The Beach Cookoff

The Cookoff

Amecia wasn't sure why there beach party had turned out this way. She was in the middle of pressing down a burger on a grill, the salty scent mixing with the scent of the ocean. Her friends were yelling and cheering her on, as she glanced over at Luca who had made his fifth burger already. She was falling behind.
She did have an idea of how this all started though...

.....
For college summer break, Amecia and her friends Luca, Riley, Alex, Carmine, Braylee, Hana, Mateo and Jules headed towards their favorite alcove on the beach where tourists didn't know about. Riley was driving his families SUV and blasting music no body wanted to listen to.
"Bro! Can we listen to something else?" Mateo shouted from the back seat.
"What? Like your screeching metal music?" Hana joked, taking her headphone out of her ear. Amecia listened to the ruckus of the car ride, smiling at all of her friends.
"What about K-pop?" Alex asked, who was also squished in the back seat. A few of Amecias friends groaned and no one could decided what to listen to.
"Well! We're here anyway." Riley commented as he pulled to a stop at what looked like the edge of a cliff. What Amecia thought was cool compared the tourist beach was, that there where stone steps that lead to a secret alcove and a small strip of sand before it lead to the water. Amecia stepped out of the SUV and took in the sun from the clear blue sky, letting the breeze tussle her short curly hair. Luca nudged her arm.
"You coming or are you just going to recreate that titanic scene all day?" He asked. Amecia punched his arm gently in response and followed the rest of the crew down to the beach. Soon everyone had picked there spots or had gone to the water. Luckily for lunch everyone had brought ingredients for hamburgers and Luca had brought the two grilles muttering something along the lines of
"I'm something of a chef myself." As the guys had lugged it down the stone steps. It was around lunch when it went down. Everyone gathered around, but Amecia realized there didn't seem to be any cohesion.
"So...uh...who's gonna make the burgers?" Braylee asked. Everyone glanced at each other and burst into conversation.
"Why'd we all bring ingredients if no one can cook?" Hana asked over the buzz of arguing.
"I can cook! I've worked at McDonald's." Alex hollered over the noise. "No you won't!" Mateo shouted back at Alex. Amecia would've offered to cook, but everyone was being too loud.
"Hey!" Luca shouted and everyone finally dialed down a bit. Everyone looked to him as if he were in charge, even though he wasn't. Hana leaned in towards Amecia conspiratorially. "Here we go." She whispered. Amecia crossed her arms. "I'll do the cooking." He said. Amecia made a 'pfft' sound and finally stepped up into the crowd.
"I can cook better than you." She responded, giving Luca a look. Even though she was a roommate with Luca, Hana and Mateo she felt like she was the better cook out of the two of them. Luca put his fists on his hips as a round of
'Ohhhhhhs' from their friend group.
"I vote that Amecia should cook!" Hana said, pumping her fists into the summer air.
"I vote for Luca." Mateo said. Alex stood where Luca and Mateo where as if siding with them. Braylee groaned as if annoyed and stepped over to Amecia's 'side.' Amecia crossed her arms, ready for some kind of battle of the chefs.
"Guys! Guys! Guys!" Jules said stepping between the two forming groups.
"We should totally have a cooking competition between Luca and Amecia. I've been binging this cooking show competition and it's down to the final two and they have a cook off!" Jules said getting excited.
"But I'm huuungry." Hana said, rolling her eyes. "And you know what happens when Hana gets hungery." Braylee said joking and slinging an arm over her shoulder. "We'll give them a thirty minute time limit then." Jules said, bouncing excitedly. Amecia and Luca glanced at each other. She was ready for this, even though it was just a stupid way to get lunch done.
"I'll set up the ingredients and the table." Jules said and ran to set stuff up.
Luca's friends pulled over to the side to make room for their 'competition'. Luca and Jules got the grilles ready and Mateo and Jules set the ingredients up, including the pre-packaged meat.
Amecia stood in front of one grille and Luca stood to her right with the other. Jules grinned and took out his phone playing some kind of intense copyright free music.
"This is the final challenge of the 'Beach Cookoff.'" Jules said, going into narration mode.
"Get on with it!" Hana shouted. Jules huffed and continued. "Amecia and Luca will have to cook twenty burgers each for their group of friends if they want to win." Jules said, eyeing Hana. Amecia looked at Luca. Twenty burgers!? She thought. This should be easy! Unless Luca was going to try something fancy with them.
"Are you ready?" Jules asked. Everyone shouted. "YES!"
"Three..." Jules began. Is this a race or some part of his show that he watches? Amecia thought.
"Two..." Luca got into a runners position as if this were one of Jules's tv show.
"One..." Jules said drawing it out a little bit.
"Go!" The two raced towards the table as they grabbed all kinds of ingredients they where going to use.
​​​​​​​...
That was how Amecia and Luca had gotten into this mess, with her beginning to lose right off the bat. Luca already had five burgers ready and the crew drooling over them.
"Come on Amecia, show some girl power!" Braylee shouted, pumping her fist in the air.
"Seems Amecia is a bit behind...how does that make you feel Amecia?" Jules asked, hovering near her. "Oh, shut up." Amecia said, trying to concentrate, sweat beading her brow. She finally got her third burger on a plate all of her friends watching intensely.
"I didn't think this would be that exciting but I'm getting into it!" Amecia heard Hana say as she pressed down another burger on the grille, the sizzle ringing in her ears, the smell of the burger penetrating her nose. She hand't looked over at Luca in a while, but she felt as if he was winning
....
Luca was surprised at how well he was doing at the contest. Despite all the shouting and everything, he was concentrating hard. He felt like Amecia might be getting the better of him.
Last summer he'd entered a cooking contest and lost, so he felt like he was trying to redeem himself from last time. He glanced over at her just briefly and with surprise he realize she was catching up with him. Hanna and Braylee were almost over her shoulder cheering her on. Luca smiled, seeing Amecias competitive side come out.
"Looks like Amecias catching up, Luca!" Jules said, trying to bring on the pressure. Luca didn't respond focusing on the task at hand adding seasoning to the burgers and then putting them together.
"You guys have twenty minutes left!" Jules shouted.
"C'mon! Luca! Kick Amecias butt!" Mateo called along with Alex and Riley. Carmine seemed to care less about the competition and was on her phone. It was getting pretty intense thought as both of them seemed to be getting enough burgers ready for everyone. You guys totally owe me after this. Luca thought, getting down to his final few burgers.
"Bet I can still make better burgers, Luca!" Amecia shouted, starting to have a good stack of them on her plate, where Hana looked like she was trying not to drool over them. There were a few minutes left now on Jules timer and he began the countdown to being finished. Luca felt sweat on his brow as he got the last few burgers on the plate and put together.
"Time!" Jules shouted as Luca and Amecia stepped back from their 'stations' as their crew came to inspect their lunch.
Luca smirked, feeling like he had a chance at winning more than Amecia. The rest of the crew gathered their burgers from each side and Jules asked in a whisper who they voted for. Amecia glanced at Luca.
"I'm pretty competitive, but it was still fun cooking against you." She said. Luca nodded, knowing in the end in it was just a game. He nodded. "Yeah. That was a fun way to bring in the summer." He said. "Maybe we could start a food truck." Amecia joked as the sun began it's brightest hours.
"That was a good game." Luca said and raised his fist. Amecia bumped it and they went to join the rest of their friends for lunch and the rest of their beach day.

The End.