All’s Fair In Love and Cupcakes

by Betsy St. Amant

  Or maybe she really was that eager to leave town.

  He gathered up her trash. “Don’t worry about it. You know we high school football coaches are rolling in the dough.” He lobbed their garbage into a nearby can and picked up his cup for a last swig of soda.

  “Right. Cookie dough, maybe.” Kat grinned and slid the edge of her cup, thick with cold condensation, along the curve of his neck.

  His heart lifted even as he fought back the involuntary shiver. She was back. For a minute, anyway, and he’d take it. “I’ve told you not to start battles you can’t finish.” He grabbed for her, but she dodged his attempt with a squeal.

  “Who says I can’t finish this one?” Her eyes sparkled—even bluer than the stripes in her multicolored top—and carried a hint of challenge.

  Game on.

  He faked a lunge to the right, and as always, she fell for it. He was ready at the left when she sidestepped, and he spun her around and held her against him, ignoring the clawing grip she used on his forearm, and swiped his drink cup over her neck, cheek, and forehead.

  She stumbled away, giggling and gasping for breath and dabbing at her face with her sleeve. “Not fair! I have on makeup.” She checked her sleeve. “I used to, anyway.”

  “You don’t need it.” A standard argument of theirs. Maybe one day she’d listen. Or at least not care enough to have the debate. He grabbed her hand, tugging it away from the compact she fumbled with inside her purse. “I told you not to start something you can’t finish.”

  Or maybe that’s what he’d done.

  He squeezed her hand, and she responded with the same pressure, sending a chill racing up his arm. Her gaze ran from their connected palms to his eyes, then away. “We should get back to the hotel. Need to get up early tomorrow for the big day.”

  And that was that.

  He let her hand slip away, hating that it felt like he’d lost a whole lot more than the warmth of her fingers. “You’re right. Let’s head back.” Or maybe . . .

  They said the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, which was probably true enough, but he knew one surefire way into Kat’s.

  “Or we could get dessert first.”

  A slow smile started at the corners of her lips, and she tilted her head. “Cupcakes?”

  “Over my dead body.”

  She snorted. “That can be arranged.”

  “Brownies?” Lucas didn’t even have to hope. She had no idea how predictable she was. Or how adorable she was while being predictable, for that matter.

  She licked her lips. “Okay, you’ve been pardoned. Bring it on.”

  Oh, he would. This wasn’t over.

  Not by a long shot.

  nine

  You did finally make a decision on which recipes you would use this week, huh?”

  Lucas dipped his spoon into the chocolaty glob, which the nearly deserted diner called a brownie. Kat preferred to think of it as one hot mess plated on the checkered table between them. Brownies should have some sort of form and texture. Substance. Consistency.

  This was like fudge soup. With crumbs.

  She set her spoon down on her napkin and started to answer his question, but he interrupted with another.

  “You don’t like the brownie, do you?” Lucas stopped midswipe for his next bite, and studied her, the corners of his mouth teasing into a grin. “And it has nothing to do with the taste.”

  “What do you mean?” She tucked her hair behind her ear and took a sip of her lemon water. She wasn’t that predictable.

  “You’re mad that it’s not following the rules.”

  On second thought, apparently she was.

  “I know it doesn’t make any sense.” She stuffed her spoon into the mess and licked it, just to prove . . . something. “I’m the baker who experiments with new and crazy recipes almost every day.”

  “But you’re also the baker who nearly had a panic attack when I threw in those chocolate chips last minute. There’s still a lot of order to your creativity.” Lucas dug back into the so-called brownie, and she slowly followed suit. He had a point. She hated the confines that others constantly put her inside.

  Yet she was terrified to leave them.

  Talk about a hot mess.

  She took another bite. The brownie tasted great, especially considering it came out of a hole-in-the-wall diner on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Who cared that it wasn’t traditional? She, of all people, should appreciate that. And yet . . .

  Sometimes she just wanted what she expected.

  She darted a look at Lucas, who seemed too immersed in their dessert to notice anything odd lingering between them. Maybe it was just in her imagination. Once they’d started eating their burgers, they’d found their usual rhythm, even horsing around with their cups, and she had hoped that everything was normal. That their relationship hadn’t actually tumbled down the rabbit hole à la Alice in Wonderland.

  Yet she missed him. And on top of that, this strange part of her heart missed the parts of him that she’d never known.

  “You never answered my question about the recipes.” Lucas used his finger to steal the last drizzle of chocolate off their shared plate.

  “You never let me.” She quirked her eyebrow at him, just because she could and just because he hated it when she did.

  “I think you’re procrastinating now.” He wiped his hands on a napkin and leaned back in his chair, pushing two legs up from the tiled floor. “You don’t have a clue what you’re going to bake, do you?”

  “I have ideas.” She finished her water to procrastinate further. She knew what her specialties were, knew which recipes she felt the most comfortable with, and knew which recipes were the safest.

  She just didn’t know which of those categories the judges would most appreciate.

  “Besides, it seems like the rules vary from show to show.” She signaled the waiter for their check, determined to pay for this—ahem—brownie, even though she’d also bought their dinner at McDonald’s. She wasn’t sure what she needed to prove, but she really didn’t want to leave LA owing Lucas a thing.

  The why of it all was what she refused to dwell on.

  “Yeah, that one episode had the Mardi Gras theme.” Lucas rocked back and forth slightly in his chair. How did he always do that without falling? If she even tried it, she’d be on her back on the greasy floor. She debated raising her eyebrow again just to even the score. “Which would have been perfect for you, representing Louisiana and all.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Maybe. I don’t do King Cake cupcakes, though. I’m not into people breaking their teeth on ugly plastic babies.” And she hated anything with green icing. St. Patrick’s Day was not her friend.

  “Then there was the wildlife benefit episode.” Lucas landed his chair on the floor as the waitress brought their check. “And the opera.”

  That could have been a fun one; she enjoyed music. “Don’t forget the literary episode.” The winning contestant had whipped up cupcakes representing Jane Eyre, several Jane Austen novels, and other classics that had inspired Kat to dust off her hardback copy of Pride and Prejudice and take a bubble bath.

  “You’ll figure it out. Don’t worry.” Lucas reached for the fake leather folder with the check on the table between them, and she lunged to intercept.

  “I’ve got it.”

  He pulled it out of reach but not before she snagged the end with two fingers.

  He tugged on his side of it. “Don’t be ridiculous. You had dinner.”

  “You had the cab rides so far.” She pulled harder.

  “So what? This isn’t a competition.” He smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “That’s tomorrow.”

  She refused to let go, unsure or unwilling to acknowledge why a knot of anxiety clogged her throat. “Let me pay.”

  “Seriously, it’s a nine-dollar brownie and free water. It’s all right.” He tried to pry the folder from her hands and snorted back a laugh as she held on. “Kat.” His
brow furrowed as the struggle continued. “Kat?”

  “I need to do this.” Why did her voice sound so strangled? And were those tears? She swallowed, and the knot shifted slightly. “Please.”

  His grip lessened but didn’t release as he lowered his voice. “Why is it so important?”

  The panic swelled into a wave, and she hung on to the folder as though it were a life preserver. “Because.”

  Because . . . because the brownie wasn’t really a brownie. And Lucas wasn’t really Lucas anymore. Nothing was what it seemed or should be, and tomorrow would be even weirder. What if partnering in the competition caused even more strain between them? She already got the vibe that he didn’t even want to be there.

  Or what if she somehow, during the stress of taping and during the course of all their alone time over the next few days, revealed her feelings for him and lost her best friend? She couldn’t owe him on top of that. She already depended on him too much as it was.

  And as long as she did, he’d never see her as anything other than Kat, anyway. The girl next door who baked for his football team, had an age-questionable obsession with Sinatra, and spent more time with cupcakes than she did with real people.

  The girl who couldn’t even convince her own family to believe in her.

  Her chest tightened, and she inhaled sharply. “Just let go.”

  And he did.

  Lucas couldn’t sleep, and it wasn’t because the bed was so soft.

  He woke up for the third time from a fitful doze, pulled on his track pants and running shoes, and pocketed his key card before slipping down the carpeted hallway. Maybe a few miles on the gym’s treadmill would clear his head, eliminate the echoes of conversation with Kat from their evening together—or at least make sense of her freak-out over the brownie bill. He still wasn’t entirely sure what that had been about, but she’d avoided any further conversation about it afterward, so he had too.

  He might not know a lot about women, but he knew enough to take their lead when it came to dodging awkwardness. If she didn’t want to talk about it, he definitely didn’t.

  But he couldn’t get the image of that panic in her eyes out of his head. He hurt for her, because something had made her hurt in those moments, and he didn’t have a clue how to fix it.

  He knew how he wanted to, but talk about increasing the awkward factor.

  He swiped his key card to get into the gym, grabbed a complimentary towel, and draped it around his neck as he headed toward the exercise equipment overlooking the adjoining inside pool. He had figured he was the only one who’d be working out near midnight, but a lone swimmer cut laps in the water.

  He guessed he wasn’t the only one who was stressed and unable to sleep.

  He warmed up, then cranked the treadmill speed up to a comfortable jog as he mentally ran through some plays for his team. Before him, through the glass window, the swimmer continued to make laps, one after the other, barely surfacing at each end before diving back under for another. Too bad some of his boys didn’t have that same level of dedication on the field. Hopefully, they weren’t slacking further in his absence.

  He increased his speed to a full run, grateful for the endorphins distracting him from the weird evening. He should be able to sleep well after this—the last thing he needed was to be yawning and groggy on camera in a few hours. He’d give it another half mile, maybe a little more, and call it quits.

  Swabbing his face with his towel, he dropped it back over the display screen and looked up just as the swimmer hoisted herself up to sit on the side of the pool.

  A very familiar, brown-haired, red-swimsuit-clad swimmer.

  His foot slapped the edge of the conveyor belt, and he tripped off the side, almost landing on the floor.

  What was Kat doing up?

  He sprung quickly to his feet, snagging his towel and shutting off the machine before limping his way to the pool door. His rolled ankle protested, but he refused to acknowledge it. He’d had enough sprains and breaks in his day to know his ankle wasn’t either, but there’d be a good bruise reminding him of his blunder for weeks to come.

  Not like he needed any more reminders to think of Kat.

  She looked up in surprise as he joined her, sitting with his knees pulled up to keep his feet out of the water and making sure to keep plenty of space between the puddle of water forming around her and his own weakness.

  “What are you doing up?” she said.

  Falling off treadmills. “Couldn’t sleep. Decided to run. You?”

  She averted her eyes to the water, glistening under the fluorescent lights above. “Couldn’t sleep. Decided to swim.”

  He averted his eyes, too, but not for the same reason she did. “I know you’re nervous about tomorrow.” Not nervous enough to pull that whole exchange over the diner bill earlier, but he wasn’t going to bring that up if she wasn’t. Kat knew he was there for her. If she needed him, she’d initiate it.

  She always did.

  “Not too much right now, but tomorrow, when they say ‘action,’ that’s going to be a different story.” She crossed her arms over her swimsuit, her hair sending rivulets of water down her bare arms.

  He pulled off the hoodie he wore over his T-shirt and wrapped it around her shoulders—as much for his sake as for hers. “Do they still actually yell action and slap a clapboard?”

  She tugged the sweatshirt closer. “Guess we’ll find out.”

  “You’re going to shine.” He shifted positions to accommodate his ankle. “You always do.”

  A hint of color flushed her neck, and he relished in the fact he could still make her blush. If he ever lost that, well . . . he’d have lost a lot. She might not return the feelings he had for her—yet—but that telltale blush still meant he affected her, meant his opinion mattered. Meant she needed him.

  Maybe he needed her just as much.

  The revelation throbbed harder than the pain in his ankle, and he quickly stood up. “I should get to sleep.”

  “We both should.” She stood as well, and started to hand him the hoodie.

  “No!” He shook his head rapidly. “I mean, you keep it. For the walk back to your room.” Even if she had clothes she’d brought down with her, it never hurt to have an extra layer. Especially the way she looked now, with her hair long and wet across her shoulders and her blue eyes striking against her makeup-free face.

  She shrugged. “I’ll walk with you. We’re on the same floor.”

  How could he forget?

  He returned his gym towel to the bin inside, then followed Kat to the elevator. She’d slipped some gym shorts over her swimsuit and kept the hoodie wrapped tight. “You really think I’ll do okay tomorrow?”

  He pressed the button to summon the elevator as Kat shivered beside him. “You’re going to be so busy that I bet the cameras will sort of fade away after a while. We won’t have time to be nervous.”

  “We?” She grinned as the doors opened and they stepped inside the deserted elevator. She jabbed the button for the seventh floor. “So you are nervous.”

  He crossed his arms, wishing he hadn’t implied that hint of truth. The last thing she needed was to feed off the little bit of his anxiety that kept popping up. He wasn’t camera shy, but this was actual TV, so it was more like didn’t-want-to-do-something-stupid-in-front-of-a-percentage-of-the-country shy. “Nah. Don’t think so hard about this.”

  He should probably take his own advice.

  The numbers above the doors ticked toward seven. One. Two.

  Kat watched them, and shivered again.

  “Come here, you’re freezing.” Before he could think, he pulled her into a warm hug, just like he’d have always done without a second thought.

  Except there was a lot of thought. Like about how she still fit so perfectly into his embrace.

  Floor three.

  How she let out a little contented sigh as her head tucked against his shoulder.

  Floor four.

  How the pool
water from her swimsuit soaked through the front of his T-shirt in a matter of seconds.

  Floor five.

  How her hair smelled like strawberries with a hint of chlorine.

  Floor six.

  He closed his eyes and held her tighter. Maybe the elevator would get stuck.

  Ding.

  He really hated losing.

  ten

  The studio was bigger than it looked on television. A lot bigger—and brighter. Hopefully she brought enough concealer. Between stressing over the taping and reliving Lucas’s extended hug in the elevator, Kat had barely slept.

  She covered a yawn with her right hand, peeking at her watch on her left arm at the same time. Seven thirty-five. Her late night swim had done little to clear her head, and Lucas’s compassionate attention had only amped up her nerves.

  Why did everything have to get so complicated between them?

  “Is it bright in here, or is it just me?” Lucas squinted at the fluorescent canned lighting shining down from the metal ceiling. Giant microphones on long sticks—they probably had a more technical name, but she had no clue what—protruded from stands, set up at various intervals around the judges’ table and six stainless-steel cooking areas.

  Wait. Six? There were usually four. What was that about?

  She frowned and turned away from the stations and what appeared to be a sound crew making last-minute adjustments, trying not to imagine herself behind one of those very counters, creating epic failures in hot pink wrappers. “No, it’s not just you. It’s bright.” Definitely needed more concealer.

  Now that they’d signed in, the producers were letting them get a peek at the floor before heading to the dressing rooms for makeup touch-ups and preshow interviews. That’s also when she and Lucas would finally meet the rest of the contestants. She had no idea which of the other people she’d seen at the hotel might be on the show too. So far here, she’d seen only the back of one girl’s head, a mass of curly black hair gathered into two bunchy pigtails.

  “They better not come at me with a makeup brush.” Lucas shifted Kat’s tote bag of personal essentials that he’d insisted on carrying for her to his other arm, his eyes scanning the wide room as rapidly as Kat’s.