Chapter Thirty-Five
H is cat was in her apartment again.
Magda’s lips twitched into a smile when she saw the tabby sprawled out arrogantly on Cupcake’s dog bed. The pit bull whined piteously, and she knelt, cuddling her sweet baby. “Don’t you worry about that mean ol’ cat,” she soothed, stroking Cupcake’s silky head. “You’re a good girl, and he has no manners.”
It was Saturday morning. The four finalists had ridden to Pine Hollow last night, after quickly packing up their things at the inn. They hadn’t spoken much on the drive—Magda and Mac had answered Eunice’s questions about what the town square was like and what they might be able to expect, venue-wise, on Sunday, but other than that the ride had been quiet. Everyone was focused on the finale—and Magda had fallen asleep with her head on Mac’s shoulder, still catching up on sleep.
She couldn’t believe they’d been so reckless in the kitchen—well, she could believe it; they had always forgotten the rest of the world existed, whether they were fighting or doing… other things.
Magda had been dropped off first, before even Tim and Eunice, so she hadn’t had a chance to subtly mention to Mac that they’d been caught on camera and Julia had saved their asses. She’d gotten so out of the habit of having her phone on her that it didn’t even occur to her until this morning that she could have texted him the information.
As it was, she had stumbled up to her apartment, said hello to Cupcake, whom Charlotte had dropped off as soon as she knew Magda was coming home, and immediately fallen asleep for ten straight hours.
It wasn’t just the short night with Mac. It was like everything that had happened over the last month had all landed on top of her all at once and she’d flopped face-first onto her mattress and not moved until Cupcake woke her up with the urgent need to pee at five in the morning.
Once she was up, she was up, and she’d gone down to the bakery and checked on the inventory. The frozen stock had held up reasonably well, but a few favorites were running low. She should be taking this time to practice for the final—but instead she found herself taking comfort in the habit of baking old favorites, humming to herself with Cupcake curled around her ankles.
She baked until her niece came in to open up the shop at eight—and then kept baking, hiding in the kitchen through the familiar sounds of the Saturday morning rush. It sounded busier than usual, and she heard several patrons ask if she was back. She’d found out from Charlotte last night that the people of Pine Hollow had known about the finale being filmed there for nearly a week, and several of them had already been interviewed, issuing their opinions on who was most likely to win, Mac or Magda.
Magda knew the TV crew would be roaming town all day, getting more footage. She heard dozens of locals telling her niece to wish her luck, and she knew she’d be mobbed with good wishes if she made an appearance, but she’d snuck upstairs at lunchtime, not wanting to see anyone.
Except Mac.
He probably had even more catch-up to do at the Cup than she did at the bakery, and she hadn’t wanted to disturb his own prep for the finale. But if his cat was here…
Well.
Magda tracked down her cellphone and dialed.
“Miss me?” he asked, instead of saying hello.
She grinned, though she tried to make her voice fierce. “Your cat is in my apartment again.”
“You keep leaving those windows open.” His voice was rich with laughter.
“Come get your cat, Mackenzie.”
She hung up the phone, and didn’t even have time to toss it on the counter before a knock came at her door. She opened the door, and there he was.
“Did you teleport?” she asked incredulously.
Cupcake rushed over to sniff him, and he knelt to greet her, his large hands gently stroking her soft head. Still crouching, he glanced up at Magda with a crooked grin. “I’m not saying I brought the cat over and released him beneath your open window just because I wanted to see you, but if I had done that, it would be charming, not creepy, right?”
She laughed. “Reasonably charming. Your cat is still Satan, so…”
He stood, his gaze dropping to her lips. “I missed you.”
“Likewise,” she murmured, already going up on her toes to meet him as he lowered his head.
“Are we allowed to be fraternizing?” she asked, once he’d kicked the door shut and greeted her properly.
“If they didn’t want us to conspire about the finale, they shouldn’t have given us our phones back.”
“Is that why you’re here?” she asked. “To conspire?”
“Of course,” he said—but given the fact that he was already carrying her toward the couch, his lips finding that spot he liked on her neck, she didn’t think they’d be doing much conspiring for a while.
Cupcake heaved a sigh and went to curl up on the rug, gazing longingly at the dog bed where the tabby still reigned.
“Your cat is bullying my dog,” Magda said, but given that Mac was still kissing his way down her neck, the words were more breathless than heated.
“Your dog has no spine,” he said, distractedly.
He wasn’t wrong. And he was incredibly good with his mouth, so she sank her hands into his curls and forgot about the world—until a thought crashed into her head that had her stiffening abruptly. “Oh!”
He froze immediately. “You okay? What happened? Did I hurt you?”
“No! No, you’re amazing. I just keep forgetting to tell you—there were cameras in the inn’s kitchen.”
Mac’s eyes flared wide. “Oh shit.”
“But Julia killed the video! Sorry, buried the lead. She told me yesterday as things were breaking up at King Arthur. I meant to say something, but—”
“The show,” he finished for her. They both knew how rare it was to have a private moment to talk in the Cake-Off bubble. “Thank God for Julia.”
“Thank God she’s the one who found the footage,” Magda agreed. “She said Stephen’s trying to craft some salacious narrative.”
“I’m not surprised. Connor said the guy who interviewed him and Deenie was asking all kinds of personal questions about us—like if we’d ever had a secret affair or something. He thought it was just going to be ‘Who do you want to win?’ but I guess it got pretty weird pretty fast.”
“Oh, God, my parents. They’re going ask my parents that stuff.”
“And my grandmother.”
Magda groaned. “The entire town already thinks—”
“Do we care what they think?” he interrupted her spiraling.
“Do I want to care, or do I actually care?” she asked rhetorically. “Won’t people think it’s fast?”
Mac arched a brow. “I’m pretty sure Connor thinks we’ve been flirting for the last decade.”
“Kendall, too,” she agreed. “Though Charlotte will not be pleased. She’s protective.”
“And I was a dick.”
“I had my dickish moments, too. She’ll get over it.” At least Magda hoped she would. Because she was hoping that they would be together long enough for Charlotte to have time to get over it.
“Look, I know you’re Magda Miller of the Miller Dairy dynasty, and I’m Mackenzie Newton, scion of two Pine Hollow founding families, and we are therefore automatically gossip, but does it matter if people think we’re dating?”
“So we’re dating?”
Mac indicated their position—sprawled on the couch with her on his lap and his hand on her lower back beneath her shirt. “Are you trying to tell me you’re just using me for my body?”
“No, I just… We hadn’t talked about after the show, and I know it was this weird sort of world unto itself, and now we’re back and it’s Pine Hollow and people are going to talk and it’s going to get back to your family and my family and all of our friends—”
“Magda.”
“Which is going to be incredibly awkward if we ever break up, because I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but all of my friends keep marrying all of your friends—”
He cut off her diatribe with a kiss. Then held her gaze when he lifted his head. “Do you want to date me? Maybe go steady? See where this goes?”
She blinked, and the answer was so stupidly obvious. “Yes.”
He grinned. “Good. Then that’s that.”
“So none of the rest of it bothers you?”
He arched his eyebrows. “You honestly think it’s going to be more uncomfortable if we’re exes than it has been for the last fourteen years, when we were plotting each other’s demise?”
“I’m not saying I ever actively plotted your demise…”
He growled, and his hand found a ticklish spot on her side that he’d discovered the other night. Magda squeaked and tried to wriggle away, but the wriggling just wound up with her underneath him on the couch and his lovely shoulders above her and… okay, she wasn’t complaining.
“I’ve been so stressed,” she murmured, sometime later. She was lying with her head pillowed on his chest, stretched out on the couch, listening to the steady thud of his heart. “But it was good stress. The show was the best possible reason to be stressed, so I can’t complain. But you just make it…” Better. So much better.
“Always at your service to help you de-stress,” he rumbled.
“Are you nervous about the final?”
“A little,” he admitted. Cupcake had moved closer and now leaned against the edge of the couch, gazing at Mac adoringly as he petted her with one hand, his other idly tracing patterns on Magda’s back. “I realized something the other night, when I thought I was out of the competition for good. I hadn’t really let myself want it. I hadn’t let myself try , because then I couldn’t be disappointed if I failed. You did all this prep work and threw everything you had into it, and—”
“I know. Always trying too hard.”
“No,” he said, the word startling in its force. “It’s amazing. You inspire me.” His hand hesitated for a moment on her back, and the next words came like a confession. “I was practicing this morning. I know it’s last-minute and probably too late to really make a difference, but I don’t want to feel like I didn’t put my all into this, you know?”
She propped herself up so she could see his face. “Yeah?”
“I guess I decided some things are worth caring about—even if it might hurt like a bitch if you fail.” His eyes held hers. “And then I came to see you.”
“You still have a chance to win it all.”
“One of us better. We can’t let Tim take home the prize. I wouldn’t mind if it was Eunice, but she’s always struggled with the time limits, and the finale is always massive —”
Magda pushed herself up to a sitting position. “Wanna rewatch the finale of every season and see if we can figure out what they’re going to make us do?”
“Hell yes.”
They both knew that Stephen would undoubtedly try to shake things up, adding his own sadistic twist to the usual format, but they still cuddled up on her couch and watched, identifying winning and losing tactics, groaning and cheering. After the second finale, they put the show on her tablet and went down to the bakery, baking as they watched.
It was almost like being back in the Cake-Off kitchen, working together on a challenge—moving around each other, his light touches on her hip or the small of her back to let her know where he was so they didn’t bump into each other. As if she ever would have been unaware of his presence in her space. The heat of him, the sweet tension of this man she could never ignore. But it was also comfortable now. And so welcome.
They still didn’t know what to expect the next day, but her nerves had receded. Whatever it was, they would face it. And one of them would win.
They agreed not to spend the night together—they both wanted their sleep and knew they wouldn’t get much of that if they were together. He kissed her in her kitchen until the timer went off to take the last batch of cupcakes out of the oven, then they went upstairs together so he could collect his cat.
The tabby was an excellent chaperone, because Magda didn’t want to get anywhere near Mac once he’d picked him up. The last thing she wanted was to go into the final tomorrow with her face and arms scratched and bleeding.
It was already dark out when they said goodbye at the door, but Magda knew it would be a while before she slept, her nerves running too high. She put on her cake pajamas and curled up in her bed with Cupcake and her phone, reading recipes in the dark—until Mac started texting her “You Can Do It” gifs.
They stayed up too long, texting in the dark, and she fell asleep smiling.