Eighteen. Putting the Icing on My Baker #2
All of the judges are there, most of them with their families in tow. I spot some Sweetville dignitaries, like the mayor and the fire chief. All the contestants, even the ones who didn’t move on, were invited.
I make my way to the buffet table, not particularly hungry—we got to try everyone’s cookies after the qualifiers, and I sampled all except Grant’s—but hoping the Christmas punch bowl might pack a little punch.
I ladle some into my cup and taste it. Nope. It’s definitely a drink of the nonalcoholic variety, but it’s tasty, nonetheless. I shudder at the eggnog but try a little anyway, just in case it has some rum in it. No. It’s just nasty eggnog.
I’m looking for a place to put my unwanted beverage when Kit, one-half of the broken-up gay couple, appears at my side, tilting her punch glass toward mine for a toast.
“Congrats,” she says.
“Thanks so much,” I say. “For what it’s worth, I loved your cookies. They were delicious, and the gift box shape was so original.”
“Thanks,” she says. “But I’m okay that we lost.” She glances across the room toward her ex, who’s talking to the mayor’s first gentleman. “Nina and I realized that we’re a great team. So now we don’t have to fake being a couple for my family.”
“Faking being a couple is a great team activity,” I say with a wink.
She guffaws. “Well, there’s nothing fake about you and Corey.”
“Oh, we’re just friends.”
“‘Just friends’ is what all the most perfect couples start out as.”
The words get me thinking of Grant and Fiona.
I survey the room for them—Fiona would be hard to miss, even in a crowd—but it takes me two complete sweeps before my eyes land on them at a small café table in a quiet corner.
Fiona—wearing a pair of high-waisted red trousers and a silky white blouse—leans toward him, her eyes locked on his as he tells a story, gesturing with both hands.
“Just friends,” my award-winning, Christmas-cookie-making ass.
Time and time again, I’m letting my choices be guided by Grant.
Grant, who does whatever he wants while I wait around, thinking some overture is coming my way.
Even now, when I’ve set my sights on Corey—when Corey is, I believe, my only way back into my real life—my every molecule is tuned toward Grant.
Who’s now laughing at something Fiona is saying.
“Did you make your Christmas list yet?”
And what to my wondering eyes should appear but Santa— my Santa—in street clothes. Or, Sweetville street clothes: a green-and-red-checked shirt and a burgundy bow tie.
Before I can answer, Santa follows my gaze to Grant and Fiona.
“You’ve moved on,” he said.
“Yeah.” I nod. “Sort of. He should be with someone like her.”
“I meant in the competition,” Santa corrects me. He tilts his punch glass to mine for a clink. “Congratulations.”
“Why aren’t you in uniform?”
“It’s a lot of work being that guy,” Santa says. “Sometimes you just want to be at the party, no pressure. But you seem distracted. After your big win, I thought you and Corey would celebrate.”
“I’m here. Celebrating,” I say. I see Grant and Fiona making conversation with the prince and his assistant.
But I know what Santa means. If I’m going to get Corey to fall for me, I can’t stare at my ex all night.
Still, something is bothering me. “How does it all work? Why are some people so much like the ones I know in the real world and other people are totally fresh faces?”
“I’m a guide, not necessarily an expert,” he says. “But I think some people we know so well, or think we know so well, that we can’t change how they come across, no matter what magic is afoot. When someone’s really in your heart, you can’t shake them.”
“What about what I do here? Does it change anything out there?”
“Everything you do, no matter where you do it or how it comes together, changes something,” Santa says.
I nod as if this isn’t cryptic and unhelpful. “But am I on the right track? Writing my own ending means a happily ever after with Corey?”
“I can’t give you all the answers, but I can say I think he’s very good for you.”
I’m getting somewhere, I think, as Santa seems to be in an earnest mood tonight.
But before I can toss out another follow-up, Santa’s pulled into the karaoke line by a woman with a sleek gray bob and a red plaid dress with a flared skirt and a highly cinched waist. Incognito Mrs. Claus, I assume. Is everyone paired off but me?
“Jill?” Corey. I smell him before I see him. Sugar, butter—delicious.
“Hi,” I say. “I was looking for you.” This isn’t wholly true. Yes, I’m happy to see him, but having to be around Grant so much only prompts memories of my romantic failings. If my whole real-world future hedges on romantic success with Corey, what does it mean if things don’t work?
“And I was looking for you.” A crush of people approaches the buffet table, and Corey takes my elbow and steers me away.
There’s an empty cocktail table nestled in a corner next to a decorated tree—not as big as the lobby’s but lush and full and smelling so thickly of pine I think someone cut it a few hours ago.
They probably did, this being Sweetville.
I take a stool but Corey doesn’t. He leans on the table so our faces are close.
The tree’s thick branches muffle some of the music and party sounds, but I can hear Corey perfectly as he says, “I’ve been wanting to say how much fun this has been.
For me.” His eyes linger on mine as he pauses. Maybe I’m worrying for nothing.
“For me, too,” I say.
“Yeah?”
“For sure,” I say, the words heavy and full as they fall off my tongue.
There’s enough electricity pulsing between us that we could short out the Christmas tree lights.
He leans in a little more, and involuntarily, I press toward him, my eyelids half closing, my whole body expecting his lips on mine with the same kind of fizzy anticipation I used to feel knowing I’d wake to a full Christmas stocking.
Corey smiles faintly, almost to himself. “It’s been a while since I smiled or laughed this much. With someone who isn’t my kid, that is,” he says. “I think I have you to thank for that.”
While everything he’s saying is perfect, I might fall off my stool from leaning ever closer so that he’ll finally just kiss me. It’s coming. I can feel it, the kiss potential, gathering strength the way a storm builds.
“Well, you’re welcome. Anytime,” I say in my most suggestive tone. You can kiss me anytime. Like now is the subliminal message I hope to embed in the words.
“I really needed it,” Corey says. “I knew the holidays would be hard, but I miss Christina so much. She’s the best thing that ever happened to me, and I’m just supposed to move on?”
He’s not going to kiss me. My short-lived certainty he would is a tablecloth that’s just been pulled out from under an array of glassware, and like a tottering champagne flute, I’m close to crashing to the floor and breaking into a thousand pieces. I grasp the sides of my stool.
My lips, parted in expectation of his pressing against them, purse into what I know is a sour look. My shoulders curve inward, and the spot right beneath my rib cage—where butterflies have been twisting excitedly—is now a void. Defeated heartbreak. I know the feeling well.
“That must be awful,” I finally say, because it’s not Corey’s fault I’m not Christina. Tears press against the backs of my eyes, waiting for the right moment to fall. I need air. “I have to… use the… restroom.”
“Jill, are you okay? You look a little pale,” Corey says. He comes to my side as I stand up, but I wave him away with a fake smile.
“All good,” I say brightly, my eyes swinging around the party wildly so I don’t have to make eye contact with him. Because I don’t want him to see what I’m thinking. That I’m an idiot. “Just need to freshen up. Actually, I’m tired. I might just go home.”
“Are you sure? Do you need a ride?” He places his hand on my upper arm. I close my own hand over his and nod before gently brushing his palm away. My attempt to say, Please don’t be nice right now .
“You stay,” I insist.
“Okay,” he says. His puzzlement is obvious. Like it’s never occurred to him that I thought something was developing between us, probably because it never occurred to him to be interested in me.