Page 38 of Holly Jolly Cake Fight
She remained silent for most of the afternoon, but Laurin wasn’t bothered by it. Instead, he relished in the few words she did say. She lifted the cup of tea he brought her to her nose and praised the scent of bergamot, she snapped a small section of puzzle together and laughed about the hidden kitten she found there, she cracked jokes about doing something interesting whenever the cameraman was distracted.
“Is that your game?” Laurin asked the third time she said it. “Do you keep yourself very boring when the cameras are on you so you can amaze everyone when you reveal what you’ve made?”
Candace peeked up at him, this time with a much livelier grin. “Nah, I’m just magic. I make sure everything is very nearly falling apart but delicious, so they can’t send me home. Their taste buds won’t let the words come out.”
Laurin laughed bodily, and even Candace’s shoulders started to shake, no matter how hard she was clearly trying to keep herself subdued. “Man, just think what we could make if we worked together, Candy.”
Candace immediately zipped back up at that, her neck bowing down and her hands flying back to the puzzle. “Please don’t call me that,” she said, her voice soft but polite, a little shaky. She wasn’t mad about it, she was scared, maybe sad.
“My apologies,” Laurin said. “I didn’t mean any—”
“It’s okay. It’s just . . . only one person has ever called me that.”
Laurin cringed, thinking it had to be either her ex-husband or Lucas who had given her the nickname. He wanted to talk a little more about Lucas, hopefully give her some advice on how to go through with reporting him, even though she wasn’t going to like it, or just let her get it all off her chest if she stubbornlyrefused to do the right thing here, but he wasn’t ready for that yet. He wanted to sleep on it, really think about everything she said about why she hadn’t reported him immediately.
She wasn’t ready for it, either, he suspected, and he didn’t want this to ruin the peace they had between them.
To his relief, she said, “My Aunt Miriam. Great-Aunt.”
“Was she an awful old biddy?”
Candace chuckled. “Quite the opposite. And she’s still alive, Great-Uncle Eustace, too, but the dementia’s done a number on him.”
Laurin grabbed one of her stacks of pieces, thinking now might be a good time to keep his attention off her. “My grandfather had dementia at the end. He was the reason my father got into football — soccer,” he corrected himself, even if it did feel dirty. He’d had his very arrogant days as a youth, fighting everyone about the proper name for the sport, going out of his way to say American football whenever anyone brought up what he still considered to be sensationalized rugby. “They both got to the professional level, but neither of them got off the bench much. Still, they had the jerseys and the rosters to prove how good they were.”
“Is that how you prove how good you are?” Candace asked, her voice tinged in disapproval. “With jerseys?”
“I prefer medals,” he said, “but I don’t need to prove myself to anyone.”
“Strange thing for a reality show contestant to say,” Candace mused.
He shrugged. “I was a fine footballer once, and now I’m a decent baker and a mighty fine decorator. Both talents I’ve doneout of love and for profit, and I’d like to profit as much as I can off it. Is that so wrong?”
The camera made a whirring sound, reminding Laurin that there was still a cameraman there, lurking in the corner, looking to pick up all the juiciest bits. Laurin stood by what he said, though. He was here for both love and profit, and hopefully, everyone else could say the same. This was far too stressful for anyone who didn’t absolutely love to bake.
“Not so wrong,” Candace conceded. “But I think you’ve forgotten something in all of that.”
“What’s that?”
Candace snapped a large chunk of puzzle to the border, securing the shape of it. “The glory. If you weren’t doing this for glory, you’d still be on the sidelines, coaching. You can’t tell me that’s not better money than what you and your mom make in the bakery.”
“Was never much for coaching, to be honest. I’ll agree that I do like the glory, but there was more to it than that. This is the first chance I’ve had at baking glory, after all, even if I did miss the competition.”
Now that Laurin was in a lower position, working next to Candace on his own chunk of puzzle, he could see the curl of her lips under the hood and felt better for the sight of her smile. She wasn’t arguing. She was making conversation. “When I started doing the Bake-Offs, Aunt Miriam got so excited that I was going to be competing again. It was so silly; I’ve never been good at anything, really, just these little pockets, but Aunt Miriam was always excited just to cheer me on about something.”
“What did you use to compete in?”
“Math bees.”
Laurin coughed. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Don’t laugh at me!” she cried out, even though it was her own laughter that broke his shock over such a bizarre competition. “It’s like a spelling bee, only with math problems. Math bees. And that’s the most sophisticated way of saying it. Trust me when I say every other name they gave them made them sound even nerdier.”
“So, you went up to a podium, and they gave you a math problem to solve? Were there questions . . . like language of origin, only, like, mathematical principle of origin, or . . .?”
She shoved him away, but it was a playful push. “Oh my god, you are making fun of me! Competitive math is really hard!”
Laurin held his hands up in defeat. “Hey, I’m terrible at math. I’d fail as badly at it as you would at soccer, I’m sure.”
