Cupcakes and Christmas: A Bake Off inspired MM Christmas Romance

by R. J. Scott

  “KlecksoCream would make great snow for my gingerbread house,” I offered in reconciliation.

  “See? Send me your thoughts, take off your shirt, and we’ll talk tomorrow.”

  “I had good bakes today—”

  “Sorry, I have a call on the other line.”

  The phone went dead, no dial tone like in the movies, just absolute silence, and I stared at the screen for the longest time, mesmerized by the moving colors of the lock screen as it slipped out of use. Finally, I hid the cell in my jacket pocket, stood up, stretched tall, and cracked my neck.

  “Showtime.”

  Dinner was interesting. Clare sulked over her steak. Ivan and Kristen disappeared immediately after the dessert, Shauna never even showed, and Brody was blatantly weirded out by me. I could tell when I glanced at him, he would pretend not to see me, staring anywhere but at me, and even though he chatted to Ivan for a while, he was quiet. I shuffled in my seat ready to make my excuses but Clare beat me to it, slamming her hand down on the table, just to let us know she was pissed, and then she stormed off.

  “Hashtag where is Clare,” I joked, hoping Brody would smile.

  “Yeah,” he grumbled, which was a shit response. We were here, sharing an awkward silence, and I didn’t like silences. I had to fill them, so I needed to think of a safe subject. If I was talking, then I could entertain people, and I might even be the life and soul of the party, then everyone will love me.

  “How do you think today went?” I asked all kinds of casual as I sipped water.

  “Good,” he finally glanced at me. “You?”

  “As good as can be expected.”

  “Says the baking Instagram genius.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Nothing. I need to go.” He left, and then it was only me at the table, signing for the cost of the meal which would be covered by Flexelnet, the company creating the show. Going back to my room, I grabbed my coat and went outside, I told myself it was just for a walk, but I kind of wanted to check in on Jeremy and see if he needed his carrot replacing or his scarf retying.

  Before I got anywhere near Jeremy, I spotted Shauna. She hadn’t seen me, and I could have turned and gone the other way only she was sitting on a bench, head in her hands. No doubt she didn’t expect anyone to be out here in the snow and cold at this time of the night. She probably wanted privacy, but could I really leave her there like this? Her quiet vulnerability somehow called to me and made my heart ache because she seemed so sad. Maybe lonely? Maybe she needed a friend right now.

  “Hey, Shauna.” I tried to be as gentle as I could, but she jumped, dashing away tears and staring at me with wide eyes. She’d been crying again. Poor woman was upset, and I wanted to help.

  “Justin, hi,” she managed.

  “Okay if I sit?” The bench was sheltered by a log roof that only let the smallest dusting of snow inside. She brushed at that snow with her glove, and I took that as a yes. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yes, I’m just… it’s too much.”

  This seemed like a deeper thing than just being overwhelmed. “Do you want to find a quiet corner inside and talk.”

  “Can we just stay here?” Even though it was cold as hell out here I wasn’t going to go inside and leave her.

  “Okay, of course.”

  “I don’t think I can do this, Justin.”

  “We’re all trying to get back in the rhythm, but it’s not going to be easy. You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself.”

  “Not the competition.” She huffed a breath which turned to a cloud and then buried her chin in her scarf. “It’s the rest of my life that’s out of control.”

  Well shit. This could be anything at all, and I wasn’t entirely sure how to ask questions. “You want to tell me—”

  “My boyfriend, well now fiancé, Ronan, proposed. My mom hates him, and my dad tried to shoot him.” I laughed a little because it sounded as if she was making a joke, but one glance down, and I saw she was a long way from joking.

  “Tried to shoot him for real?” I finally said as she stared up at me.

  “Oh yeah, big time. I’m from a small town, and he’s from the wrong side of the tracks. It’s a Romeo and Juliet tragedy of epic proportions.” She shook her head. “Nothing will stop me from marrying him because I love him, and we have so many plans for a family.” She paused a moment and then whispered, “I’m pregnant.” Was I the first person she’d told? Because she stared at me with so much open emotion. The warmth of the path lights highlighted her face, and I saw shock and hope in her eyes.

  “That’s wonderful!” I enthused because hell yes, I knew what to say to someone expecting a baby, and her confusion softened to a smile.

  “You think so?”

  “Of course. Does Ronan know?”

  “I told him before I left, and my parents too. It’s a mess. Everyone was shouting.” She pressed her free hand to her belly. “My baby will hate me.”

  Shit. I knew this wouldn’t have a happy ending. “Hang on, your fiancé was shouting—”

  “God no, he’s over the moon with excitement, but he’s defending us, and it takes all his energy. I don’t know how he really feels, not about me, but the craziness that is my stupid ass family.” She turned to face me and gripped my arm. “He says he’s happy, but how can he truly want this when he’s worried how he can keep us safe, and we’re scared of what my parents might do. My business is in town. It’s not big, and it’s struggling. I’m not like you.” That sounded so damning but I know she didn’t mean it like that. “I live in the apartment over the shop, and Ronan won’t even stay the night, in case there’s trouble.”

  “You should ask him.”

  “What? To stay over?” The confusion was back.

  “No.”

  “Call him now,” Brody chimed in from where he had been standing for God knows how long. Shauna and I both startled at the interruption, but at least Shauna didn’t run. Seemed as if she was okay sharing her secret with another person besides me.

  “Sorry I couldn’t help but overhear… I can… ” He gestured behind him, but she shook her head.

  “It’s fine.”

  Good job he’d arrived, it’s not as if I was handling it that well, anyway. Brody would be better at this. He had nieces and nephews and a huge family filled with boundless energy and love. If anyone knew how to talk to Shauna, it would be him.

  When Shauna simply blinked up at him, he fished out his phone to underscore his dramatic point. “Call Ronan now, ask him outright, is he happy about the baby, does he want this, will he move in, what does he want to do. Don’t spend another moment wondering about anything, cut that dead, ask him. I bet you he’s back in your hometown spending all his time thinking about you and is so excited about being a dad.”

  “I have my own phone.” Shauna sounded dazed, as she rooted in her voluminous jacket to find her cell. “I’ll do that.”

  “We’ll leave you a while, walk up here a bit, but we’re here if you need us.”

  We are? We will? Brody began to walk away, and I followed him, brushing snow from my jeans and huddling deep in my coat as the icy start of winter bit at any exposed skin. Great, another awkward five minutes with my nemesis.

  “She’ll be okay. I’ve met Ronan, and he’s a good guy.”

  “You’ve met him?”

  “At the reunion last year.”

  “Oh I couldn’t make that.” I was avoiding making human connection that mattered. I am a fucking drama queen. He stopped walking and I saw we’d reached Jeremy, that by the looks of it only needed minimal tending tonight. Some straightening of his spindly twig arms and a readjustment of his hat.

  “I nearly didn’t go. Marc was being difficult over whether it suited my profile to meet the other competitors. It was the first time I went anywhere on my own since I met him.”

  “I’m sorry it went wrong.”

  Brody muttered a curse then stared at the snowman. “Don’t be. It’s fine.” He huffed a de
risory laugh. “Hell, it was over with Marc after I found out that he fucked at least three men behind my back, one for over a year after we married. Not only that but he took nearly every cent of my winnings and invested it, not wisely of course. And to add insult to injury, when we negotiated the divorce, he then wanted half of what meager pickings were left. I didn’t have it in me to argue so I was lucky that after he claimed he had a stake in my name and therefore, wanted future payments, my lawyer dumped photos and proof of his infidelity in front of him. I just wanted to give him anything for him to go away. He’s not in my life, and I’m good with that.”

  “Oh.” That was all I could manage despite the fact that Brody had just delivered one hell of a speech. Say something else. Idiot. “Shit, sorry.”

  He deflated a little and sighed. “It was going to happen one day. I really loved him, and I thought he loved me. I mean we were together all through college, but in hindsight, we were done before the show. After winning the show, the money helped, and I started getting contracts. He was then happy to be in my life, and I was happy most of the time until I ran out of money for him to spend, and found out he was cheating on me, then we found out he’d taken money from my dad as well.”

  Fuck. This was like the worst kind of story all rolled up into one long run-on sentence. It all sounded rehearsed as if he’d told this to people all the time and had learned to leave out details and cut to the chase.

  “I didn’t know.”

  He shot a glance at me. “How would you know? The media just said we were divorcing amicably because I didn’t fight, and I don’t share my entire life on social media.”

  Ouch. Was that a dig? He didn’t seem as if he was making a point, but if I tugged my coat closer around me it would stop the worst of the jibes from getting through. I’d just ignore them.

  “Sorry, that sounded like I was shaming what you do, and I wasn’t.” Brody straightened Jeremy’s nose and patted the eyes so they were firmly in place then bent to pick up a handful of snow to patch up a hole. “I don’t mean your kind of social media. I know for sure I should embrace that kind of thing for business. I mean I don’t share my life outside of my family because… ” He paused, and I know he was searching for the right words that wouldn’t sound judgmental. He was that kind of guy. Thoughtful. “… I don’t know how you do it. All the other bits, the selfies, the constant bombardment of comments and criticism, how do you even start to deal with it?”

  “I don’t look at all of that. I have a team that deals with comments and any hate I get.”

  “I thought you were personally… oh, a team. Right.”

  I knew what he thought. That I was the one that went through hundreds of thousands of comments and waded through hate all by myself, but this wasn’t Justin Mallory’s Instagram, this was Brand Justin and his Mallys.

  “Pass me the end of the scarf,” he asked, and it took me a few moments to go with the switch in conversation. I handed him the end of the scarf that was closest to me, and he paused as he took it. “Look.” He held up the scarf to the nearest lamp. “Abigail,” he read. “So it must have been an Abigail who built Jeremy.” He tucked the scarf in and pressed snow on the end. “We’ll look after you for her, Jeremy.”

  “Dude, are you really talking to a snowman?”

  Brody made a show of covering where ears would be on a half-assed snowman. “Shhh, we named him, and that means he has magic in him now.” He smiled at me, and I missed that smile. I need to tell him how stupid I felt, and how ridiculous this entire situation was and commiserate that Marc had treated him like shit. I wouldn’t treat him like that. If he let me into his life I would never let him go. Emotion balled in my chest, making it tight, and I closed my eyes briefly. He needed me to explain how I was feeling and what kind of sorry-ass shit I had to do to and why I did it. But first, I had to get him to understand that what I’d really like right now is a friend.

  “Brody, I really am sorry that—”

  “He’s really happy!” Shauna exclaimed and slipped to a halt next to me, steadying herself by gripping my jacket. “He’s so excited, and he says if we have to, then we’ll move and make a new life somewhere else. He has family a few towns over, and they have a grocery store, and I could bake there. There are rooms we could rent if we wanted, and he loves me, and now I just want to go home.” She hugged Brody and then me, and we ending up walking back to the Fairmont and out of the cold. She hugged us again and left for her room. I turned to talk to Brody, but he was halfway to the door and called back a goodnight.

  I never did get to finish my apology or let the building emotions have a way out.

  Chapter Twelve

  The more you weigh, the harder you are to kidnap. Stay safe, eat cake

  Brody

  “Tell us about your gingerbread house, Brody.”

  Courtney leaned on my bench, and I glanced up at her before concentrating back on my gingerbread mixture.

  “I’m making a Victorian toy shop, complete with lemon-iced toys, cinnamon trees, and a rainbow gingerbread awning.”

  “That sounds like a lot to do in just three hours,” she said.

  And that is why I want you to go away.

  “I planned everything to the last minute. It’s under control.”

  “What kind of toys will you have inside your toy shop?”

  “It’s a secret.” I winked at her and the camera panned to my face. “I don’t want to give the others all my ideas.”

  “Who said we’d want them!?” Ivan called over, and there was the cue for witty banter that we’d been told had been lacking in yesterday’s filming.

  “You wish you had my secrets,” I called back, and Ivan tossed a ball of icing at me which I batted back at him with the spatula in my hand. He caught it and snorted a laugh. Courtney backed away slowly, holding her hands up to the camera and faking horror.

  “I’m getting out of the way.” She laughed before heading over to Shauna, who was grinning hard even when the camera wasn’t on her. I went back to concentrating, thinking about my flavor profiles, pulling out templates, measuring everything carefully, and checking that the caramel I was using to hold my pieces together was just the right kind of sticky mess. I was using a hinge mechanism on the door so that it could be opened to reveal the toys inside, and as long as this was structurally sound the decoration was just the icing on the cake, so to speak.

  In front of me, Justin was happy sunshine brightness, and it was difficult to concentrate, particularly when he did a half cartwheel, nearly taking out his own bakes, and then flirted outrageously with Courtney.

  We’d connected last night, and I even felt like there had been the start of something genuine. I actually believed he meant what he said, but we didn’t have time to talk because the coward that I am, I ran to my room and locked myself inside. Adam’s words about taking chances weren’t going to sit well when I needed to block out Justin, and my unfortunate attraction to the man whose entire life was built around what people thought of him.

  The hinge of my door didn’t immediately work, and I lost myself in fixing it to my liking, ignoring the call that we only had an hour left and then began decorating my toys with lemon-infused icing, colored brightly. I was aiming for a flavor combination at odds with the colors, a playful attempt to make the judges smile as they ate the side of my jack-in-a-box or bit the head off my rocking horse. I stepped back a little to check all sides with a critical eye, wondering what else it needed, and with ten minutes remaining if I had time to add anything big. I was happy. The buttercream snow, the paper-thin awning that was colored shortbread… perfect. To me, it invoked an old-fashioned Christmas, and I hoped the judges agreed.

  “Oh no!” I heard Shauna exclaim, and I glanced over as she just stared crestfallen at the ground. Half of her house had slipped off the counter and onto the floor. I immediately went over to help her. She was crouched picking up the pieces, and she gripped my hand to stop me from assisting. “I want to go home,” she whi
spered, and I understood.

  The judges loved my house, and Justin’s, although his use of something called KlecksoCream was commented on. They wish he’d used real cream for the snow, but he’d justified that what he’d used looked more snow-like. I thought I caught something in his expression, a wince as he spoke, but it might have just been the lighting. The judges had words to say about Ivan’s and Kristen’s and spent so much time gushing over Clare’s three story apartment block complete with a parking lot covered in snow, no kidding, that I was sure she’d won this round.

  We were ordered to sit on the stools, and again I was next to Justin, who patted my knee as he sat down. “Loved yours,” he said for the camera.

  “Loved yours,” I returned and smiled at him.

  “Okay, judges sum up in 5, 4, 3… ” The 2 and 1 were silent, and it was Courtney with the questions.

  “So, judges, your favorites this week?”

  Lewis went first. “Clare’s gingerbread apartment and Brody’s toy store were the outstanding ones for me. Attention to detail plus flavor profiles that thrilled me. Wonderful.”

  “Agreed,” Venetia said. “But also an honorary mention for Justin’s house in the woods with its creepy chocolate trees, a fantastic take on a very different kind of Christmas.”

  “And your baker of the week?” Courtney prompted.

  “Baker of the week for week one is… ”

  There was a long pause for dramatic effect, and the same thing that was maybe a few seconds on the television came over as hours when it was us sitting on the stools.

  “… Brody!”

  Me? I received hugs and slaps on the back and a pointed comment from Clare that I had all the luck, and then abruptly, even when my shock had begun to turn to elation, we were about to hear who was going home.

  “I’m sorry guys. This is the worst part of the week, and it was a very close thing. But, Shauna, I’m sorry your time with us has ended.”