Page 9 of Holly Jolly Cake Fight
He left some in the pan in case she changed her mind, noting that she fussed with selecting a drink until he’d already sat down at the table, only afterward grabbing a bottle of water. She headed back toward the spare room with her meal.
“Why don’t you take a break for a couple minutes?” he asked.
She glanced desperately between the table and the spare room a few times before giving up and joining him. She sat next to him and kept her head down, avoiding eye contact, but he was a patient man. After five minutes of utter silence, she finally said, “Are you going to dust the oranges with sugar?”
Laurin mentally patted himself on the back. This feral kitty was nudging in closer. “I was going to dip them in syrup again for a more even shine. Do you think I should do crystallized sugar instead? Give some competition to . . . what did you call him? Glitter Greg?”
“I’m more worried about Perfect Patty ragging on those uneven coats.”
“You gave her a nickname, too?”
“Everyone gets a nickname if they do enough of these. None of them are very nice, but you get used to it.” She nearly fell for his ease and looked up at him but quickly darted her blue eyes down to her plate once she saw Laurin looking back at her.
“Even Belle? She’s like America’s grandma.”
Candace grunted. “Give her a couple more days, and you’ll see why we call her Hell’s Belles.”
“How about you?” Laurin couldn’t help asking. After Summer Bakes, there were probably dozens. Conniving Candace. Calamity Candace. Kissing Candace.
She surprised him with, “Queen Candace,” although she looked like there was nothing royal about it. “Don’t ask. I’m not going to explain it to you.”
“My teammates called me Friendly Fire,” Laurin said before she could run off. “This one match, I took a bad blow to my head. Thought I was fine, kept going. A couple minutes later, I got the ball and ran it all the way down the field — the wrong way. My mates were so stunned they didn’t get what was happening to stop me until it was too late. I scored on my own team. We lost the match because of that. It was my freshman year, and that nickname stuck with me the whole way through three football clubs. Some of my best mates call me that to this day. At first, they were mocking me, but now it’s just camaraderie.”
He’d gotten her attention, and her pretty eyes had settled on him, sparkling with mirth at the funny story. The corner of her lips even tugged up. Not enough to be a smile, though. In the end, it twisted into a snarl.
“There’s no camaraderie in mine, trust me.” She pushed her seat out too hard but didn’t run off until she’d washed her dishes and tucked the leftovers in the fridge.
She slammed the spare room’s door shut, and he thought that was the last he’d see of her for the evening, but then she peeked out and said, “I’ll help you string the oranges in the morning, if you want,” before closing herself back in.
He’d have her eating out of his hand in time — if they could just survive these challenges.
Candace realized how badly she’d misjudged things at the ten-minute warning.
The horseshoe of cabins had, at its center, a rough pole mounted with a loudspeaker. It was at eleven that morning, when she and Laurin decided they had done everything that they could to prepare and he was insisting they have a cup of tea, that the loudspeaker came alive. It was so loud it shook the windows of the cabin, and Candace had to cover her ears to keep them from ringing.
“Contestants! This is Mike. We’re going to open your doors in two min—What? Okay, three minutes. Jannie and Kate are set up out front here, cameras are ready to go live. Everything is automated in your cabins, so when we start filming, the screens mounted above your doors will air the main camera feed. You don’t have to turn them on or . . . okay, you do have to turn them on. Now. Go turn them on. If you can give us a thumbs-up at your window so we know it’s on. Don’t touch the glass . . . uh, crew, ah, crew guy. You, over there by Cabin #3. Yeah, see what they’re freaking out about. We have cameras on each of your porches, so when the door opens, I need everyone to rush outside holding a bunch of supplies. We need a big open here since, ha! The footage from the store sucked.”
Candace was glad Lucas Barrett wasn’t producing this season. She didn’t know if she’d have been able to do it if he was.But seriously, where did they find this Mike guy? She’d have to drill Jannie about it later.
“So we’re gonna need a lot more energy from you guys today. Just explode right out and get on those trees! We’re starting the timer at—you ladies good? Hey, crew guy? Your walkie, yeah? You got . . . oh. Hey everyone, there’s remotes for your TVs on the windowsill. We’re gonna put the timer at twenty-five minutes when you come out, but you have thirty minutes. At the twenty-five mark, we’re going to take testimonials, and then we’ll do the last five. The judges will be critiquing your toppers before you put them on, so keep those in your cabins with your edible samples. We good? Good, yeah.”
Candace thought they were doing well with their decorations — the tree filled up nicely, and the garlands they’d made tied it together — until they were told they had ten minutes left to decorate. She stepped out to see if that meant ten on the timer plus the additional five or ten total and got a peek at everyone else’s.
They looked so much better than hers.
Patty and Zara’s could have been an ad for a jeweler. With its silver bows, gold leaf popcorn balls, and diamond rock candy icicles, all it needed was some felt ring boxes. Debbie and Stephanie had gone tacky with pink and sea foam green, but the white chocolate shells and pink flamingo cookies made it ready for any Florida condo. Even Greg and Mark’s monstrosity, so glittery that when the sun hit it, it blinded, showed excellent craftsmanship. The decorations darkened in a flawless ombre from soft lavender to deep eggplant, the natural green of the tree providing an excellent canvas to showcase the work.
Candace cursed under her breath. Laurin asked if anything was wrong, but she shook her head. She couldn’t admit she’dmade a mistake. He had pushed her to plan, but it had seemed silly at the time. Christmas trees were either hodge-podges of handmade grade school ornaments or crates of pre-matched bulbs in her world. It made perfect sense to push Laurin away so he’d be forced to prove himself on this first softball of a challenge.
They were going to be sent home, and it was all her fault for not wanting to be friendly, even when the competition was on the line.
She returned to the tree, doing her best to straighten the decorations, making sure all the store-bought ornaments were evenly dispersed and the lights were zigged and zagged so they didn’t look like chains. Her eyes blurred, and her hands shook until Laurin quietly recommended she take a step back to make sure the overall look was good. His dismissal was obvious enough, but his tone was gentler and more respectful than she deserved. He was probably a really good dad, she thought as she followed his instructions and saw a couple spots that needed some balancing. He even smiled encouragingly as she shifted a section of lights around.
No attitude. No condescension or blaming. He had to be seeing what everyone else had done and had every right to be rude to her, but he wasn’t.
An alarm rang, and an announcement was made that they were to put down their current projects and return inside until the hosts came to them.
Their cabin was fourth, so they stood together in the foyer and watched the monitor as the crew moved from porch to porch, directing the contestants to look busy decorating while answering the hosts’ questions. Jannie congratulated Patty on her victory in Summer Bakes, and Kate gushedover Zara’s YouTube channel. They asked Patty about her favorite Christmas tradition and Zara if she had any experience decorating trees.
