The Baking Games

Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

SAVANNAH

After I ran away from the bathroom, convinced Rhett was going to come out and squash me under his giant foot, I ended up in the foyer. I didn’t want to go back upstairs. I wanted to find the kitchen, but I wandered onto a side porch with cushy furniture instead.

My cameraman was hot on my trail the entire time. I don’t know how Rhett got away from him for so long, but I bet he won’t do it again. They’re watching him like a hawk now. The thought of the look on his face when I yelled that makes me laugh every time I think about it.

I walk over and sit down in one of the wicker rockers, with its ivory-colored cushions. The swing across from it is made of solid wood and has a colorful striped cushion on it. It’s got to be almost dinnertime now, but I don’t have my phone, and I never wear a watch, so I’m a bit disoriented about time. All I know is that I’m starving. Are they trying to kill us?

“Well, hello there.”

Ugh. I know that voice. I dated that voice for two years.

I turn in my chair to see Connor smoking a cigarette in a darkened corner. I always thought it was a nasty habit, and I warned him about the health implications over and over, but Connor is stubborn and stuck in his ways.

“Why are you sitting there?”

“Just taking a little smoke break,” he says, blowing smoke rings into the air like I’m going to be impressed with that. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Yeah, totally coincidental,” I say, deadpan.

He stands up and walks closer, sitting down in the chair opposite me. I never thought I’d have to look at this man’s face again, and I have to say I was okay with that.

“So, were you surprised to see me?” He grins like he’s enjoying this immensely.

“Sure. Kind of like the way I’d be surprised if a bag of dog poo landed right here next to me.”

His smile fades. “I didn’t know you’d be here, either. Trust me.”

Connor used to be so nice. When we first met, he wooed me like nobody had been wooed before. That lasted about six months before I could see cracks. I could look past much of it except for how he interacted with Sadie.

He was often rude. Mean, even. We were constantly at odds over it. He didn’t want her around. He wanted more time with me alone. He wanted her to move out of my apartment. On and on it went until I couldn’t take it anymore.

Sadie offered to leave. She wanted to see me happy, but I explained to her right before I broke up with him that being with Connor was not the version of happiness I wanted.

So I dumped him. Connor is attractive, and I don’t think anyone had ever broken up with him before. He was not happy about it.

But now he looks like the cat that ate the canary, and I can’t figure it out.

“I have a hard time believing you didn’t know I’d be here,” I say. The camera guy behind Connor shakes his head. Apparently, I’m treading on thin ice again, talking about production stuff.

“Believe what you want, Red,” he says, standing up and putting his cigarette out on the ground. I guess he figures all the little people on set can clean up behind him.

“Don’t call me that, Connor. You know I hate that nickname.”

He smiles. “Yes, I know.”

RHETT

The news that Connor is Savannah’s ex was shocking. The guy really seems like a jerk, and I don’t care for jerks. Sure, I may sometimes come off as one myself, and maybe that’s why I recognize it in Connor. I don’t like him and plan to get him out of this competition as soon as possible.

I walk back to my room, pondering their relationship in my mind. What else do I have to do but think right now?

Why would Savannah even date a guy like that? She always seemed so “sunny” and bright. He seems annoying and irritating. I’ll never understand women and the choices they make sometimes.

I’m not a huge fan of overly happy people, but I can admire that trait in them. How they go through life with all its ups and downs and still come out smiling every day is beyond me.

Of course, Savannah annoyed me greatly in pastry chef school. She was always so positive. Seemed to want to be a teacher’s pet. Always answering questions before anyone else. Raising her hand like we were in grade school. I never raised my hand. I just answered the question like a grownup. She’d give me a glare when I answered before she could. I found it funny and made it a bit of a game to pass the time when I was bored.

If something fell apart, she shrugged her shoulders and said oh well. She started over and didn’t complain. I never saw her raise her voice or even get flustered. She just kept going with a smile on her face,

See? Annoying.

Okay, okay. Most people might find some of that endearing, I guess.

“Come on, man! Didn’t you hear the intercom?” Nate stands before me, waving his hands like he’s landing a plane. Apparently, I was so lost in thought that I missed something.

“What?”

“It’s dinner time!” Nate darts out the door like he hasn’t eaten in years. I’m hungry, but there’s no need to get all excited about it.

I walk down the curved staircase, which makes me feel like I’m in a scene from Gone With The Wind. Yes, the irony of my name isn’t lost on me.

It’s weird to be in a house with a bunch of people I don’t know. Of course, I’m normally on boats with people I don’t know, but at least I know my crewmates. I know the people I work with each day. When I look at these people, they’re all strangers. Well, except for Savannah.

I don’t see her around. Maybe she quit when she realized she was going to be stuck here with me and her loser ex-boyfriend.

“Everyone gather around!” Our host, Dan, is standing at the door to some room I couldn’t get into earlier. He’s so over the top on the hosting thing that I kind of want to smack him. His teeth are even too much. His dentist really did him a disservice with those things.

“Are we ever going to eat?” someone says loudly, but I can’t see who.

“That’s what I want to talk about. First, I hope everyone is adjusting to the house and your new rooms. This is the last time you’ll see me until your first challenge.” Someone cheers, but again, I can’t see who it is. “Thanks a lot,” he says, flashing a fake smile toward the camera. “Anyway, we know you’re hungry, and it’s almost dinner time, so behind this door, we’ve had a whole meal catered by the area’s best chefs!”

The small, sad crowd cheers. Well, I don’t.

“From now on, you’re responsible for your own meals. You’ll find a fully stocked pantry and refrigerator. Our helpers will come in while you’re at competitions and refill things daily. You will also be called in for confessionals occasionally, so if you hear your name called, please go to the room over there with the red door.” He points down a side hallway. This house is huge and has the weirdest layout I’ve ever seen.

“Keep your mics on. You are being filmed at all times, except when you’re in the restroom. Aside from that, assume America can see and hear you. You’ll have access to the communal kitchen and dining room behind this door tonight. During competitions, we’ll use our state-of-the-art industrial kitchen with multiple stations, which has been built behind the house as a separate structure.”

I. WANT. TO. EAT.

“Finally, remember that America is watching. They get a vote, too.” He winks as if that’s a secret code we’re all supposed to get, and then he opens the kitchen door. Everyone runs in like a herd of buffalo. Haven’t these people seen food before?

As usual, I’m the last one in, and the only seat left is across from Savannah. She’s sitting beside Maggie, chatting away and laughing. She does have a nice smile. I didn’t remember that. During school, she just irritated me. I’m sure she’ll do it again as soon as the competition starts tomorrow, but I can appreciate her for tonight.

“Greene,” I say, sitting down across from her and putting a white cloth napkin in my lap.

“Don’t call me that,” she says through gritted teeth, a smile still on her face. See, I know she’s got a temper under all that positivity, and I’d love to see it. I’ve always wondered what it would take.

“Fine. I’ll call you Sunny then.”

She reaches over to take a yeast roll from a basket between us. “Why would you call me that?”

“Because you’re always smiling, and it’s annoying.”

She smiles even bigger. “It’s only annoying to grumpy people.”

I shrug my shoulders. “I don’t think so, but whatever you say.”

“Do you two know each other?” Tanya asks. She’s the single mom with the catering business, I think. I try to remember everyone. You should always know your competition.

Savannah rolls her eyes. “Unfortunately. We went to pastry chef school together.”

“Oh, so he’s the jerk you couldn’t stand in school? That makes sense,” Connor interjects from the end of the table where he’s seated himself like he’s the king of our group. I’ll be setting him straight on that soon.

“You called me a jerk?” I ask, smiling.

She smiles back. “Oh, I called you way worse than that. Trust me.”

I can’t help myself. I’m enjoying this barbing back and forth. Maybe I’m just tired, but I find it entertaining.

We continue eating the subpar lasagna they’ve served us as everyone chats amongst themselves. I stay as quiet as possible, opting to listen in to their conversations. People have no idea what they reveal when their defenses are down.

For instance, Leo said his biggest challenge is being timed. It makes him nervous. I can use that information in challenges by trying to divert his attention. Is it mean? Maybe. Will it help me win? For sure.

When dinner is over, we all head back upstairs to our rooms. Dan said our first challenge is tomorrow at lunchtime, so we all need to rest up. I’m not nervous; I’m looking forward to it. Tomorrow is day one of the rest of my life.

SAVANNAH

I lay in bed for hours, staring at the ceiling, watching the live oak trees dance in the moonlight on the ceiling above me. I have learned a few things since coming to The Baking Games just a few hours ago.

One is that Lainey Loudermilk is one of the most annoying people on the planet. She has an entire bedtime routine that takes over two hours. She was constantly plucking, tweezing, and scrubbing her face and had some sort of contraption she put on her head to ensure her hair didn't fall during the night. It was a very strange thing to see such a young person do. I try not to engage with her, fearing that I might sock her right in the nose. That's not my personality. I'm a happy, positive person. I get along with just about everybody. Well, except for three of the people who are currently in this house with me.

I also noticed that Maggie, the sixty-five-year-old widow on the other side of the room, snores quite loudly. I like her. She seems very nice. I think we're going to be friends. But her snoring is keeping me awake already, and I can't imagine how I will handle this for several more weeks.

Well, if I'm lucky. If I stay in the competition. It's something I'm trying not to think about. You can get very psyched out coming into a house full of people who are just as qualified as you are, if not more. And then when you're stuck in there with your horrible ex-boyfriend and your rival from school, well, let's just say this isn't the most comfortable spot I've ever been in.

Unable to sleep, I get up, slip on my fluffy cat slippers, and decide to walk down to the kitchen. I put on my robe beforehand because I don't need anybody seeing me in my short little nightgown. I can't sleep with a lot of clothes on, but I would never sleep naked. After all, what would happen if the place caught on fire? I'd have to run right out into a street full of people I barely know, wearing nothing but my birthday suit. No, thank you.

I'm proud of my body. It's a good one. It's keeping me alive and everything, but it's definitely not supermodel status. I don't need to show this thing off on the street outside the house, so I wear the least little bit I can, which is my short little nightgown with puppies and kittens on it. It looks like something a third-grader would wear.

There are two kitchens in this house. The kitchen that we ate dinner in is the communal kitchen. It's much like a regular kitchen would be in a house and probably came with this one when it was built years ago. It has been remodeled to make it bigger and more functional. Then there's the industrial kitchen, which we haven't seen yet. From how it was described, it has multiple stations so that everybody has their own workspace with all their own equipment.

I'm looking forward to getting in there. I love working in an industrial kitchen, but the one at the grocery store where I work isn’t exactly that. Half the time, the oven doesn’t work, and Big Thelma smacks it with her size ten shoe to get it going.

Yeah. I’ve really been living the dream.

I had anticipated when I got out of pastry chef school that I would go to work at some fancy restaurant, get all the experience I needed, and then open a chain of bakeries. I never imagined that I would find myself getting up at the crack of dawn to go make cupcakes for some little girl's birthday party while being under the tutelage of Big Thelma. It's not exactly the dream I had for myself when I was working all those nights in pastry chef school.

I'm slightly hungry because of the terrible lasagna they fed us for dinner. I don't know who made that, but they obviously had not attended a quality culinary school. It tasted like somebody who had just learned what lasagna was earlier in the afternoon made it.

I go into the communal kitchen and am surprised to see no one there. Maybe I’m the lone night owl in the house. Of course, I’m being closely followed by my cameraman, Vinny. He doesn’t say much, but he’s always on me like a duck on a June bug, as my grandma used to say. Dan told us that sometimes we’d just be filmed by the stationary cameras, and other times the cameramen would follow us. So far, I haven’t seen any camera women.

The thing about the cameras is we aren’t allowed to talk directly to them unless they ask us a question. We’re supposed to pretend they aren’t there. That’s impossible to do so far. Having someone tail you wherever you go is much weirder than I thought it would be. Maybe I’ll get used to it eventually, but I highly doubt it. Still, I’d rather be here in this house with my rival and my ex than at the bakery tomorrow with Big Thelma and her huge oven-whacking shoes.

I look around the kitchen for any kind of snack. There’s a pantry area that appears to be locked. No idea why, and I can’t ask anybody because we can’t talk to producers unless we want to leave the competition. They said we’d have a fully stocked pantry, but what good is that if they lock it after hours? Some of us like to eat in the wee hours of the morning to cover up our emotions, thank you very much.

From what I understand, we’ll start doing something called “confessionals” tomorrow. They’ll take some of us, one by one, into a little soundproof room and ask us questions about how things are going.

So, I’m on my own in my efforts to find food. I feel like a raccoon searching the local dumpster behind the gas station. I open each cabinet and the refrigerator, but the pickings are slim. Then I see what I think is the edge of a bag of chips peeking out of one of the upper cabinets in the corner of the kitchen.

I can hear them singing to me, calling my name, ushering me to them. I walk over and stand on my tippy toes, trying in vain to get my hand to even come close to the red bag, but no such luck. I’m not a tall person. I decide the best course of action is to climb up onto the counter and get onto my knees. Vinny doesn’t seem like he’s planning to stop me. I assume he’d watch me fall to my death off the roof if it made for good ratings.

First, I have to reach the counter. I find a small, foldable stepstool wedged between the refrigerator and the cabinets, so I slide it out and unfold it. I glance at Vinny, who isn’t making eye contact and probably hopes to get the day’s best footage of a small red-haired woman falling from the counter and splitting her head in two.

I step up onto the stool and then raise one knee to the counter, followed by the other knee, all while holding onto one of the cabinet pulls. Those chips are within my grasp! I can already taste their salty goodness on my tongue.

I carefully maintain my grip on the knob and pull myself up to a standing position on the countertop. Don’t worry, I’m wearing socks. And I will wipe the counter with a disinfectant after I get my prize. I’m not an animal.

I open the cabinet, and that’s when the devastation starts. It’s not a bag of chips. It’s a bag of those little square cheese crackers, which I hate. I think they taste like feet.

“Ugh,” I groan, closing the cabinet and starting to make my way back down. But God, or the Universe, or perhaps even the devil himself, has other plans. I feel it happening in slow motion. Socks are not the thing you wear on a slippery granite countertop. It seems very logical now that I think about it, just before my imminent death.

I’m petite. Short, actually. Short people shouldn’t be high up. We have to fall further. It’s just science, I think.

First, one foot slips from under me, and then the other foot is like, Oh, cool, we’re gonna kill her today .

I fall, seemingly hanging in mid-air, going backward straight for the original hardwood floors that stretch around the huge house. Wonder how hard they really are. I’m about to find out.

But then I don’t find out. Someone catches me. Someone large and strong and warm. Someone who smells like my favorite men’s cologne from high school.

I land with a thud in these foreign arms, the breath knocked out of me for a second, and that’s when I finally look up.

Rhett.

He’s looking at me, and I’m looking at him, and it feels like time has stopped. Where did he come from? How did he catch me so quickly?

I glance and notice Vinny coming in for a closer shot. Thanks for the help, Vinny.

No words are exchanged as Rhett slowly lowers me to the ground. He sets me down and backs up, leaning against the island, crossing his gigantic arms.

He’s wearing a white t-shirt and baggy sweatpants that hug him in all the right places. This wasn’t the Rhett I saw in school. That guy dressed like he was going to the stock exchange afterward but with a white apron on.

“Thank you,” I croak out as he continues staring at me.

“What in the world were you trying to do?” His tone is accusatory.

“I thought that was a bag of chips.”

“So you decided to kill yourself for it? Wearing fuzzy socks?”

I look down at my feet. “I didn’t say it was a good idea.”

“And was it chips?”

“No. It was nasty cheese crackers,” I say with a sigh. Why do I feel like I’m being scolded by my large older brother?

“Why didn’t you just ask somebody?”

I laugh. “Who? Everyone is asleep.”

“Me.”

“As far as I knew, you were asleep. And we’re not exactly friends, Rhett. It’s not like I’d come to you for my potato chip needs.” I walk around him and look in more cabinets, like someone with a tapeworm needing a snack.

“Well, I’ll let you get on with your chip search,” he says, walking toward the back patio. For some inexplicable reason, I follow, grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl. It’s not what I want, but it’ll do for now.

“Hey, thanks again for catching me.”

He waves a hand behind his head. “No problem.”

I follow him until we’re outside in the large courtyard they’ve created for the show. There’s a hot tub, hammocks, a grassy area, and some outdoor sofas. There are foosball and pool tables on a covered patio area. He walks to the grassy area and pulls one foot behind his very nice rear end, stretching his quad.

“What are you doing up, anyway?” I ask, taking a bite of the apple.

“Running.”

“Running? At this hour? We have our first competition tomorrow. Why aren’t you sleeping?”

He drops his leg and turns to me, his dark eyebrow quirked up above his pale blue eyes. “Why aren’t you sleeping, Sunny?”

I forgot he’d given me a nickname. I choose not to engage with him about it. It’s not a bad nickname. He thinks it’s a putdown. I think it’s a compliment.

“As I said, I was hungry.”

He turns to stretch the other leg. “I didn’t peg you as a junk food eater.”

“I didn’t peg you as a midnight runner.”

He chuckles. “I think it’s closer to one now, actually.”

“You still didn’t explain why you’re running this late the night before our first competition.”

“I didn’t know I owed you an explanation,” he says dryly before he jogs away. Now I remember why I don’t like this guy. He’s rude and sarcastic. He’s competitive. I can’t trust him no matter what. Well, unless it’s to catch me.