Chapter 16 #2
Candace wished it didn’t feel so nice having someone hold her and talk with such conviction about things she wanted to be true.
She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had ever put this much effort into lifting her up.
And she’d always done it so well herself, getting all the way to the competition level of baking without any support, that she didn’t think she needed this.
But she did.
“There’s a point when you’ve caused so many problems for your family that—”
“My sister got pregnant when she was sixteen,” Laurin rushed out as though he was worried that he, of all people, wouldn’t be able to speak his mind if he hesitated at all.
“The guy ditched her. She hid it for a long time, too long for her to have a choice in what to do. Our mother was furious. I was . . . not a planned pregnancy either, and her life was difficult for a long time for it. Maman never abandoned her, though. Held my sister’s hand when she gave birth and everything. ”
“Did your sister keep the baby?” Candace asked.
Laurin closed his eyes, bracing himself as he said. “No, I kept the baby. We should, ah, get back to work now.”
Thanksgiving without family sucked.
This was the first Thanksgiving Laurin had spent away from home since his football years, when he’d been in Europe so Thanksgiving hadn’t been a thing at all.
But he’d embraced the holiday, ignoring the dark history of it in favor of the spirit of it and the traditions behind it, namely the gigantic feast. Yeah, he spent every day in a bakery, but he still loved spending an entire day in the kitchen.
He loved inviting over friends and neighbors who didn’t have anywhere else to go. He loved the feast.
He didn’t even know what his family was doing, and it sucked. He was up all night, getting more and more irritated, but he’d at least been able to channel that into challenge prep. Lots of coffee, lots of cooking, lots of crafting.
Candace had apparently slept well; she was bubbly all morning, even going as far as to pick the station on the TV and sing along with the music she knew.
“It’s kinda weird, don’t you think,” Laurin mused when he nearly snapped at her for putting away the spinach before he’d finished with it, “that you’re the one in such a good mood this morning?”
Her eyes sparkled like sapphires in the morning sun. “It’s crazy, but I’m excited for this afternoon. I haven’t done Thanksgiving in ages. I know everyone’s grumpy with me, but if I get to eat a whole bunch of good food, I’m not going to complain.”
“You hardly eat any food,” Laurin pointed out. His sister had gone through a phase after having Vivvy when she mostly pushed food around her plate to make it look like she had eaten something. Candace did the same thing with most of her meals.
Instead of arguing with him, she shot him a fantastic smile and a playful tilt of her profile. “Maybe I’ve been saving up for today. Aren’t you excited about dinner tonight?”
Laurin dumped the spinach out onto a cutting board and sifted through it, picking out the leaves that had gone squishy and snapping off the longer stems. His spinach artichoke dip might not have been the most original dish, but it was a crowd-pleaser.
Candace had already retrieved an exceptional baguette from the oven and was busy slicing it into thick discs to liven the dish up a bit.
Sourdough bread bowl of spinach dip? Tired.
A crostini topped with creme d’artichaut? Wow factor.
“Thanksgiving has never been about food for me. It’s about family, right? And being thankful for all you have, I guess.” He knew everything he said to her was a landmine, but he couldn’t hold it back.
Laurin held himself back from asking her how she was even supporting herself right now. He was already doing a bang-up job of raining on her good mood.
She swished her basting brush across the ovals in beat to the peppy Beatles track playing and even swung her hips. “I don’t have much, but I’ll have dinner tonight. Oh, and now that we’re at the fourth round, we have eight thousand dollars we didn’t have when we started.”
“And our daily pay.”
“See? This is pretty good — go easy on that!” She grabbed Laurin’s arm to guide the cayenne pepper away from the crock pot. “Some judges don’t handle heat very well. Add all the spice you want to what’s left after they do their tasting.”
Her hand on his felt nice. He wasn’t grouchy with her or even the conversation they’d had the night before, the secrets he’d had to share just to show how wrong she was about family. He missed his own family, and it was weighing on him, but Candace’s touch warmed him.
Cameras be damned. His heart ached as if there was a fix standing right there next to him, and he was going to take it. He snagged her by the waist and pulled her to him.
And got smacked in the face with a buttered basting brush.
“Oh gosh, I’m sorry!” Candace belted out before a laugh rumbled up out of her, and she scrambled to get a towel. “I thought I was heading to your side or something, I don’t know, and meant to hold it out of your way.”
Laurin covered his eye and squeezed it closed until Candace pried his hand away and dabbed at his lashes. “It’s okay, I shouldn’t have grabbed you like that. I’m trying to make myself feel better and . . .”
“And buttering the eyeball turned out not to make you feel any better?”
Laurin chuckled. “Who’d have thought, right?
” He held still as Candace wiped the mess away and followed her when she led him to the sink.
She was being way more careful than she needed to be with him, and he thought about telling her he once literally had a bone pop through his skin for the entire world to see during a widely televised game, but that gentle touch was nice.
Especially when she finished up and rubbed his back.
“There. Try opening your eyes now.”
Everything was clear enough, and he got the bonus of swiping some sage butter off Candace’s cheek as well.
“Better?” she asked.
“Yeah. Glad we’re both still in pajamas, too. We didn’t make too much of a mess of anything but our faces.”
“I don’t think your face is a mess at all.”
Candace turned away too quickly for Laurin to see if she was flirting with him, but he suspected she was.