All’s Fair In Love and Cupcakes

by Betsy St. Amant

  It would have been almost funny if Kat didn’t fear so badly that Piper was right.

  “Back off, Pigtails.” Tameka—or Tonya? One of contestants from Mississippi in the hot pink bustled her way between them, towering over Piper. “You ain’t being very classy.”

  Piper didn’t flinch. She just crossed her arms and looked up in the bigger woman’s face with a cool smile. “You focus on being classy. I’ll focus on winning.” She leaned around Tameka and pointed at Kat. “Which means beating you first.”

  Before Kat could react, all three women had gone back to their stations, Amanda still twirling her hair and Tameka huffing about “some people.”

  Lucas rubbed his hands over his eyes, then looked down at Kat and blinked. “What just happened here? That was worse than high school.”

  Maybe his experience in high school. This fit hers just about right, but Lucas hadn’t grown up in the shadows of the family tree that she had.

  Kat snatched the index card from his hand and began fanning herself faster. “Who knows? Women can be catty.” To put it mildly. At least Tameka had stood up for her, though the fact that someone had to rubbed Kat a little raw. Why couldn’t she be the girl who always knew what to say, always had the right timing?

  In her head, she was so much more than she was in person.

  She just never seemed able to pull it out at the right time.

  “That wasn’t catty. That was ridiculous.” Lucas paced behind their workstation, his voice low. “Who does she think she is? Some college-aged punk—”

  “Let it go.” She fanned faster. No point in dwelling on it. She wasn’t here to make enemies; she was here to make a good impression. With cupcakes. Not with clever retorts.

  Then why did she feel so slighted? And small?

  Lucas persisted, his voice rising. “But she’s trying to get in your head. It’s not fair. That’s such an unsportsmanlike way to compete.”

  She shushed him, and he lowered his voice an octave. “Sorry. I’m just saying—”

  “Lucas. I’m fine. Seriously.” Always her protector. She loved him for it.

  And hated that she needed it so badly.

  She dared a glance across the room at Piper, who was already staring at her. Kat looked quickly away, determined to ignore the girl’s pathetic attempts to psych her out.

  Attempts that were maybe working just a bit.

  “Sorry if I made it worse. I just don’t get people like that—and I’m as competitive as they come.” Lucas leaned against the counter beside her, effectively blocking her view of the Icing Queens. “Once we start baking, everything should settle down.”

  “If we ever do.” She fanned herself again with the note card. Why wouldn’t the director hurry up already? They’d been standing here at least an hour waiting for the taping to start. And earlier someone on the Red Shirt staff had mentioned candid interviews before they broke for lunch. At this rate, would they even tape before lunch? Her stomach growled, and she pressed her hand against it to stifle the noise.

  “She got to you, didn’t she?” The question came out more like a statement, like Lucas didn’t even really have to ask. Just knew.

  Was she that transparent? That obvious? If so, no wonder Piper had pounced on her. She was like a walking, apron-clad target.

  She couldn’t answer honestly without giving herself away, or at best, without tearing up. And she couldn’t lie to Lucas; he’d never believe her anyway.

  Thankfully, at that moment, Sam broke away from the man in flip-flops and called for everyone’s attention. “We’re about to start taping. Thanks for your patience, guys.”

  Someone from the back of the group snorted, and someone else giggled as if Sam had made a joke. Clearly, nerves were shot throughout the room. Kat struggled to take a deep breath, and avoided glancing at the cameras that began rolling into position around them. Hopefully not every day would be this nerve-racking. Once she got into baking mode, would she forget about the cameras? Or would they remain a constant, nagging presence in the back of her mind?

  “Welcome to Cupcake Combat. I’m your host, Sam Carson, and tonight is a special three-hour episode celebrating our fifth anniversary.” Sam breezed through the intro on the first take, plastic hair and smile firmly in place as he clasped his hands in front of him. “Our theme today in honor of our anniversary is We Love Cupcakes. Each round will feature a different element of love, and what better way to start than by acknowledging how love is all too often a circus?”

  The cameras panned back, and focused on a display table to Sam’s left, where a red tent and mini stuffed animals sat encircled inside a striped hula hoop.

  “In this round, our contestants will use inspiration from the Big Top to represent how love is a circus. Ready teams?” He grinned, and Kat’s heart raced into overdrive. “Everything you need is here in the stocked kitchen to my right. You may use anything you find on these shelves to help you create your masterpieces. Remember, in this round, decorations are scored the highest. So don’t hold back.”

  Kat’s heart constricted as Sam gestured to the giant ticking clock mounted on the wall above the judges’ table. “On your mark . . . get set . . . go!”

  The teams ran simultaneously toward the kitchen area as one big, cupcake-fueled herd. Lucas stayed at Kat’s side as she began frantically pilfering through the shelves. “What am I even looking for?” She couldn’t think. Could barely talk. Her fingers fumbled on the boxes of supplies.

  “Stop and think, Kat.” Lucas’s low voice briefly grounded her. “What’s your plan for recipes? Think about the theme first.”

  The theme. What was the theme? Circus. Yes. And love. Her thoughts scattered as her eyes roamed the contents of the shelves before her. Maraschino cherries. Pickles. Radishes.

  This wasn’t helping.

  “What about peanut butter?”

  She heard Lucas talking, making suggestions, but his words came through as if from a tunnel. Around her, the other teams had already gathered ingredients and were heading back to their stations. The beep of ovens being heated up filled her ears like a warning bell. She couldn’t freeze up now. But what happened to her creativity? All she could picture was a burnt, naked cupcake on a plate before a scowling judge.

  “Kat.” Lucas grabbed her shoulders and spun her to face him. She closed her eyes, unwilling to see the disappointment on his face at her failure—or maybe afraid of finding pity instead.

  “Look at me.”

  She couldn’t ignore him. She opened her eyes, wishing whoever had put that cement block on her chest would take it off. It was hard to breathe.

  But there was no condemnation. No judgment. And no pity.

  Just Lucas, smiling, like he had every time he’d eaten any of her cupcakes.

  “You’re in your kitchen, and I’m sitting at the bar. You’re asking me what you should put into this next batch.”

  His words washed over her, and she could immediately picture the scene. She closed her eyes again, this time to focus. Lucas, with his pile of magazines, rocking back on two legs of the stool and teasing her about ingredients. Pushing her. Making her consider combinations even she hadn’t thought about putting together.

  The panic subsided, and the answer came. “Peanut butter. You’re right. And animal crackers.” She opened her eyes and began pulling supplies from the shelves as images of the circus filled her mind. “And caramel. And chocolate chips.”

  Lucas’s smile widened, and his evident rush of pride toward her sent her sailing on air back to her workstation, arms almost as full as her heart.

  She became briefly aware of the cameramen taping Sam’s entire intro a second time, probably from different angles, but managed to tune them out as she began measuring flour into a cup and dumping it into the mixing bowl. No time for distractions. They only had forty-five minutes to make three identical, super cute, super impressive cupcakes—one for each judge.

  Lucas jumped in beside her, handing her utensils before
she even asked and anticipating her next move as they prepared the batter. She darted a glance at him from the corner of her eye as they worked.

  Maybe she really did have this.

  Lucas had a new respect for his chaplain friend Darren, and a new understanding of what the guy went through daily—putting out fire after fire and trying to smile the entire way through it because everyone looked to him for strength.

  He peeked inside the refrigerator, tested a cupcake with the back of his wrist, then shut the door with a thud. Still too warm for the icing. He signaled Kat across the room, who was busy sorting animals from the package of crackers they’d nabbed from the kitchen. Apparently it was harder than they’d thought to find ones with all their hooves and paws intact.

  He leaned against the side of the fridge, eyes warily raking over the room as contestants finished decorating their creations, every muscle in his body tense and ready to react. He couldn’t relax. First there’d been Piper’s flare-up of jealousy, or pride, or whatever the heck that had been before they started taping. Tameka had helped douse that one, thankfully, since Lucas had been too shocked initially to respond. Then again, there wouldn’t have been much he could have said that would have been appropriate in the first place. Too bad this wasn’t the football field, where you could take your aggression out in the form of a legit tackle.

  Piper would have been flat on her tutu in no time.

  Then there’d been Kat’s near panic attack in the stockroom. He knew she’d been nervous, but he hadn’t expected a full-out episode. She’d been too close to losing it—which just showed winning this competition meant more than it should. Of course, Piper had only contributed to her stress, which wasn’t fair.

  Man, he needed to get out of this estrogen-laden kitchen. He and the other two males on the teams did not make enough testosterone to counteract all this.

  He pulled the cupcakes from the fridge and turned just in time to avoid hitting the Harley guy’s arm with the tray as he rushed past. “Sorry, man.” The bandana-wearing biker smiled as he jumped out of the way. “My fault.”

  Lucas apologized in return as he toted the tray of cooled-off cupcakes to Kat’s workstation. Something was definitely wrong when a biker and a football coach could get along better than two women.

  It was going to be a long week. He really hated to admit that he had a feeling the fires weren’t out yet.

  And he really, really hated to admit that all of this was his fault. He’d put them there, and it hadn’t even accomplished what he’d hoped. If anything, it had made Kat even more insecure and unsure of herself, and it was causing strain between them because of their proximity to each other. He could only continue to hide his intentions for so long.

  What would happen when that particular buzzer sounded?

  A horn honked, and Lucas jumped, nearly dropping the tray of cupcakes on the workstation in front of Kat as Sam waved a bicycle horn from the front of the studio. “Ten minutes!”

  Kat mumbled something that sounded an awful lot like a word he’d never heard her say and then grabbed the icing bag. “Quick, make sure the crackers are ready for the top. When I finish icing, stick one upright in the middle and put the caramel corn around him.”

  Right. He could do that. He grabbed the bag of crackers. “Rhino or elephant?”

  She shot him a look that not only proved she could not care less but that he was less than genius for asking. Fair enough. Moving on.

  “What about the flag?” He’d cut those out of red fondant and assembled them on toothpicks.

  “Flags go last. Right in the middle.”

  He was grateful she had skipped past the panic mode she’d been stuck in earlier, but this bossy mode was starting to wear thin too. He’d tease her about it later, though, and they’d laugh. Only Kat could go from insecure wallflower to instruction-shouting diva in the space of forty-five minutes. But she’d apologize, and he’d be reminded for the thirteenth time that minute why he felt so much—

  “Lucas? Today. Today would be great.” Kat looked up from her death grip on the icing bag, jerking her head toward the cupcakes still cooling between them.

  Right.

  He quickly passed the cupcakes to Kat, and after she swirled buttercream icing on each one, he stuck them on the judges’ plates.

  She dropped the icing bag on the counter and wiped her hands on her frosting speckled apron. “Grab the crackers. I’ve got the caramel corn.”

  “Wait. The rhino lost his leg.” He held up the decrepit animal and its missing limb in both hands.

  “Then find an elephant.” Kat began pawing through the remaining crackers that lay on a napkin on the counter. “Or a monkey.”

  “There aren’t any monkeys.” He helped her search, wincing as a sheep head broke under his thumb. “Camel?” Her anxiety was getting contagious, as was the ticking clock and their mostly naked cupcakes.

  “Here’s a tiger. No, wait, it’s a bear.”

  He fought the delirious urge to add “oh my” to the end of her sentence, figuring all he’d get for his wit would be leftover icing shot into his face.

  Piper drifted slowly, intentionally, by their workstation, hands clasped behind her back, humming the Jeopardy theme song.

  Kat’s eyes darted to Piper, then to Lucas, and the anxious sheen in her gaze shot right through to his stomach. The diva had exited stage left, and the wallflower had returned. “Hurry.”

  Any frustration over her earlier bossiness drifted, and Lucas focused on the cupcakes before him. Forming an assembly line, they finished decorating with one minute to spare.

  He slapped her a high five, wishing he could just pull her into a hug instead, but if he did he might not let go. “You did it, Kat.” She’d pulled off the first round—against all odds, considering her shaky start.

  She sagged against the counter, shooting a careful glance back at the judges’ plates, and offered a weary grin. “No, we did it.”

  A smile broke through his hesitation. We. His personal favorite pronoun of the day.

  He squeezed her hand and tugged her away from the counter. “Go line up. It’s all you.”

  For now.

  twelve

  Would the judges deduct points if she threw up on camera?

  Kat clenched her fists at her sides in an effort to avoid clutching her churning stomach, wrought with nerves as she stood before the judges. Just moments ago, she’d been so proud of her circus cupcake creation—largely because of the pride lingering in Lucas’s eyes when he’d smiled at her and told her she’d done it.

  She wouldn’t have made it without him. As evidenced by her near breakdown in the stockroom. If he hadn’t pulled her back from the edge, she’d have likely wound up lying unconscious in a heap on the floor, a can of pickles in one hand and a peanut butter jar in the other.

  Piper circling like a shark around Kat’s finished product hadn’t helped her confidence level, nor did the catty glances the younger girl blasted her way from down the line of contestants.

  Kat glanced over her shoulder at Lucas, who stood with the other baking assistants in front of the deserted workstations, and drew in the warmth of the lazy thumbs-up he shot her. How did he do that—exude confidence and security? They radiated from him in waves. Part of her wanted to follow him around and absorb the confidence.

  The other half just wanted to knock it out of him with a rolled-up newspaper so he could understand what it was like to be her.

  She turned back to the judges, intentionally ignoring the laser-beam stare Piper kept shooting into the side of her face, and waited for someone to yell “action.” Once again, each step was taking forever to shoot. No wonder they’d allotted five partial days of taping for a three-hour show.

  And if Sam had the makeup team powder his face one more time, she might be tempted to shove a cupcake in it.

  The judges seemed used to the delays, though, as they chatted back and forth and laughed easily. Georgiana’s trademark chuckle seemed to begin
in her toes and rise upward, and the warm sound eased a bit of the tension in Kat’s neck and shoulders. They were just people, people who loved cupcakes and had made a living involving their passion. Wasn’t that what Kat was trying to do too? Accomplish and live out her dream?

  It had worked for them. Maybe it could work for her.

  Hope rose like a fragile blossom, desperate for sun. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

  When she opened them, Thad’s eye caught hers from behind the judges’ table, and his smile broadened. Blushing, Kat looked away, embarrassed to be caught daydreaming. He probably found her nearly tangible nerves amusing, though surely she wasn’t the most anxious contestant they’d ever had. She’d seen one episode where a contestant had stumbled forward, nearly fainting during this portion of the show, and been caught by the baker next to her. And that one time when the male contestant had stuttered so badly during his description of his cupcake entry that Sam had to ask him to repeat himself.

  On second thought, why hadn’t they edited that part out? Clearly they allowed time for double or even triple takes on everything else.

  Sam’s words from earlier in the dressing room repeated in her ears. So if you’re inspired to create any friendly—or not so friendly—competition for the cameras, even better.

  If competitive banter was encouraged, then embarrassing moments must be downright coveted for ratings.

  Great.

  She shifted her weight on her feet, peripherally glancing at the other bakers. Maybe that was Piper’s angle. Trying to get more camera time, her fifteen minutes of fame, by stirring up drama and tension. But why pick on Kat? Why not target one of the other contestants? Was she truly Piper’s biggest threat?

  The thought simultaneously filled and drained her hopes.

  She looked back at the panel once more, hoping to catch something else from the judges’ expressions to ease her thundering heartbeat.