Chapter Twenty-Six
T hey got the call to go back to set on Wednesday.
By Thursday morning they were all back at King Arthur, comparing notes and nervously waiting for more information. Nothing felt stable now. They all seemed to know the competition could be halted at any moment.
A van had picked up Mac and Magda that morning, but it had already been filled with other contestants on their way from the airport, so they hadn’t talked to each other on the drive back to King Arthur.
“I heard it was Caroline—first out,” Leah gossiped, as they all huddled together in the Proving Room.
Eunice nodded. “She did seem more angry than sad.”
“She claimed it was unfair that only the blue team had known about the archrivals twist in advance—”
“Which it was,” Abby grumbled.
“And that she was completely thrown by seeing the ex-friend who had slept with her husband and only lost because of that,” Leah concluded. “And the lawyers had to prove that the baking competition itself was fair and that the contracts we signed had clearly indicated that they were not responsible for any stress we might feel either from being on a reality television show or interacting with the other contestants—regardless of our previous relationship or lack thereof with those contestants. Or something like that.”
“So the show won?” Magda asked.
“I think they just got the legal team to sign off on the production continuing while they continue to fight it out. But yeah. The show must go on.”
And this time, Magda was going to enjoy herself.
Going home and not knowing if the show was going to continue had reminded her that this was her dream, this was what she’d been working toward for the last three years, and she wanted to enjoy it. Her anxiety hadn’t gone away completely, but it was exponentially less than it had been when they’d first arrived a few weeks ago.
She knew the rhythm of the show now, and what she needed to do. And she wasn’t going to be distracted by Mac.
Though it was hard not to notice him with only seven bakers left.
She’d just gotten back from hair and makeup and taken a seat next to Eunice, Abby, and Leah, grabbing one of the sandwiches that had been left by craft services when Leah glanced past her shoulder. “Are we staying Red Team strong?”
“I guess. Why?” Magda asked, confused.
Leah nodded past her shoulder. “Because Big Red is on his way over here.”
Magda looked up as Mac approached, back in his Cake-Off apron with a long-sleeved T-shirt pushed up to show off his forearms. Her mouth went dry as she tried not to stare. It wasn’t like she hadn’t seen him a million times before.
“Have you guys noticed Tim is being extra dickish since we got back?” Mac asked by way of greeting.
“You may stay.” Leah magnanimously waved him to the empty chair beside Magda.
He dropped onto it, grabbing a sandwich of his own.
Eunice and Abby were speculating about what the next challenge would be when Mac leaned closer and lowered his voice for Magda’s ears alone.
“Excited to be back?” he asked.
“I am, actually.” She took a bite of her sandwich before admitting, “I was so stressed before that I forgot to have fun. And this time… I don’t know. I’m still nervous, but it’s like good nervous, you know?”
“Yeah.”
She met his eyes as they ate in silence, and after a moment her awareness of him prompted her to whisper, “I still want to stay focused on the competition.”
“Me, too.” He nodded, instantly catching her meaning.
She felt her face heating, but a producer called them into the kitchen before she could say more.
Mac’s grin flashed out. “Good luck, cupcake.”
For once, the nickname didn’t feel like derision. It almost felt like flirting… and far from throwing her off her game, she felt excited and more focused as they all funneled into the Cake-Off kitchen once again.
Nothing had changed. They were all directed toward their stations for the day and then the host and judges entered at the front of the room. The introductions continued as if nothing had happened, as if there hadn’t been a mysterious break where they were all sent home for almost two weeks.
Week seven. Bread Week. Seven bakers remaining. And a Skills Challenge to start.
Magda took a deep breath, a buzz of excitement humming in her blood.
It felt right, possibly for the first time since she’d been in the Cake-Off kitchen. This was her dream.
Starting now.
The Skills Challenge was brioche.
Mac didn’t know if it was the fact that it was bread week, or the pause in filming that had reset everything, or the fact that things with Magda felt like they might actually be on okay footing, but something was different today, and the bake… the bake was freaking excellent.
He hummed to himself, the familiar tune of “It Only Takes a Taste” from Waitress adding a cheerful lilt to his action as he divided his dough into loaves. At a station near the front of the room, Magda was chatting with the cameras, her tone light and breezy. He still found himself tuning into that sound, but it wasn’t a distraction today. It was music.
It was good to be back. This place was chaos and pressure, but being away had made him realize he also loved it. And he wanted to do well—not so he could beat Magda or win, but just to prove something to himself. That he was actually a baker and not just here by default so they could get Magda on the show.
His brioche took first—earning him a nebulous advantage in the next challenge. Abby was second and Magda third. Tim was struggling this week—and Mac found himself silently rooting for the arrogant pastry chef to go home. But this was only the first challenge. It had taken so long—with the dough needing time to prove and chill—that they wouldn’t film the second half of the episode until tomorrow.
After interviews they trickled back to the inn, where the remaining members of the Red Team gathered in the inn’s common room—this time with a karaoke machine that Eunice had brought back with her.
“The Brioche King!” Leah bellowed as soon as he walked into the room—proving both that she’d already dipped into the wine, and that the archrivals dynamics had been all but abandoned. Thank goodness.
The seven of them had bonded after the show was nearly called off. Well. The six of them. Tim still seemed to think he was among peasants.
Leah appeared to be deep into the bottle of white already—her Skills Challenge today had not gone well. Judge Joanie had murmured a disappointed “Oh dear” when she’d tasted Leah’s underproved brioche. Leah’s only comfort was that Tim had been right there in the bottom with her.
Magda and Eunice seemed to be doing their best to comfort and distract her when Mac joined them, accepting a beer.
“Magda tells us you’re a singer,” Eunice announced.
Mac gave Magda an arch look. “Does she?”
“He’s in a band,” Magda confirmed, though she was looking at him and not at her friends. “And if you have any Broadway music on that thing, I guarantee you he knows every single word.”
“Broadway, huh?” Leah asked.
“What can I say? I love when people randomly burst into song.” He crouched down to pet the inn’s cat, who had come over to investigate his presence.
Eunice was frowning at a list of songs in a little paper booklet. “I don’t know if any of these are Broadway. Normally I’d just plug my phone into the machine and get whatever song we want, but since they take away our phones we’re limited to the ones that come preprogrammed.”
She handed Mac the booklet, and he drank his beer as he skimmed through the popular titles—“Don’t Stop Believing,” “Rolling in the Deep,” “Material Girl.” There didn’t seem to be any Broadway—until he got to the duets section. Then his gaze caught on a title and he laughed out loud.
“What?” Eunice asked. “What did you find?”
“It’s a duet,” he said, turning the page toward Magda to show her.
She snorted. “We’ve done that one before. At Elinor’s birthday party. A couple of years ago?”
“I don’t have clear memories of that night.” There had been a significant amount of alcohol involved before Mac and Mags had taken the stage to essentially yell at each other via song.
“Neither do I,” she admitted.
“Well, now you have to do it,” Leah announced.
And so Mac found himself standing in the middle of the common room beside Magda as the opening bars of “Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better)” began to play from the karaoke machine’s speakers.
There was only one microphone.
“Do you want to hold it?” Mac offered.
“No, it’s fine. You can hold it.”
“Are you sure? I don’t mind—”
“No. You have more experience with microphones.”
“I mean, I don’t think singing at the bar—”
“Mac, just hold the microphone.”
“Fine.”
They’d missed their cue, and Eunice offered to restart the music, but Magda waved her off. “No, we’re good.”
Mac waited, looking to Magda as Annie Oakley’s lyrics appeared on the little screen. And she looked right back at him.
“That’s your line,” Magda prompted.
“No, it’s yours. That’s the female part.”
“You sang it last time.”
“I’m sure I didn’t.” Admittedly, he didn’t have clear memories of that night…
“I’m sure you did.”
Okay, he probably did. “Still, if you want it this time…”
She waved to the screen. “It’s all yours.”
“You should really do it—”
“Your voice is better than mine.”
“You have a nice voice—”
“Mac, would you just take the lead?”
By then they’d missed the entire first chorus.
“Restart?” Eunice offered again, but Leah was laughing so hard they decided to just jump in and carry on.
It was… awkward. Neither of them seemed to want to fight anymore, so the playful competition of the song—which hadn’t been quite so playful the last time they’d sung it, according to Pine Hollow legend—fell flat. When they got to the line about neither one of them being able to bake a pie, Leah snorted wine out of her nose—which distracted them from finishing the song.
“That was weird,” Eunice announced. And she wasn’t wrong. “Try another one.”
“I should probably—I think I’ll head upstairs,” Mac said. “Don’t really want to be hungover on national television.”
“Yeah, good call,” Magda agreed—and Mac realized he’d inadvertently signaled the end of the impromptu party.
They all headed upstairs, drifting off toward their various rooms… and Mac lingered in the hall until it was just him and Magda. He didn’t know why he stayed—though in his defense, Magda did also.
“That was…”
“Awkward?” he finished for her.
“It’s nice that we don’t want to kill each other anymore,” she said—though she didn’t sound like she thought it was nice at all. “Is it weird that I kind of miss the edge, though?”
His eyes met hers, holding them. “You want an edge?” he asked, his voice deepening.
Magda’s breath caught as it was suddenly back, that crackling tension that had always existed between them. But it was different now. It wasn’t anger. It was something else. Something that had probably been there beneath the anger all along. Fueling it.
“No,” she whispered, the word breathless. “Just focusing on the competition.”
He nodded as the door to her room closed between them, cutting off that flash of heat.
Right. Cake-Off. Anything else would have to wait.