Chapter Twenty-Five
H eard anything yet?”
Magda looked over as Mac flopped down into the folding chair beside hers. It was Sunday afternoon, and the canine obstacle course behind the Furry Friends animal shelter was packed with people and pets attending their annual Agility Competition fundraiser, but somehow Magda had managed to find one of the comfy non-bleacher seats to watch with Cupcake—who was not agility inclined.
Charlotte and Kendall were both at the starting gate with their golden retrievers getting ready for their runs and trash-talking aggressively—even though everyone in town knew that Charlotte’s sister Elinor’s Australian shepherd, Dory, was unbeatable.
Magda hadn’t expected to be here this weekend for the event—which was quickly becoming one of her favorite early-May traditions. And she certainly hadn’t expected that Mac would sit down next to her for a cozy little tête-à-tête. But Cake-Off had changed things.
It wasn’t even the kiss—which they were both studiously pretending hadn’t happened. It was the fact that they were the only two people in town who seemed to understand the strange kind of limbo they were in.
Nine days. It had already been nine days .
“Nothing since the deposition on Tuesday,” Magda said. It had been mostly questions about the first day of filming, though she wasn’t sure what that meant. “You?”
“Same.” Mac had a baby stroller with him—the kind with massive off-road tires—and she assumed he must be watching one of his friends’ kids while they ran the course with their dog, until she saw a fluffy tail waft up from where the baby should be.
“Did you get a stroller for your cat ?” she asked incredulously.
“Connor was getting rid of it—and it took me nearly a week to get my cat to stop using my shoes as scratching posts to punish me for my absence. I figured this was better than leaving him home alone.”
They both fell silent for a moment as Connor’s wife, Deenie, who taught obedience classes at Furry Friends, ran the course with their oversized Great Dane mix, Maximus—and a toddler who was shrieking with glee as she chased after the dog. Connor bolted onto the course to scoop up his daughter—which distracted Maximus, who began barking and loping in circles around his people.
A bulldog somehow got loose and ran onto the course, chased by Astrid, a teenager who worked at the shelter, and half a dozen other dogs began barking and straining to join the fun.
Glorious Pine Hollow chaos. Right on schedule.
Meanwhile, Cupcake barely looked up, lazing peacefully against Magda’s feet.
“That reality blogger was saying it was something about the new format,” Mac said, picking up their previous topic. “The rivals thing. Some contestant saying it was rigged.”
“Are we supposed to be reading the blogs?”
Mac lifted a hand to wave to someone, his arm brushing hers as he resettled in his chair. “The producers are the ones who sent us home. They had to know we’d be curious.”
“I’m just focusing on staying ready,” Magda insisted.
The first couple of days back had been nonstop—checking on the bakery and restocking all the frozen dough, going to family dinner at her parents’ place and being equal parts grilled and feted by her entire family for several hours, and doing her best not to worry about the show—or think about Mac. But then, as the days had stretched to a full week, as there was no more room in the bakery freezer and she’d run out of places to put all her practice bakes, it had gotten harder and harder not to think about it.
Not to wonder and worry.
She caught Charlotte watching them from the starting area, frowning at Magda with Mac.
“I should probably—” Magda began at the same moment Mac said, “I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”
She’d wanted to talk to him, too. Far too much. Though she told herself it was just because he was the only person who understood the waiting game.
She glanced at him, keeping the visual contact brief before looking back at the course where a tiny fluffy dog was now bounding through it like it was spring-loaded. “I’m pretty sure we’re still not supposed to collude.”
“Are you mad that I kissed you?”
“What?” she flushed, instantly flustered. “Why would you—why would I—” Why were they talking about this in front of the entire town?
“You’ve done a pretty good job of ignoring me for the last week.”
“I always ignore you.”
“So this is just normal ignoring and not special ignoring?”
“Strictly normal ignoring,” she agreed.
“Good.” There was an air of finality to the word, but he didn’t move away, and after a moment he said, “So you’re not mad? We never really talked about—”
“We don’t need to talk about it. It doesn’t have to be a thing—”
“We should at least acknowledge—”
“We talked about it. I told you I want to stay focused on the competition.”
“Yeah, me too,” he agreed, falling silent. After a long moment when they both watched the next run, he abruptly asked, “Do you worry about letting people down?”
“You mean on the show?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
She turned her head to look at his profile, but he was still watching the dogs, so she did the same. “That’s part of why I didn’t want to tell my family,” she admitted. “I knew they’d be intensely supportive, rooting for me, and I’d feel like I needed to apologize to all of them when I got voted off.”
Her mother had not been pleased when she realized Magda had hidden her involvement in Cake-Off —but her family had rallied by immediately throwing a massive barbecue that had made her feel like she was the center of a very intimidating and very hot spotlight for an entire afternoon. It had been everything she’d dreaded it would be.
“And if you didn’t get voted off?” Mac asked. “If you made it all the way?”
She grimaced. “I don’t think I really thought I would. Even making it this far, halfway… I always dreamed about winning, but it didn’t feel like something that would happen to me. Not real me. Just dream me, you know?”
He nodded. “I never expected to win—I just wanted the experience. And yeah, I wanted to win, but I didn’t look ahead to the end. One step at a time. Just making the choice that’s right in front of me.”
“You could do it,” she said, albeit a little grudgingly. “You’re good at it. The show stuff. It’s so easy for you to be yourself.”
“Don’t know how to be anybody else.”
Magda made a face at that easy platitude. It had always been harder for her. “I always feel like I’m not… I don’t know, impressive enough. Basic boring Magda. That’s why it drove me so crazy every time it felt like you were telling me I wasn’t good enough.”
“When did I tell you that?” he asked incredulously. “You’ve always been terrifyingly good at all things baking. I was sure you were going to win the whole thing. You’re a beast in the kitchen—and the least boring person I know outside of it. How do you not know that?”
She met his eyes. “You didn’t want me to be your pastry chef.”
“When you were eighteen?”
“No. When I came back from France.”
He snorted. “I couldn’t afford you. And you were yelling at me about the maple cake—”
“Which you wouldn’t admit was suspiciously like the one I made for you—”
“It was a great cake. But I made my own version, based on a recipe I found in my gran’s kitchen. Which I would have told you if you’d ever asked.”
She flushed, a little embarrassed. “I might have been overly sensitive. I just felt like you thought I was a joke, and I wanted you to regret the way you’d treated me.”
“Oh, believe me, I have.”
“I probably cared too much what you thought,” she confessed. “It made me irrational.”
“You always drove me crazy, too,” he admitted. Then, after a heavy pause, “I wasn’t ready to move the Cup.”
“What?”
“Back when you took that spot on the square. I had the deposit, but I was dragging my feet, scared to commit to the lease. If it hadn’t been you, someone else would have taken it. I wasn’t mad at you for that—I was mad because it felt like you were doing it to spite me. As some kind of revenge.”
“I wasn’t.” She paused. “At least, not entirely.” People were looking at them now—the infamous rivals sitting side by side. “How did it get so out of hand?”
“I don’t know.” He bumped her shoulder with his. “But it made me better, trying to keep up with you. I never really thought about how much the competition with you motivated me until we were at Cake-Off .”
“And then you really wanted to destroy me?”
“No,” he said, as if the word surprised him. “Then it felt wrong that we were on opposite sides.”
She looked over then, finding him watching her, and he didn’t look away. She searched his dark brown eyes, trying to find the manipulation in them. Trying to see the lie. But all she saw was a sort of puzzled consideration.
“You always scared the shit out me,” he said softly—and she didn’t know why those words should suddenly make her mouth go dry, but they did. All at once, her breath was short and she felt a tingling along her arms.
But they were still competitors… weren’t they? Was he playing the long game for when they went back to the competition? Trying to throw her off? Or was this something else? Did this thing that felt like it was stretching across the short distance between them have nothing to do with the Cake-Off at all?
She didn’t know why she’d been so honest with him. Why it was so easy to be real with him.
She’d always wanted him to see her. And during that first summer, it had felt like he did. And now, with him looking at her this way… could she trust it? Could she trust him?
“Mags! Come help!”
Charlotte was suddenly there, her voice a little too loud, and three degrees too cheerful. She grabbed Magda’s hands, dragging her up out of her chair and flashing Mac a too-bright smile. “You don’t mind if I steal her, do you?” she asked, already dragging Magda and Cupcake away.
“What was that?” Charlotte hissed, when they were halfway to the starting line.
Magda just shook her head. “I wish I knew.”
“So what’s going on with you and Magda?”
Mac kept his expression neutral and his eyes on his cards. He’d wondered how deep into poker night he’d make it before someone lobbed that question at him. They’d rescheduled three times, but had finally managed to make it happen Sunday night after the fundraiser—and he’d made it through greetings and gathering of snacks and drinks, and halfway through the first hand before Connor had oh-so-casually tossed the words out along with his raise.
“You did look awfully cozy today,” Kendall’s husband and the newest addition to their group, Brody, chimed in before Mac could.
“We were just talking,” he said mildly, calling Connor’s raise.
“Ten whole minutes of talking and no one had to call in a referee,” Ben commented lightly. “It must be a record.” Pine Hollow’s mayor, and one of Mac’s oldest friends, he tossed his own chip onto the pile in the center.
“Maybe we’ve grown.” Mac took a casual sip of his beer.
Around the table, five matching expressions of surprise met that comment. Then Levi mumbled, “I didn’t know that show worked miracles. Reraise.”
“You gonna tell us about it?” George asked, mild as always.
“Can’t,” Mac said, setting down his cards as Levi started pushing the pot higher. “My lawyer advised me against it.”
Connor smirked as he called Levi’s reraise.
His friends didn’t push for more, but he could feel their curiosity. Just as he’d been able to feel the entire town’s curiosity for the last week. Everyone wanted to know what had happened on Cake-Off . He’d been working at the Cup every day, trying to keep busy and distract himself from the impatient itch to get back to the competition, but he’d mainly stayed in the kitchen. Hiding from that curiosity.
And thinking about things.
About Magda. About the competition. About his entire freaking life.
His life hadn’t taken the path he’d expected, but he wasn’t unhappy with where he’d ended up. Who he’d become. He didn’t often think about it, but he didn’t really have regrets because his life had sort of felt inevitable to this point. He’d made the best choice he could from moment to moment.
Dropping out of school when his grandfather was sick. Staying home and opening the Cup to be close to his grandmother—who had always thought there were bigger things in store for him and wanted him to go back to school. But Mac had stayed, for his family—maybe irrationally, maybe because his parents hadn’t stayed for him—but he didn’t regret it. He’d loved running the Cup. Loved growing it over the years. Bit by bit.
Yes, he’d avoided serious relationships in his twenties, keeping things casual, pulling back and letting things fade when they started to get too intense—but that was just because he was still a work in progress, still figuring out who he was. Letting life happen.
There had been a period, a few years back, when Ben, Connor, and Levi were all engaged at the same time, and Mac had thought maybe it was time for him to settle down, too—but it hadn’t happened. His pattern had stayed the same, even as his friends got married and started having kids. George had recruited him to join his band—and then George had married Charlotte. And even Cleo, who had never wanted anything serious, had cut off their friends-with-benefits relationship and tied the knot with another lawyer at her firm.
Mac wasn’t one of those people who thought you had to be married with kids to have a fulfilling life, but he’d always kind of thought he would go the family route eventually. But he hadn’t done anything to actually make that happen. He’d just sort of waited for the future to come to him, instead of going after it. Letting the choices make themselves.
Don’t want things you can’t have, and you won’t be disappointed.
But was his grandmother right? Was he just scared of being needed?
He’d always considered himself an emotionally evolved guy—his grandmother had started taking him to family therapy when he was eight because she’d wanted help to ensure he never felt he was in any way responsible for his parents not being more involved in his life.
But honestly it was the Broadway musicals that she’d taken him to that had really connected him to his emotions as a kid. Given him permission to feel the big things. He’d done community theater in high school and had planned to major in that in college—until his life had gone in another direction.
He didn’t regret it. But he was also realizing that for all his supposed emotional maturity, he was still dodging the big feelings. Don’t want things too much… don’t try…
“Are you guys ever scared of letting people down?” He must have had more alcohol than he’d thought, because that question came out almost without thought.
“Constantly,” Ben and Levi said instantly and in unison—and then lifted their beer bottles to clink the necks together in salute.
That made sense. Ben was Mr. Mayor, Superdad, and Superhusband. And Levi was the chief of police and protector of the whole town. Mac was just a cook.
“I only care what Kendall thinks,” Brody announced to the table. “Used to care about everyone else, but it was messing me up, so I stopped.”
“You just stopped?” Mac asked.
“Yep,” Brody declared. As if it was that easy. And Mac barely resisted the urge to glare at the golden boy. Brody was a freaking Olympian and recently retired professional athlete, so his perspective might be somewhat skewed.
“Is this about the Cake-Off ?” Connor asked.
“No.” It was like he’d told Magda—he hadn’t expected to win. No pressure to be the best. But the question still nagged at him…
“Is this about Magda?” George asked softly.
He said no again, but he hesitated too long this time. And they were all watching him. All these guys who knew him best—well, the four who knew him best and Brody.
“She drives me crazy,” he said finally. But he didn’t say the words the way he would have six months ago. Or even six weeks ago. There was less aggravation and more bafflement behind the familiar words now.
“Didn’t look like a problem today,” Ben commented.
“We were talking about the show.” Because, oddly, as much as the show pitted them against each other, it had also brought them together in a way he wasn’t sure any other force on earth could have.
She didn’t feel like his adversary anymore. She felt like someone who had been bonded to him by this bizarre gauntlet they were both in the middle of. They were connected now. But he still had no idea what that meant. She wouldn’t talk to him about the kiss—which was a pretty strong indication that she didn’t want an encore performance—but he couldn’t stop thinking about it. About the taste of her. The feel. The curve of her neck. The flare of heat in her eyes.
“Maybe the fear of letting people down isn’t the problem,” George said. “Maybe letting it stop you is.”
Thankfully, Connor’s two-year-old chose that moment to run into the game room buck naked and dripping wet, accompanied by a pair of barking dogs—and Mac was spared any more discussion resulting from his ill-advised question.
By the time Connor had the kid and the dogs turned back over to Deenie, everyone had forgotten Mac’s moment of existential crisis about letting people down.
They went back to playing poker and shooting the breeze, and Mac switched to water so he wouldn’t say anything stupid—or start belting out show tunes, as he had an unfortunate tendency to do when he got a little sloshed.
By the end of the night, he still hadn’t told anyone about the kiss. Or anything else that had happened at the Cake-Off .
It felt like their secret. And he found a big part of why he was so eager to get back to the competition wasn’t for the competition itself. It was to get back into that bubble with her and see what happened next.
It was a different world. Anything could happen.