Chapter Thirty-Two
T he phone in Mac’s room rang entirely too early the next morning. Light was piercing through the drapes, but he groaned, and groped for the phone, certain he hadn’t had more than two hours of sleep.
Not that he was complaining. It had been the best damn sleepless night of his life.
He grabbed the receiver before it could ring again, listening with half an ear as someone at the front desk told him his car would be ready in twenty minutes. Shit. So not a lot of time to grab a shower and throw his things into his bag.
But still he didn’t launch out of bed as soon as he hung up. Instead he curled back around Magda, who sighed sleepily and settled against him. Somehow the ringing hadn’t woken her. He looped one of her curls around his finger, studying her sleeping face. She looked even more like an angel than usual.
He wasn’t sure what time it had been when they’d finally fallen asleep. One of them had knocked the bedside clock to the floor, accidentally unplugging it, and since he still hadn’t gotten his phone back from the production people, they’d had no other way to tell time.
Though if he had gotten his phone back it probably would have been against the rules for Magda to spend the night. Hell, it might still be against the rules, but Magda’s Good Girl Rule-Follower facade had firmly cracked last night.
He hadn’t planned this. He hadn’t even been sure he’d see her last night after he was voted off. Sometimes it seemed like the former contestants just vanished into smoke, never to be heard from again. He’d gone to her room when he got back to the inn—more than once—but she hadn’t answered when he knocked, so he’d figured she was already asleep.
He’d been considering writing a letter, slipping it under her door before he left in the morning, but there was no stationery in the room, and he wasn’t sure she would have been able to read his writing anyway.
And he didn’t know what he would have said. That the worst part of being voted out was that he wasn’t going to be seeing her every day anymore? That he wanted to see her every day and bake with her and tease her and call her cupcake just to watch her eyes light with that fire? That he, Mac Newton, who had always waited for life’s choices to come to him and pulled away when things got too serious, wanted serious? That he didn’t want her to drift out of his life? That he wanted to hold on—even if part of that scared the shit out of him?
And then she’d shown up at his door.
He hadn’t planned on kissing her. But some things were inevitable.
He’d been so relieved to see her, and his agitation had melted seamlessly into need, and something he’d been denying for years had surged past all his pointless barricades and swallowed them whole. They hadn’t thought about tomorrow, but now tomorrow was here.
“Mags.” He kissed that spot on her neck that always made her shiver, and even in her sleep her breath caught, but then she burrowed down deeper into the covers, and he couldn’t bring himself to wake her. She had more time than he did before her first call, anyway, and she was baking today. She would need as much rest as she could get. If he’d been any less selfish last night, he would have insisted that she get more sleep, but that night had felt like stolen time, and when she’d insisted she didn’t want to waste it sleeping, he hadn’t been able to tell her no.
Mac slipped out of bed without waking her and took a quick shower, humming “As Long As You’re Mine” from Wicked the entire time. After shaving and brushing his teeth, he dressed quickly, without really paying attention to what he was wearing, and threw the rest of his stuff haphazardly into his duffel. He was just being driven back to Pine Hollow, after all. He’d probably sleep in the van.
Then it was only five minutes before his ride was due, and he couldn’t put it off any longer. He’d already discovered there was no paper in the room, so he couldn’t leave her a note, and he definitely didn’t want her to have to answer questions about why she’d missed her call time because she was sleeping in his room and no one could find her.
“Mags. You’ve gotta wake up, sugar.”
He shook her gently, and this time her eyelids cracked open on a groan. “You’re leaving already?” she asked blearily, sitting up and shoving her hair out of her face with one hand while using the other to hold the sheet to her chest, even though she was still wearing his pajama top. It had been buttoned up wrong, and he smiled at the oddly endearing sight.
“My car’s here,” he explained. “I thought we should smuggle you back to your room so you don’t miss your call.”
“Right,” she mumbled, rubbing her face. Her bare legs slipped out from beneath the covers and she stood, still looking half-asleep, and something in Mac’s chest tugged.
He couldn’t resist. He crossed the short distance between them and cupped her face, tipping it up to him and sinking his hands into her thick curls as he lingered in a kiss. When he lifted his head, she was definitely more awake, even if her eyes were still a little dazed.
“Good morning,” he murmured.
“Good morning,” she whispered back. Her hands had come up to hold his wrists, but she released him as he groaned and forced himself to let his hands drop.
“I wish I didn’t have to go.” He grinned. “Mostly because I wanna watch you kick some ass.”
She blushed, ducking her head as she smiled—always too humble.
“Do me a favor?” he asked, and she lifted her eyes to meet his.
“What?”
“Enjoy yourself, okay? And win the whole damn thing.”
“You really think I can?”
“I’ve always thought so. But that doesn’t matter if you don’t believe it. So believe it.”
She smiled as he kissed her again—until the landline started ringing again.
Time to go.
Magda dressed quickly in yesterday’s clothes. They snuck quickly down the hall, saying a quick, silent goodbye at her door—a rushed kiss, a squeeze of her hand—and then he was jogging down the stairs.
It was really over.
Strange that this was the moment it hit him, trotting down the stairs at the inn for the last time. He hadn’t really processed it last night, that he was going home, even though he’d known intellectually that his time here was over.
He really was going to miss this. His fellow bakers. The ever-present PAs. The makeup artists who talked about their kids when they were muttering about his bone structure. The sound guys with their never-ending supply of truly awful dad jokes. Even some of the producers—the ones that weren’t trying to screw with his life.
No more bakes. No more postmortems with Julia. No more unlocking his knees to keep from passing out as they stood in a row to be judged for what felt like hours. No more Skills Challenges where he had no idea what he was doing. No more sneaking a look at Magda’s station. Or hearing her voice across the kitchen. Or brushing against her as they worked together…
Though maybe that part didn’t have to be over.
Maybe this fragile thing that had built between them during the show could survive the trip back to Pine Hollow. Maybe they were different now.
He certainly felt different.
He’d always been good at laughing off his mistakes—because he’d never pushed himself. He’d never let himself want something so much that it would crush him if he didn’t get it. His easygoing demeanor had become a shield. If he failed, no big deal, he hadn’t wanted success that badly anyway. He rolled with the punches. And so he was never disappointed.
No regrets.
But this felt like a regret.
Like he’d missed an opportunity because he hadn’t wanted to admit to himself that he wanted this. What Magda had said last night about training for bread week lingered in his thoughts as he said his goodbyes to the crew members around the inn and climbed into the van that would take him back to Pine Hollow.
He could have done more to prep than watch a few episodes. He could have practiced. He could have learned. But instead he’d planned on improvisation and adaptation to carry him through.
And they’d carried him pretty far. He was good at improvising and adapting. But maybe sometimes you had to want something enough to try—and to care when you failed.
His grandfather had always told him to bet on himself. And Mac had taken that to mean he could rally from any failure, but what if he’d meant something more? What if he’d wanted Mac to take the big swings? To try ?
He cared about the Cup, but he’d shied away from the big changes, slowly evolving over the years. Letting things happen. It wasn’t Magda’s fault he hadn’t taken that space on the square. She was just an excuse for not growing faster. Not taking that risk.
He took what life handed him—the good and the bad—and he rolled with it. If he didn’t let himself want more, he was never disappointed.
But Magda… Magda wanted things so sharply, even when she was afraid she wasn’t good enough for them. She was so freaking brave, even if it drove him crazy how she didn’t believe in herself. There was humble, and then there was deluded. He wanted to savage anyone who’d ever made her feel like she wasn’t good enough—even if he himself was on that list.
She couldn’t seem to see how amazing she was—
“Here we are.”
Mac blinked, startled as the van pulled to a stop. That had not been long enough to get them to Pine Hollow.
He looked out the window and frowned. He was back at King Arthur, and Julia was standing out front with her tablet, waiting for him to climb out of the van.
What the hell?
He opened the door, warily stepping out. “What is this? What’s going on?”
Julia approached him, calm and smiling. “Sorry. Just a few more things. Stephen wants some promo shots. We have these black aprons, and we never got footage of you wearing one in the kitchen.” She fell into step beside him, heading toward the familiar entrance. “As soon as we finish this up, we can give you your phone back and get you on your way.”
Right. He still hadn’t gotten his phone. He should have known. “Sure. No problem.”
Apparently his time at Cake-Off wasn’t quite over yet, but it felt odd being here and out of the competition. The energetic makeup crew was subdued as they quickly did his face. The sound guy’s usual dad joke was deeply unfunny as he wired Mac up with a microphone. He didn’t know why that was necessary for promo footage where he’d probably just be pretending to bake, but Mac had learned not to question the show.
Once he was made-up, miked, and wearing the black apron, Julia escorted him through the Proving Room and then pointed him toward the kitchen doors. “Okay. Go on in,” she said. “Stephen wants footage of you walking into the kitchen. Just go on up to station one.”
The finale.
That was when Mac realized what they were doing. They were close to the end. The bakers would probably wear the black aprons in the finale. And in the finale, each baker walked into the kitchen by themself, one by one, rather than in a group. They were trying to get footage of him doing the finale walk so they could drop it into promo footage and fake people out. Throw them off the scent of the real finalists.
Always with the mind games.
Mac schooled his features into something he hoped looked suitably neutral and stepped into the kitchen, one last time.
The stations had already been set for today’s competition—three, just like in the finale. The judges were there, alongside Jeffrey Flanders—which seemed like overkill for a fake shoot, but Mac just played his part, walking up to the first station and stopping.
The door opened behind him, and he glanced back—as Abby walked into the room, also wearing a black apron.
Mac wasn’t sure whether to frown or smile. Abby had been eliminated days ago—going out as team captain in the chocolate challenge. Had they really brought her back just for this? Or kept her here? She’d been so eager to get back to her family, but she didn’t look pissed. She looked determined. Fierce.
Mac’s face decided on a confused frown as she took the spot at station two and the Proving Room door opened again.
Leah stepped out, also with her game face and a black apron on. Leah, who had been kicked off last Friday.
What the hell?
Were they bringing back all the eliminated contestants? Making them all go through this ridiculous song and dance?
Leah took her place at station three, and Mac turned back to the front, just in time for Jeffrey Flanders to begin speaking, using his most over-the-top host voice.
“Welcome…” he intoned dramatically. “To the Redemption Round. At the end of today, one of you will be rejoining the competition.”
He kept speaking, but Mac couldn’t make out the words over the sudden rushing in his ears.
Holy shit. He still had a shot.