Chapter 15 #2
“You know, from Animal House?” When Candace shook her head, unfamiliar with the movie, Laurin continued.
“It’s about a college frat house. There’s a parade, and everyone is supposed to have a float for it, but this one frat just drives around destroying all the other floats. They’re the Deathmobile.”
Candace let that roll around for a second before chuckling. “You think Perfect Patty sent Zara over to distract us? To butt in on our conversation about Black Friday? She might have saved us, in fact. What we need to be talking about is the decorations.”
Laurin nodded and jotted down some numbers on their shopping list. “Okay, that’s the total for what we’ve got in the cart so far.”
Candace scanned the list, lamenting all the items they hadn’t been able to pick up.
She’d hoped to cook all fresh, but the produce department had been picked clean.
They were saving a ton of money buying frozen, but it wasn’t going to be nearly as grand a meal as they’d planned on the drive to the store. “We still have seventy dollars left.”
“Yeah. That means we can get a good roast beef instead of a turkey — assuming they have any — with plenty of money to spare for decorating. How do you think you’ll be for time?”
Candace did some more mental math. She was making a soup, all the sides, and the cake.
She wanted to get the soup and cake ready to go tonight, but the sides would be tomorrow.
“I can pull off a table runner tonight. I don’t think I can do much more, but we have the money to buy decorations, right? ”
Laurin did his own math. “Bear with me on this. I’m new. How are they about repeated techniques? I know they make a lot of comments about it on the aired content, but is it really that big of a problem?”
“That’s more for the multi-bake seasons.
You know, when each episode has several challenges?
The judges have to be considered, too. Jannie and Kate won’t care if you give them the same thing every week.
It’s just the judges, so if you have different judges every time, it’s hardly ever an issue as long as it’s only once or twice. ”
Laurin beamed brightly at her, but there was something different about the smile.
He usually had that easy, carefree joy about him, the hallmark of someone who genuinely loved whatever environment they were in.
This smile was far more direct. His eyes were entirely for Candace even as they peeked around her. “Where’s our camera?”
Candace glanced over her shoulder and found the guy fumbling to get through the wall of customers that had moved into Zara’s wake. “Stuck back there.”
Laurin hooked Candace’s waist, dragging her so quickly behind a display of fried onions she yelped. She barely had time to get any of that air out, though, before Laurin’s lips cut the sound off.
The kiss was hot and fast, and his hands worked efficiently, one holding the small of her back to keep her from falling into the shelf while the other strolled down her thigh to snag her knee and drag it up to his hip.
If she hadn’t been covered on all sides by displays and Laurin, everyone would have seen her panties with such a move.
She didn’t care. His lips were soft and brutal, sweet and focused, devastatingly effective. Candace grabbed onto his shoulders to get some leverage, just so she had some control in this. As soon as she did, he backed off, leaving her stunned.
A whole gaggle of customers had caught the way-too-public display of affection, either pointing or laughing or very awkwardly scurrying by.
If any of them looked closely enough, Candace would surely have been recognized, but Laurin had a hand on her cheek, tugging a loose strand of hair behind her ear and wiping away smudged lipstick, the whole time effectively obscuring her face.
“What . . . ahh. . . what did you do?”
Laurin’s grin was all too wicked and delicious. “I kissed you. In thanks for sharing that tip about the judges, instead of giving me just enough answer to get through this challenge.”
Candace subconsciously licked her bottom lip, and Laurin’s eyes snapped right to that.
“That . . . that was a thanks?” Candace asked breathlessly.
He screwed his face into a very dour, manly scowl. “I’m going to thank you again that way, too,” he said, all seriousness. “Would you like to be thanked that way again?”
She nodded, parting her lips in preparation this time. Yes, in fact, she did want that thanks again.
Laurin feathered only his fingertip over her lip this time before pulling away. “Not in a Walmart, though, and not when a cameraman is — damn, he’s free. Let’s go get a roast.”
Just like that, they were off and running, only the bright flush on Candace’s cheeks and the tinge of dark plum stain on Laurin’s lower lip as evidence they were anything less than chaste.
Success in sports was about taking risks. Glory came to those who were brave enough to fight for it. Laurin had given himself many lectures about playing it safe with Candace, but at the end of the day, he could only be what he had always been: a risk-taker.
He dragged her around the store, and she followed willingly, even dropping her on-camera persona in favor of laughing and chatting and flirting ever so slightly.
Whenever she started to retreat into her usual subdued self, it only took a touch or a whisper, a tug down a new aisle for a couple seconds’ of sort-of privacy before the camera hunted them down again.
“We’re never going to get our shopping done here!
” she cried out when he pulled her into the shoe section, but she also made no effort to prevent the collision of their bodies when he stopped short and she continued into him.
She stared up at him, her chest heaving, and it was Laurin who had to separate them before the camera caught up.
“What about this?” he asked, grabbing a random shoe from the display to make it look like they really did need something here.
Candace blanched but recovered quickly enough to say, “Gross, I want traditional. What are you thinking for the decorations? Other than shoes.”
“Monochrome?” Laurin suggested. “I think it would be easier to coordinate a centerpiece and a runner that way.”
Candace nodded. “Not red, though. It looks too much like Valentine’s Day.”
An image of velvety red roses, decadent chocolates, and elegant candles flashed in Laurin’s mind. He couldn’t remember the last time Valentine’s Day wasn’t overtime at the bakery and boxes of tear-apart postcards for Vivvy’s classmates. “What’s wrong with Valentine’s Day?”
“It’s Christmas.”
“True. I don’t want green, either. Harper does a lot of natural stuff, so I don’t want to end up with anything too similar.”
“Glitter Greg and Mark had that purple ombre tree, so let’s stay away from purple.”
“That leaves . . . blue, then? Unless you want to go stark with white and black, gray scale.”
Candace flared her nostrils in repulsion. “Are we trying to be a pretentious 80s-era department store? Gross. Let’s do blues. But can we stick with the purple side? No sky blues. Royal, periwinkle, that sort of thing.”
“I like it.”
They hit the craft section hard, Candace pulling out bolt after bolt of blue fabric before shoving it all back when she found a roll of blue strips. Laurin, meanwhile, got some paints and fake flowers along with a variety of glass tubes, candles, and floral foam wreaths.
“What are you doing with all that?” Candace asked as she surveyed the cart.
“I don’t quite know yet,” Laurin admitted before grabbing some discounted blue ribbon as well. He started to come up with an idea, only to follow Candace’s lead and put a bunch of it back.
“Okay, now what are you doing?”
“Something not tacky, hopefully. Will we be allowed to use the equipment in the pavilion? You said I’m not going to lose us points if I blow sugar again, right?”
“Joe!” Candace called, getting the cameraman’s attention. “Radio out, find out if we can borrow the sugar blowing station.” While he passed that on to the crew at the park, she said, “Not a bird, right? That might get us dinged.”
“No, I’m thinking way bigger. Help me find some mirrors.”
Laurin was feeling good when they left the store, even better when they got the back row of seats in the van to themselves.
Candace scribbled rapidly in her notebook as they updated their plans and worked out a schedule.
Even in the bouncing vehicle, her handwriting remained tidy and compact, the same writing that had saved him during the cookie challenge.
He laced their fingers together when she set the notebook down, liking the way her hand fit in his. “There’s gonna be a camera on us all night,” Candace murmured.
“I guess that’s a good thing.” When Candace stiffened, Laurin explained himself further. “We talked a lot about who I used to be, but I don’t think we ever talked about who I am now. I’m interested in you, Candace, but I’m not interested in you tonight.”
“I don’t understand.”
“A camera tonight won’t change anything. My thoughts are not on tonight . . . except with the challenge, of course. We’re too busy tonight to do anything except win this challenge.”
He pulled their hands in more snugly, tightening his hold on her.
There was a sense of defeat in the way she sank against him, and he did his best not to read too deeply into it.
For all the fuss she’d been making about how this could all be some fabrication and her belief that Laurin had been hired as .
. . a baking gigolo, he supposed . . . she certainly seemed disappointed that Laurin wasn’t interested in a one-night stand.
He would just have to prove to her that he was an all-or-nothing kind of guy, and he wasn’t about to settle on a single night.