Page 31 of Holly Jolly Cake Fight
“What happened?” Natsuki asked.
“It was a technique I hadn’t tried before,” Candace said, “and I went at it the wrong way. I nearly dropped the whole cake, actually, so I’m just happy to have a cake to present to you at all.” She said that with the best smile she could muster. Honestly, it was true. Of all the disasters that had befallen her through her seasons, the absolute worst were always the ones when there was nothing to present. It was an automatic elimination.
Even if it was because the director was getting handsy in the pantry.
The couple nodded in understanding or sympathy; it didn’t matter which. Their decision had already been made, and the right one to send home was Candace.
“Belle,” Madison said, “we liked your cake, too. We weren’t wowed by your flavors, but it was well done. Neither of us could find anything to complain about. Even Natsuki liked it.” That was a great compliment, in fact. Natsuki was notoriously picky, and with good reason. Wedding cake wasn’t served and eaten immediately like birthday cake. It wasn’t unusual for the slices to sit for several minutes, even hours, before getting eaten, and the cake itself would have been sitting out for hours before that. A good cake now might be terrible later, and Natsuki had identifying that down to an art.
“When we saw this cake, though,” Ronnie started, gesturing to it with a scowl and a wrinkle in his nose. He gave a half-hearted shrug as though defeated by the thing’s very existence.
“This cake is hideous,” Madison blurted out when Ronnie’s silence went on too long. “I’m sorry, but the design is awful. It looks like my grandma’s wedding cake, but my grandma’s was all white, at least . . . or ivory. Something like that. The pictures suck. I don’t get why I spent fifteen minutes talking to you if you were going to take two seconds of that conversation to base your entire cake on. You wasted my time. You wasted our time. Mine and Ronnie’s and Natsuki’s.”
Everyone remaining on the contestant row was stock still, not even breathing. There had been some severe bashings over the years, but this was particularly scathing. Then again, messing with the bride on her wedding day could get someone taken out back and beaten. Candace was tempted to lean forward to see if Laurin was holding Belle’s hand, too, but she was too scared to be the first person to move.
She felt bad for Belle. Yeah, they were in a competition right now, and Belle was a bitch at even the best of times, but that had been terrible to witness. Belle’s cake was ugly, no doubt about it, but Candace was nearly ready to argue for the old bat.
But then Belle said, “I just wanted to bring some dignity to your wedding,” in that old grandma way that was also judgmental grandma, and Candace lost any sympathy for the woman. She’d gotten that speech at her own wedding. She may have been too pig-headed then to realize her mother was looking out for Candace in her own awful way, but she still wished her mother had shown her kindness on that one, singular day.
Ronnie took Madison’s hand the way Laurin still held Candace’s, absently but reassuringly, and said, “Candace, Belle, we expected more from both of you. Knowing these came from bakers who we had great respect for, knowing what you could have done but didn’t, really did hurt us.”
Candace wasn’t sure if she had leaned or if it was Laurin, but their arms brushed against each other, and the contact was good. She could hang her head in shame and know someone was watching out for her.
“Ultimately, this was about which cake we’d rather share at our wedding.” Madison sighed. “We wouldn’t want either, but if we had to pick between the two, we’d rather one that didn’t look very good, but the baker was at least thinking of us. This wedding is about us, not about impressing our guests. I’m sorry, Belle, but we choose Candace.”
Candace had struggled to keep herself calm all day. She’d been so ready to say goodbye now that raw emotion broke loose in a rough sob. She spun away to escape the prying cameras, not wanting anyone to witness her melting down over good news like a crazy person.
Laurin caught her and pulled her into his arms. “You made it,” he said as he rubbed her shoulders briskly. “You’re going to do better on the next challenge, and we’re going to get all the way to the end together, right?”
She nodded on a ragged breath, breathing in all his scents, allowing herself to relax in the flour and vanilla and musk. In the warmth.
“That’s my girl.”
“Think she’s coming back tonight?” Zara asked as she laid down three queens on the table.
Harper set the fourth queen down in front of herself. “She’s had a rough day. She and Jannie are friends, right? It’s probably for the best if they spend the night in Jannie’s trailer.”
Laurin didn’t agree with that any more than he agreed with the way Zara, who had been hesitant to play cards with him at all because of how murky the rules were with card games in Islam, had turned out to be quite the rummy ringer. Candace and Jannie were friendly, sure, but he wasn’t sure how good of friends they really were. Jannie hadn’t ever come by after hours, and Candace had never been anything but solitary in her excursions around the park. He was sure Jannie had other stuff to do while they were taking breaks from filming, but friends would find some time together if they only saw each other a couple times a year, right?
Laurin didn’t want to vent about it, so he shrugged vaguely and picked up the top card. It was, predictably, useless, so heset it back down. Also predictably, Zara snatched it right up off the discard, and Laurin figured she was about to do something completely mind-blowing with it, but the front door flew open so hard the TV rattled.
He shot to his feet and grabbed his chair, prepared to use it as a weapon if they were being attacked, but that gut instinct was preposterous and made far less sense than the reality of the situation: Jannie half-carrying, half-dragging Candace through the doorway.
“I can walk. I’m fine,” Candace said . . . or, that was how Laurin translated it, at least. The woman was trying her hardest to walk on her own, but her feet kept flipping over, and Jannie wasn’t strong enough to carry her.
“What’s wrong with her?” Zara cried out, backing up into a corner.
Harper laughed brashly at the girl. “Drunk as a skunk, from the looks of it.”
Jannie frowned. “I didn’t mean it, I swear. I wasn’t thinking when Candace asked for a drink. I just wanted her to feel better.”
“You weren’t thinking about what?” Laurin asked as he dipped down to get his shoulder up under Candace’s arm.
“The girl doesn’t drink,” Jannie huffed. “She used to, back when she first started doing these shows. Her marriage was falling apart then, you know? She was doing her best, but the stress did her in. She quit drinking, oh—”
“I’m right here!” Candace bellowed, her body suddenly going from limp noodle to elbows of fury. Laurin had enough experience dealing with much larger, much stronger, much drunker teammates, so he dodged the blows easily, switching hishold to stand behind her and pin her arms back. “Lemme go! I’ll cry assault, I’ll do it! I’ve neber . . . neb . . . benner . . . never done it before, but this is the time! I got all these witnesses and-and-and—!”
And limp noodle. Her knees went right out, and Laurin had to do some fancy side-stepping to avoid trampling her legs.
