Chapter 12
No one cheers when Jasper’s name is called as the baker going home this week.
Jasper nods, smiling in that stunned, gracious way people do when they’re trying not to ruin the moment for everyone else. He presses his lips together, lets out a slow breath, and files the disappointment away for later when he’s alone.
I clock our resident optimist immediately.
She’s standing a few feet behind him, hands clenched at her sides, eyes already glassy. When he turns to hug her, she breaks.
“I’m so sorry.” Her usual cheery voice wobbles, muffled against Jasper’s chest. “It really shouldn’t have been you. I’m so, so sorry.”
Jasper laughs awkwardly, pulling back just enough to look at her. “Hey, kiddo. It’s okay. That’s the game, right? Someone’s gotta go home. I get to see my kids tomorrow, so it ain’t all bad.”
Taylor shakes her head. “No. It’s not—”
But she stops herself, swallowing hard, shifting on her feet like she’s weighing whether to say something she can’t take back. “I’m just… I’m really sorry.”
Her reaction throws me.
Taylor’s empathetic, sure. That’s nothing new. Kindness is practically built into her. But this isn’t that. This sits heavier, the kind of feeling that makes your hands tremble when there’s nothing you can fix.
Jasper makes his rounds, hugging everyone, thanking the judges, promising to bake again. When he finally disappears through the exit, the tent exhales. The cameras cut.
But Taylor doesn’t recover.
Her usual soft, smiling face is gone—replaced with something sharper, eyes cutting across the room. I follow her gaze to… Lila?
I narrow my eyes, scrutinizing her, trying to piece together what Taylor sees. What I’m missing. What’s already taken root right under my nose.
Lila is smiling too wide, already talking to the camera about how happy she is to still be here, her voice wrapping around the loss of Jasper like it belongs to her.
My jaw tightens. I don’t like her.
Taylor drifts through the aftermath like she’s underwater. Her beautiful hazel eyes remain unfocused, her smile nowhere to be found.
When I catch her eye, she looks away too quickly.
Usually, she lingers, smiles, or throws me a dorky thumbs-up. Now, she’s avoiding me, and everyone else, entirely.
As she silently tucks herself into one of the window seats of the van, she curls toward the window and closes her eyes, shutting the world out. I tentatively take the seat beside her, not sure what to say, so I don’t say anything at all.
That’s when it hits me—I don’t have a clue what in the hell just happened.
Because whatever Taylor is carrying right now is more than just losing a fellow baker. And she’s carrying it alone.
The ride back to the house passes in a blur of cracked jokes and forced laughter all around us. Diane, I think, starts talking about what she’ll bake next week for Southern Classics Week. Khalil jokes about carbo-loading after Italian Week. It all drifts past me.
Taylor doesn’t move from her spot, arms wrapped tight around herself. A low pang of unease unfurls in my chest as I sit there, completely useless.
Fuck.
Taylor is the last one out of the van and the first one inside the house. She doesn’t look at anyone as she barrels through the front door. I linger in the foyer, watching her disappear up the stairs before a door clicks shut in the distance.
“Don’t,” Julian says quietly, appearing at my side.
His hand lands on my shoulder, grounding me. “You don’t need to fix everything you notice.”
I huff out a breath, still not looking at him. “I wasn’t going to.”
He gives me a look that says he knows better.
Inside, the house hums with that uncomfortable post-judging energy. Everyone searches for distractions to avoid replaying the same three moments in their heads. A champagne bottle pops somewhere, and music rises to fill the silence.
Julian steers me toward the kitchen under the guise of grabbing a beer. “Walk with me,” he says. “I want to know where your head’s at.”
I don’t fight him this time because a beer sounds perfect.
“You look like hell,” he taunts, smirking.
I grunt in response and grab the bottle he offers. My hands are still faintly tacky with sugar and citrus oil despite the scrub I gave them before we left the tent. I press my fingertip against the glass a few times, focusing on the slight pull.
“Good showstopper?” he asks.
I take a long drink. The cold steadies me. “Yeah.”
“That’s all I get?” Julian arches an eyebrow.
I shrug, leaning back against the island. My body aches in that deep, satisfying way it only does after hours of standing, repeating the same precise motions. A sign of a day well spent and a job well done.
“I got star baker this week,” I say.
He breaks into a wide grin. “That’s a good thing, right?”
“It is.”
“You should tell your face that.” His grin shifts into another smirk when my exhausted gaze meets his.
“I don’t know,” I reply after a beat. “It’s hard to be excited when someone else’s dream was destroyed in the same sentence.”
That earns me a look. Julian twists the cap off his beer and takes a sip, eyes never leaving mine. “That’s new.”
I let the silence stretch. The house creaks softly around us—footsteps overhead, someone laughing down the hall. The others are decompressing in their own ways. I don’t feel like joining them yet.
“The judges really liked it,” I admit. “They said it was great. I’ve been working with bolder flavors, and they’re responding to that. They gave me all the words you want to hear in a competition like this.”
“But?” Julian prompts.
“But that’s not the part that mattered.”
He waits, completely at ease, while I sort through the feeling that has been lodged in the back of my head all day. I glance down at my hands, flexing my fingers.
“I had fun today.”
There it is. The thing I haven’t said out loud in years.
Julian’s expression changes. The look isn’t exactly surprise, but something close to it, mixed with a healthy dose of relief. “You had fun.”
“Don’t make a big deal out of it.” I take another drink, looking anywhere but at the smirking asshole standing in front of me.
“I’m absolutely making a big deal out of it.”
I scoff, shaking my head.
“I wanted to impress the judges, but I also knew I wouldn’t be going home today no matter what. I just… got into it. Lost track of time. Forgot about the cameras, the clock—everything—and just baked something I wanted to bake.”
“And how did that feel?”
I close my eyes briefly as I recall the day. The memory is still warm in my mind, fragile as glass. “Like something I didn’t realize I’d been missing.”
Julian nods, and I can see the gears turning in his head.
“You remember when you were sixteen, and you ruined that batch of croissants at three in the morning because you stayed out too late at Homecoming?”
I snort. “You mean the batch Chet made me redo over and over again until sunrise?”
“You cried,” Julian reminds me, a softer smile on his face.
“I was exhausted.”
“You cried because you thought you’d ruined everything for the restaurant,” he corrects. “And then you did it again the next night. And the night after that.”
“Your point?”
“My point is, you used to love this. And then someone taught you that having fun and being good at what you do are mutually exclusive.”
The words land harder than I expect, because he’s not wrong. I straighten my shoulders, but I don’t answer right away.
Because the truth is, standing there in the tent today felt like I was stealing something back for myself. Like joy was contraband, and I’d managed to smuggle it out without anyone noticing.
“I hate that he gets to take that from me.” The admission is bitter on my tongue, so I wash it down by chugging the rest of my beer. “Even now.”
Julian presses a warm hand against my shoulder.
“He doesn’t get to, not if you don’t let him.”
I let out a humorless laugh. He doesn’t push.
“So,” Julian says, lightening again. “Aside from baking revelations. Anything, or anyone, catch your eye?”
I glare at him, already seeing where this is going. I don’t know why I thought my attention on Taylor would slip by him unnoticed, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping it would. Not only is Julian my cousin, the asshole’s my best friend and has some kind of sixth sense about these things.
But that doesn’t mean I’m in the mood to talk about it.
“Don’t start.”
“Oh, I’m starting. You haven’t been this… human since before starting with The Harrington Group back in the day.”
I push off the counter and head for the stairs, refusing to entertain this back and forth. I’m too tired. Too preoccupied by the pretty girl upstairs, sulking and alone.
“Drop it, Jules.”
He doesn’t drop it, though, per usual. Instead, he saddles up next to me, egging me on further. “It’s Taylor, isn’t it?”
I stop short on the first stair. “What?”
“It’s Taylor.” His grin widens at whatever reaction flickers across my face, and fuck—I instantly know I’ve given myself away.
“Absolutely not, that’s ludicrous.”
“Is it, though?”
The arrogant way he cocks his head in challenge makes me want to take him to the ground like we’re kids again. I size him up out of habit, head to toe.
He isn’t bigger than me.
I could definitely still take him.
“Of course it is.”
“You watch her like you don’t believe she’s real, man. If I didn’t already know how much you hate relationships, I’d bet anything you’re working up the nerve to make a move.”
“I watch everyone,” I argue, crossing my arms, conveniently ignoring the second half of that. I don’t hate relationships. I just don’t think most people are worth the effort.
“You observe everyone. You linger on her.”
I open my mouth to defend myself, then close it again.
Julian hums at my silence, like he knows he’s got me.
“She’s just… different than everyone back home.”
I sigh as I think about all the little ways Taylor shines that others could never compete with. “And she actually likes being here, no matter what the judges throw at us.”
“And you don’t?”
I hesitate.