Cupcakes and Christmas - R.J. Scott Page 0,30

cake held firm. The cream remained in place, and then there were the goddamn tiny violins. The look on Lewis’s face when he tasted the first one. He was in heaven. Venetia gave a thumbs up, fluttered some more, and everyone in the room knew this was the winning bake.

Unless of course I did better.

It wouldn’t be me.

It was now my turn. Lewis turned the plate critically checking the cupcakes on their stand for imperfections. I could see so much wrong with them.

“What is your inspiration?”

“Driving home for Christmas,” I managed.

“Very nice,” Lewis murmured without a single sign of a hmmm.

“These are so pretty,” Venetia added, and I got a quick hand flutter.

Lewis cut into one. The filling stayed. The icing fell just so, and the tiny car looked cute. He chewed on a mouthful, exchanging a look with Venetia who mid-chew returned the glance and nodded.

“I think the look of what you’ve done is perfect, but I think the cake is a little dry, although the cream offsets that for the most part.”

“I agree with Lewis,” Venetia said. “Presentation eight out of ten, content under the buttercream maybe a seven?”

“Thank you.” I took the positive and returned to the bench. What was done was done, and there was nothing I could change now. Ivan threw me a look of camaraderie, and I smiled back. Then I caught Brody’s expression, one of silent support and non-judgment, without a flicker of anger in sight. Had he forgiven me for the stupid suggestion?

“They look good,” he told me. He was supporting me even after I’d fucked up.

“I wish,” I whispered back. Stupid freaking cupcakes with their teeny tiny cars. What a fuck up.

Rita, floor manager extraordinaire, stepped into the space in front of us all. “Okay, guys, awesome. You have sixty and then we’re setting up for the blind challenge. Use the facilities, get your makeup checked, and then to the foyer for sound bites please.”

This I was used to. Being herded from room to room, giving our take on what had happened.

Mine was pretty much: “It’s the first day, and I can’t wait for the blind challenge. I was kind of disappointed they found the cake itself a seven out of ten, but I loved the feedback.”

I went and hid then, right at the back of the ballroom where the filming was, finding a space where a row of fridges gave me space to just be on my own. It was similar to a space I’d found during season one on the sound stage, only there’d been more room in that one. I needed to ace the blind challenge today because, if I didn’t then it could be me going home, and I have over three hundred thousand dollars in endorsements riding on getting to episode four. Erin had planned it all, how in week four I was going to use several particular products in my baking. I had to get to that episode.

I was planning to give a cut of my endorsements to the charity because I didn’t expect to make it to the end, but there was no way I wanted to go out in round one.

“Hey, mind if I sit?” Ivan slid in next to me before I could answer and hunched up so the refrigerator hid him as well. He was a big man, broad, with a faint accent I couldn’t place but assumed was Russian given his name. Who knows? “That was a hard one,” he announced and sighed noisily. “Getting back into the swing of it.”

“Yeah.”

“Sorry about the dry cake comment you got from the judges.”

I side-eyed him expecting a gleeful expression but was shocked to see that he appeared genuinely sad for me.

“Thanks.”

“I stole one off the display, they weren’t dry. In fact, they were better than mine, but I guess they need to hold the superstars back a little.” He wrinkled his nose and then laughed. “It’s all a game isn’t it.”

“Yeah,” I said, although I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, because yes, it was a competition, hence it was a game, and I wasn’t exactly a superstar. He must mean Brody.

“Room for one more?” Kristen asked as she sat on Ivan’s knee. I pushed myself as far as I could into the corner to give them space, but it seemed Ivan and Kristen were fine with their arrangement. “I used to sit in a space like this back on the sound stage in my season, the only quiet space with