Page 12 of Holly Jolly Cake Fight
Thanks to these rules, Candace ended up sitting with Greg’s taciturn teammate, Mark, at dinner, while Debbie Drops It got to sit at the table for four with the other veterans. Candace didn’t particularly want to sit with them, but Mark’s silence and the cramped room they were in meant she was stuck eavesdropping on the vets’ conversation.
“Honestly, I go into every season expecting to drop something,” Debbie admitted with a laugh as she mixed too many packs of Splenda into her iced tea. “I just hope to get past the first episode!”
“And not trip over a rug,” Hell’s Belles added with a quick glance at Candace.
Debbie waved the jab off. “I should have watched better. It’s not the first rug I’ve tripped over.” She didn’t say whether she thought Candace had deliberately flipped the corner up thatseason, but the way she twisted away from Candace made it clear enough.
Candace stared hard at the vegetable soup in front of her. It smelled tasty enough, but she wasn’t hungry.
Glitter Greg leaned in to whisper to the table, but his voice was one that could not be contained. “That little ladder-in-a-short-skirt move. Think the Queen’s up to her old games?”
Blood drained from Candace’s face. She hadn’t gone that high up on the ladder, had she? And the length of her skirt was what production wanted. She preferred slightly longer, but this was what gave her the best shape when she was in an apron. She couldn’t help that she had a backside more generous than fashion designers expected from her waist, but she did her best to make sure never to go too high on a ladder for that reason.
Laurin had stood right behind her. Was that intentional? And if so, was it so he could keep the camera from catching a bad angle or so he could sneak a peek himself?
And why did neither of those options bother her like they should have? She didn’t need to be protected by a man, and she certainly didn’t need to be ogled by one. This was the worst time to have warm, fuzzy feelings about any man, let alone a competitor, but her belly felt like champagne bubbles thinking about him.
She stood to leave. If she wasn’t eating, she didn’t need to hear the closest people she had to coworkers speculate about her, and she certainly didn’t need to be talking herself into feelings that had no place here. Laurin rushed to her side before she could leave, though, eliciting more champagne bubbles. “I heard it, too. He’s out of line.”
Candace shrugged out of his grip on her arm, needing to make it clear that she was unaffected by him. “Not really. Why are you so desperate to be my knight in shining armor, anyway? I just almost got us eliminated.”
“Yeah, and I’m thinking if you keep running away, you’re going to sabotage us again on the next round.”
Ouch.
He gestured to the table he’d been at. “Come sit with me and Zara. Even if you want to stay grumpy, you can at least help me encourage her. She’s having issues with Patty.”
Candace raised a brow. Perfect Patty could be overbearing at times, but she wasn’t one to cause problems.
“Patty’s been . . . less than respectful about Zara’s beliefs,” Laurin clarified.
The loudspeakers crackled to life before Candace could say anything. “Mike here! So here’s what’s happening.”
Laurin leaned into Candace and whispered, “Do you think we’ll ever actually see him?”
Candace chuckled despite her sour mood. “I’m not sure he’s even in the state.”
“We’re having some issues with the ovens in the pavilion,” Mike continued. “Electrician’s saying three days. We can still finish everything in two weeks, but we need those ovens for our next challenge. We don’t want to torture you guys or anything in the meantime, though, so we’re loading streaming services onto your TVs, and the campground hosts are lending us their equipment if anyone wants to go kayaking or biking. If there’s anything else you want — books, board games, whatever, as longas it’s unrelated to the competition — you can let . . . uh, is Jordyn down there? Uh, yeah, let Jordyn know.”
Candace scanned the dining hall for Jordyn-with-a-Y. She wanted to help Zara, absolutely. It was terrible if Patty was copping an attitude about religion, and Candace would be sure to say something to Jannie if she had a private moment. But she wanted out of the dining hall, and this was her out.
She spotted Jordyn-with-a-Y at a table with the floor manager and a couple production assistants. The woman was in the middle of eating and didn’t appear to have a list started or even the means to start the list, but Candace said, “Oh, there she is!” anyway. “Better go get her now before there’s a line.”
No shame in avoiding socializing or inappropriate fuzzy feelings, she told herself. No shame at all.
“I hate that you were right about this,” Zara lamented as she took one last wobbly step out to the edge of the overlook rock.
Laurin didn’t laugh at her or release the hand that was shaking in his. He didn’t comment on how much this reminded him of the first time he’d taken Vivvy hiking, either. He didn’t know if Zara would see the humor in the fact that she, as a twentyish-year-old — barely more than a child to Laurin, whose baby sister was about her age — squeezed Laurin’s hand far more tightly than a three-year-old had.
She was shaking a lot more, too, but that was to be expected. Three-year-olds have a lot of fears, but most of them are irrational. The fear of falling off this rock, down the cliff, and dying? Very rational.
“You’re from near here, right?” Zara asked as she lowered herself onto the blanket Laurin assured her was in a safe area and would not slide down. This was the perfect picnicking spot for the bold.
“Yeah, not so far.”
“Have you been here, then? Did you know about this spot?”
“Nah, I asked the campground hosts. But I’ve camped a lot in this area, so I figured we’d be able to get a view somewhere.”
