Page 26 of Holly Jolly Cake Fight
Jannie made her little throat-clearing sound again, and the men both gave her a confused look. Candace understood, though; the events featured on the show were paid for by Food2Love, but they weren’t allowed to discuss that on the air. The guests for those episodes were always told this, but it was easy to forget in the moment, as well as easy to edit out if it wasn’t too frequently brought up. She got enough out of Ronnie’s answer, at least. Winter theme, but not chosen by the couple. So far, Laurin’s off-the-wall questions were getting better results, and Candace would give him that inch if she got her mile out of it.
He thought a little longer this time before asking, “The clothes you and Madison are wearing now, are they part of your usual wardrobe?”
Ronnie looked down at himself and laughed. “No. God, no. I haven’t worn a vest since my Senior Prom. I’m a civil engineer, so I don’t have much occasion to dress up. This is all Madison’s fashion. I just went along with it.”
“What kind of flowers will you be using for decoration?”
Ronnie frowned. “Honestly, I don’t really know flowers. Oh! I did see them, though. They’re really big and purple. On bulbs. The bridesmaids stuffed them in tubes with tiny Christmas lights last night. One of them posted a pic on Insta.”
He was trying his best, Candace knew he was, but that could be so many different flowers — irises, tulips, and crocuses all came to mind — that it was impossible to guess. Candace brought her hand up to her lips to chew on her nail, but Laurin grabbed her hand and brought it back down to the space between them on the love seat. He kept his hand over hers, out of view of the camera, the weight of it a good enough distraction that she could settle herself.
A couple more rounds of questions, most of them flops, and then the cameraman waved his hand as a cue, and Ronnie announced he had to go get tuxed up. They thanked him for taking time out of his big day to talk to them and remained seated while Jannie escorted him out.
“That went well,” Laurin said after the door closed.
Candace popped a speculative eyebrow at him. “Did you plant a bug on Madison or something?”
Laurin chuckled. “Nah, I just listened to the guy.”
“He couldn’t even say what the wedding colors are,” Candace reminded him. “The only thing we have to work with is the Winter Wonderland theme, and he didn’t sound too keen on it.”
Laurin shook his head. “You don’t do many wedding cake consultations, do you?”
“I had an assistant for that. And I’m sure you already know wedding cakes are not my thing.” All of America knew that. It had bothered Candace at first — wedding cakes made a lot of money — but that loss in the bank account was also a major reduction of stress. Overall, the show had been great for business. She’d gotten her payroll up to five full-time and six part-time employees before the flood washed it all away.
“Well, look. Color swatches are great, don’t get me wrong, but it’s the little stuff that really sells the cake. And reading between the lines, you know? I didn’t ask about the clothes because I care what they wear every day; I asked because I wanted to know if they somehow tied into their vision for the wedding. The cake is a focal point; if it perfectly matches the color swatches, it just blends into the venue anyway. At least, that’s what I’ve seen in my experience.”
“Seen a lot of weddings on the soccer field?”
Laurin’s frown reeked of irritation at her comment. Candace should have felt good about that — maybe laying on references to soccer was the way to get him to back off — but every snarky comment she’d made this week to push everyone away, especially Laurin, stung a bit more. This wasn’t her, not really. There weren’t many people left to vouch for her, but she was sure her few friends would agree she was good at heart.
“Don’t presume to know my life,” Laurin warned her. “You know exactly one thing about it. If you ever let your guard down for even a second to have a mature conversation with me, you’d see that’s a very small part of my life.”
Immediately chastised, as she’d already been on the edge of it herself, Candace dropped her head down and whispered, “Sorry.”
She tried to slip her hand out from the hold Laurin maintained on it, but his grip tightened. “You don’t have to be sorry. I only ask that you stop treating me like your enemy. I’d like to be your friend.”
The way he said it had Candace wondering if what he truly wanted wasfriendship.
Champagne bubbles fizzed in her tummy.
Chapter 11
The trick tothese competitions was always timing. There was never quite enough of it to make the goods required for the challenge in the proper manner. This was the case with Laurin’s madeleines, which should have been left to rest for several hours, and it was the problem with a wedding cake. Any other time, Laurin’s mother would have baked it the day before and left it in a cooler overnight. The icing and any fillings would have likely been made then, too. Any sculpted items, such as fondant figurines or gum paste flowers? Several days in advance.
The six-hour limit — including a half-hour break for lunch and two fifteens for interviews — meant a delicate time management dance for Laurin. He had to get an entire day’s worth of prep done in the first half, and he would have to do several steps out of order. Usually, he would have iced the cake and gotten it stacked before fully committing to a design, likely made extra decorations in case he changed his mind about the minutiae. He would let the cake rest for an hour in the cooler to make sure the icing was firm and ready to take the weight of the decor.
He could play nothing safe now. He reminded himself of that as he ran through the tedium of baking, checking off every tiny step as his mother had demanded. Preheated oven? Check mark. Lined pans? Check mark. Every single ingredient for three flavors of batters, one for each tier? About a hundred checks.
The ridiculous pace he had to keep meant he couldn’t look around to figure out what everyone else was making. It was just as well — he would likely have wasted a bunch of time without ever figuring it out. At this point, it was all mixers and food dyes.
Lunch was at the third hour, but Laurin hit a wall half an hour before that. His cakes were baked, his icings and fillings were made, his fondant was dyed. He stopped and took a step back, hating the fact that he was going to have to take a break in the middle of whatever his next project was. He was absolutely itching to get the cakes stacked, just to say he had something concrete to show for three hours of work. His design was ridiculously ambitious and hinged on something that could fail colossally. The smart project for now would be to blow the sugar and be assured that he would have his topper.
He couldn’t be smart, though. He had to be brave. He waved over a crew member and asked if there was a fondant ribbon cutter on the set, and the girl scurried off to find it.
“I thought decorating was your strength,” Candace said from behind him.
He could have taken it as a spiteful jab, but he preferred it to be a playful rapport. He responded in kind, with a laugh and a grin. “Indeed it is,” he said as he took a mental inventory of everything she had laid out on her table.
