Frosting Her Christmas Cookies - Alina Jacobs Page 0,16
eyes.
Emma gave me a hug. “Lilith and I need to go. It’s going to take hours on the subway back to my apartment.”
“You’d think being an investment banker would pay more,” I said.
“Not when you’re the sole person in charge of a private equity firm run by women with a lot of grit but not that much liquid capital. But if The Great Christmas Bake-Off does well,” Emma said hopefully, “then Belle and Dana will have a big cash influx.”
“So you’re saying that all your hopes and dreams rest on Morticia,” Lilith deadpanned. She snorted. “You might need to find a day job.”
I threw up my hands after I walked them out through the cacophony of drunk gold diggers singing Christmas carols.
“I’m an introvert. How am I going to survive the rest of this competition? No.” I stopped myself as I went back to the shared bedroom. “We will not be here longer than tomorrow. Maybe two episodes tops. The thing to do,” I decided as Salem bounced around the room, “is to make a terrible dessert so I’ll have to leave.”
Except…except I couldn’t. I couldn’t not be competitive. Also, I needed to at least beat my cousin. There was no way I wanted Keeley to have bragging rights over me.
My mind was already spinning on what dessert I would cook next and how I would win the competition.
Not win, just beat Keeley.
Salem howled and jumped onto the top bunk to leap like a trapeze artist between it and the neighboring bunk. The only thing worse than being stuck in a cell of a bedroom with a bunch of bachelorettes was going to be being stuck with bachelorettes and a cat with cabin fever. Back in Harrogate, he had the run of the house.
“You know,” I told him, “if you had just been a better-behaved cat, Emma’s landlord wouldn’t have found out about you, and you could be at her apartment right now.”
He swung upside down off the top bunk to bat at my hair. I fished out his harness and clipped it onto him. Time to walk the cat.
A lot of people think you can’t walk a cat. However, with the right motivation, anything is possible.
Since we were in New York City, I didn’t get any strange glances from passersby. Actually, that was probably because there weren’t any. A lesser woman would have found it creepy to be out so late in the cold and the dark with no one around. However, I lived for the shadows and the spooky night. Also, I needed the peace and quiet. I was developing a migraine from all the high-pitched squealing and the incessant chattering about Oh, isn’t Jonathan hot? and Oooh, I wonder how big his dick is and OMG, my friend’s hairdresser’s cousin slept with him once and said it was life changing!
“He’s such a manwhore, Salem,” I said to the cat as we walked to a nearby park.
Actually, calling it a park was being generous. The little patch of grass with one lone tree was not even big enough to allow two people to throw a Frisbee. But it was enough for Salem. He pranced around on his lead, hissing at shadows as I scrolled through my phone.
“I’m just doing research,” I told myself. “I’m not stalking Jonathan. I don’t even like him.”
There was a trove of information on Jonathan on the internet. It confirmed every stereotype and snap judgment I’d made about him.
“Manwhore, check,” I said, scrolling through photos of him slightly sweaty and dancing with scantily clad models. “Terrible business sense, check,” I said at a headline about how investors were skeptical that he could turn his alcohol company into a billion-dollar juggernaut. “And terrible taste, check,” I said as an ad for his alcohol popped up on my feed.
“Honestly,” I told my cat. “You would think that for the amount of money those Manhattan marketing firms charge, they could come up with something that was at least attractive.” The ad showed several bottles of alcohol against a concrete wall. I guessed it was supposed to be masculine, but it just looked like they didn’t try hard enough.
Salem yowled.
“Yes, I suppose we should head back,” I said to the cat and pulled at his leash…only to come up with a leash attached to an empty harness and no cat.
“Salem!” I yelled.
He meowed, but it was pitch dark, and a black cat was impossible to find at night.
“Fuck this competition!” I fumed. “Screw Jonathan. Screw them all. First