Club Classic

She just stared at him. Then at the handcuffs. Then at their wrists. Then at his hoodie.

She looked back up at him with deeply unnecessary seriousness. “Okay.” Suki held up her free hand. “First of all; allegedly stole your hoodie.”

She glanced down at herself, taking a moment to come up with some story, but nothing could stick with her mind all over the place. “…Actually no, this is definitely your hoodie.”

She pinched the sleeve. “This thing is like three sizes too big and smells vaguely like coffee and poor decision-making.” Her brown eyes narrowed slightly. “Which is not an insult.” Then she pointed at him, "Second of all, I did not lose a fight with my earring.”

She reached up and felt around. Found only one. Took yet another moment to process (well, attempt to). Offense spread across her face. “…I strategically retreated.”

Suki shifted and the handcuffs clinked again. She looked down at them. Then back at him. Then she squinted at him with suspicion. “You know what I’m hearing?” She nodded thoughtfully. “That you’ve accepted the situation surprisingly fast.”

Her gaze drifted over him with theatrical consideration. “No visible panic. Good posture. Moderate sarcasm.” She gasped. “Oh my god.” She pointed at the other, accusingly. “You’ve totally done this before.”

Then came the raccoon comment. Suki froze. Slowly turned. Her eyes narrowed. “…Okay, first of all?” She crossed her arms as much as the handcuffs allowed. “That feels weirdly accurate.”

“But I need you to know I would not accept a dare from a raccoon immediately.” She considered. “…There would be follow-up questions.”

Then, the glitter handcuffs. She stared at them. The glitter caught the light. Her expression shifted. Recognition. Then immediate regret. Then immediate delight. Suki snapped her fingers. “Oh.” She pointed at them. “I know these.” Her face lit up. “These were from a bachelorette party.” She looked at him. Then around the room. Then back at him. “…I do not know why I had them.” A lie. She brightened. “But this is good.” She held up their wrists. “This narrows the timeline.”

Her expression became intensely investigative. “Question.” She leaned in, “Do you remember anything after midnight?”

“Because my last clear memory is somebody saying...” She frowned in concentration. “Wait.” Her eyes widened. “Oh no.” She looked at him.

“…I think.... I think...” As quickly as it came, it left and she pouted. "I need brain fuel, like, right now."

"Well," she drawled, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear, hazel eyes glinting with amusement, "as a woman who has spent a concerning amount of her life making questionable decisions involving animals and heavy machinery, I feel morally obligated to support chaos."

She glanced at Suki’s flour-covered face and bit back a grin that didn’t quite succeed.

"Also, for the record, you look adorable. Very… artisanal. Like a tiny woodland baker who got distracted halfway through a nervous breakdown."

Setting down the rolling pin, Katie leaned against the counter beside her, shoulder nudging lightly against Suki’s.

"So my vote is yes. Dino nuggets. Maybe jalapeños if we’re feeling brave. And if this turns out terrible, we’ll call it a creative experiment and eat ice cream straight from the carton." Her smile softened, warm and unmistakably fond. "Besides," she added, "Friday nights are a lot more fun when nobody’s trying to be normal."

The woman had been in the middle of flattening one aggressively stubborn section of dough when Katie said adorable.

She stopped and very slowly turned before squinting. “…That was suspiciously specific.” Her hands planted on the counter. “A tiny woodland baker?” She gestured at herself. “This feels less like a compliment and more like you encountered me in folklore and barely escaped.”

She reached up and touched her cheek again. More flour. Somehow. Suki stared at her fingertips. “…I’m actually losing control of where the flour is originating from.”

But then Katie continued, and Suki’s expression softened before she could stop it. Questionable decisions. Animals. Heavy machinery. Supporting chaos. There was something about the way Katie said things that made bad ideas sound weirdly trustworthy.

Then came: Friday nights are a lot more fun when nobody’s trying to be normal.

Suki looked at her for a second. Then around the kitchen. At the uneven dough. The sauce crime scene. The open freezer. The flour cloud that had become less of an ingredient and more of an environmental condition.

And she smiled, though it was small at first. It then grew bigger. “…You know.” She picked up the bag of dino nuggets and held it between them. “I think this might actually be my ideal Friday.”

Her eyes flicked sideways toward Katie. “Not because of the pizza.” A moment cut in between them. “Well, partially because of the pizza.”

She turned and pointed at the counter dramatically. “But mostly because there’s something really satisfying about making a complete disaster with someone who doesn’t immediately try to fix it.” She looked at Katie with a 1,000-watt grin.

“And for the record?” Suki picked up a pinch of flour and lightly tapped the end of Katie’s nose with it. “There.”

She stepped back to admire her work. “Now you look artisanal too.”

Completely unrepentant, she turned back to the pizza. “Okay. Dino nuggets are approved.” She grabbed a jalapeño. Held it up and looked at Katie with a raised an eyebrow. “…But this?” A dramatic inhale followed. “This is where history remembers us as either visionaries or cautionary tales.” Then she started placing dinosaur nuggets onto the pizza with absurd concentration.

“T-Rex gets center placement. He earned it.”

"Honest truth, I think we went into this thing knowing that we were gonna make a mess and... well... here we are," they placed their hands on their hips and looked at the dough in front of them, before turning their attention over to Suki with a grin. "It's a good look for you, maybe you should go out like that all the time, see what kind of compliments you could get?" Or see how many people asked her if she just left a pizza factory explosion. Either or.

" ... honestly, don't you think it's a little too late to ask a question like that?" After all of this time, after all of this mess, why would they even dream of doing something that resembled normal? "Get the dino nuggies. It's basically like... chicken parm pizza that way, right? But with a special touch of childhood nostalgia, and if you ask me, that's absolutely the best kind of pizza that anyone could ask for!"

Suki looked around the kitchen. Flour across the counter. Sauce somehow on the cabinet. A measuring cup in a location that suggested active resistance. The dough itself looking less like a circle and more like it had escaped containment.

She crossed her arms. Studied the scene. Then nodded solemnly. “You know what?” She pointed at Stelly. “That’s fair. We cannot legally blame Pizza Thyme for this.” Her eyes drifted toward the dough. “…Morally? Jury’s still out.” She pressed her lips together to stop smiling and failed almost immediately. Because Stelly was right.

This had stopped being about making pizza approximately twenty-three minutes ago. Now it was an event. An experiment. A highly inefficient but emotionally successful use of time. Then they mentioned her look. Suki blinked. Slowly reached up and touched her cheek. Flour. Looked down. Flour. Looked at her shirt. More flour. Her eyes narrowed.

“…You think this is a look?” She leaned dramatically against the counter. “Interesting.” She tucked imaginary hair behind her ear. “Do you think people would stop me in public?” She lowered her voice, "Excuse me miss, your aura is incredible. Are you a baker?" She straightened. “No.” She pointed upward. “They’d think I escaped from a pottery class.”

But then Stelly said get the dino nuggets. Suki froze. Her expression shifted instantly into delighted seriousness. She grabbed both of Stelly’s shoulders. “You understand me.” She said it with the gravity of someone discovering a long-lost ally.

“That’s exactly what I’ve been saying.” She marched to the freezer and retrieved the nuggets. Held them up. “People hear dino nuggets and they think childish.” She started arranging them on the counter like a chef planning a tasting menu. “But what I hear is playful texture contrast.” Placed one down. “Nostalgia.” Another. “Form.” Another. “Whimsy.” She held up a triceratops. “And this little guy?” She looked at Stelly, “This is innovation.”

Then she turned to the pizza and paused. Looked at the absolute state of it and then grinned. “…Actually, you know what?” She set a dinosaur nugget directly in the center. “If this pizza comes out good, we tell everyone this was intentional.”

“If it comes out bad…” She looked at Stelly. “…we call it deconstructed and become impossible to argue with.”

Watching the younger woman accidentally get even more flour on herself, Jayla stood back, failing at any effort to stifle her giggles. "Chaotic to you and chaotic to me have two very different meanings.. Though dino nuggets don't sound half bad.." She smiled, pondering the idea. Jayla's idea of chaos was more the fact that she was opting to risk the use of real dairy cheese in this creation. However, she could be creative too. "Let's see what else is in your fridge that we can use?" she asked, curious enough to at least consider topping options beyond pepperoni.

Suki looked up from aggressively negotiating with the dough and immediately caught Jayla trying, and failing, to hide her laughter.

Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, you’re enjoying this.” She pointed at her with flour on her fingers. “You have the energy of someone at an aquarium tapping the glass while the octopus solves puzzles.”

Looking down at herself, she realized she had somehow accumulated more flour despite touching objectively fewer things. Suki blinked. “…How.” She brushed at her shirt. The flour spread. She stared at it. “That feels targeted.”

But then Jayla mentioned checking the fridge. Suki’s entire expression changed. Her posture straightened. Her eyes widened. Slowly, dramatically, she pointed toward the refrigerator. “Oh.”

A grin spread across her face. She walked over and opened the fridge like she was revealing a secret weapons cache. Inside was a completely normal fridge. To Suki, however: possibility.

She started narrating immediately. “Okay, inventory.” She pulled things out one by one and lined them on the counter. “Half a red onion.” Thunk. “Questionably old spinach.” Thunk. “Three kinds of sauce for reasons unknown.” Thunk. “A singular bell pepper.” Thunk. She held up a jar. “…Capers?” Her eyebrows rose. “When did I become an active participant in a capers household?”

She set them down and continued. Then she found shredded mozzarella. Suki held it up and turned dramatically to Jayla. “Oh.” Her face softened immediately.

“The forbidden cheese.” She said it jokingly, but her eyes flicked to Jayla for half a second; just checking, making sure the joke stayed a joke and she wasn’t making light of something she took seriously.

Then she brightened again. “Okay. Options.” She pointed around the counter. “Classic.” Pepperoni. “Experimental.” Mac and cheese plus dino nuggets. “Suspiciously sophisticated.” Caramelized onion, spinach, bell pepper. She looked at Jayla. Then grinned. “…Or.”

Her voice lowered. “We do half normal pizza and half What Happens Happens.” Suki reached over and lightly bumped her shoulder against Jayla’s. “And if it’s terrible, we never speak of this again.”

“But if it’s incredible?” She grabbed the sauce dramatically. “We become insufferable and tell everyone we invented pizza.”

Turning her head, she giggled at Suki's comment. The roommate's Friday night activity, which developed into chaos, seemed entirely on-brand for them. "Absolutely devious for this, convincing us we could be novice pizza makers, until you realize it's harder than it looks," not that it was on her bucket list, but she would at least like to have thought it was something she could've been decent at, having the potential steps to success, but seeming anything but. "It could be a ploy to give up and just order from them. But nevertheless...we persist."

With the dough shaped after a few moments, in an oblong shape that seemed pizza-shaped, she eyed the toppings before letting out a small gasp at Suki's suggestion. "Wait, should we? Unconventional toppings often turn out the best, or maybe it's my slightly unhinged desire to see how Dino nugs taste on a pizza. Maybe I'm just hungry, but everything is sounding good right about now."

Suki stared at the dough in Aisha’s hands with the kind of expression usually reserved for failed science experiments and mildly offensive customer service experiences.

Then she looked at their counter. Then at the flour. Then back at Aisha. Her eyes narrowed. “…You know what?” She planted both hands on her hips. “I think you’re onto something.”

She pointed dramatically at the pizza kit box. “This is absolutely propaganda.” Her voice lowered into fake conspiracy. “They make it look whimsical. Two smiling people in matching aprons. Flour artfully dusted across their cheeks. Thirty minutes later they’re holding a perfect pizza and laughing.”

She gestured around the kitchen. “Meanwhile actual reality is two adults negotiating with dough that behaves like a hostile lifeform.”

Suki leaned closer to inspect their oblong creation. She nodded slowly. “This shape?” She tapped the crust. “This is artisan.” Another pause. “…Rustic if anyone asks.”

Then Aisha affirmed dino nuggets. Suki went completely still. She turned. Very slowly. Their eyes met.

And Suki’s face lit up with immediate, dangerous enthusiasm. “Aisha.” She placed a flour-covered hand over her chest. “That might be the smartest thing anyone has ever said to me.” She grabbed the bag of dinosaur nuggets from the freezer and held it between them like a sacred relic, ignoring the fact she only thought the idea was smart because she came up with it herself.

“Think about it.” She started pacing. “We already accepted this pizza isn’t traditional.”

One finger up. “Barbecue pizza exists.” Second finger. “People put hot honey on pizza.” Third finger. “People put entire salads on pizza and society survived.” She held up the nugget bag. “So who are we, artists, to deny evolution?”

Then she gasped. Her eyes widened. “No.” She turned to Aisha. “No, wait.” She pointed at the dough.

“We cut the dino nuggets into little footprints across the pizza.” Her expression softened into delight. “Actually no, scratch that.” She looked at the bag. “We let them stay dinosaurs.” Then she grinned.

“If this works, we accidentally become geniuses.” She reached for sauce. “If it doesn’t…” Suki shrugged. “…we were already considering ordering pizza anyway, so technically this is low-risk innovation.”

Jo looked at her. "Define normal pizzas..." she teased her slightly. "Because my idea of pizza is barbecue sauce and lots of chicken and garlic," she mused. Joella turned to grab a dishtowel and handed it to her friend. "Just a little bit. You got a little bit right there," she tapped her nose to show her.

At the mention of dino nuggets. "Okay... you've won me over, are they in the freezer?"

Suki looked personally offended for approximately half a second. Then she pointed at Jo with dramatic betrayal. “Barbecue sauce?” Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “With chicken?”

“…Okay wait no, keep talking. I judged too early.”

She accepted the dish towel and immediately dabbed at her nose with entirely too much seriousness for someone who apparently had only gotten flour on one tiny spot. She checked the towel afterward like evidence had been collected.

“Thank you. This is exactly how kitchen disasters begin. First it’s flour on your face, next thing you know you’re on one of those baking shows crying over collapsed pastry.” She tossed the towel over her shoulder and leaned against the counter.

“But normal pizza,” The raven-haired woman continued with exaggerated authority, “is tomato sauce, cheese, maybe pepperoni if you’re feeling bold. Things that don’t sound like somebody accidentally opened the fridge and said yes.”

Her expression softened immediately after. “…Although barbecue chicken pizza does rank higher than pineapple.” There was a moment she was in thought. “Which I will not be debating publicly.”

Then Jo mentioned the nuggets. Suki froze. Slowly turned. Eyes wide. “Jo.”

She stepped forward and lowered her voice like she was revealing classified information. “You thought I brought up dino nuggets as a hypothetical?”

She opened the freezer with a magician’s flourish. Inside: a partially opened bag of dinosaur nuggets.

Suki looked back at her with absolute triumph. “I am many things. A liar is not one of them.”

She held up the bag. “My proposal: we make the pizzas, but while they cook, we bake emergency dinosaur nuggets.”

A serious nod. “Because if we accidentally make weird pizza and regret our choices, we need a backup plan.”

Then she grinned. “And if the pizza turns out amazing?” She lifted the bag higher. “Victory nuggets.”