui’s panicked voice cut me off.
“Mr. Haruto!” She shouted at the top of her lungs. “The grill! The grill! Mr. Haruto, the grill!”
With me still on the ground, the sounds of panic and chaos erupted above.
“Oh no!” Haruto yelled, and hurried footsteps followed his voice.
With quick and strong hands, Kline helped me to my feet and ran his hands along my body to check for obvious injury.
The assessment didn’t last long, though, before the real urgency of the other emergency set in.
“Fire!” Haruto shouted. “Fire!”
It only took one glance toward the grill to figure out what all the hullabaloo was about.