Cupcakes and Christmas - R.J. Scott Page 0,84

Each tiny light needed a hole to sit in, and the work was painstaking but nothing I hadn’t done before.

Only for some godforsaken reason the collection of holes weakened the tree when it had never happened that way before and fiddling with the illumination put me behind. With only ten minutes to go, I was still messing with that one element, and my movements were growing clumsier by the minute. I tried not to look at Justin, not even out of the corner of my eye, because if he saw how stressed I was getting it might mess with his own bake.

His cake looked stunning. The Christmas tree was covered in a delicate web of icing that looked like lacy snowflakes, and the presents were all crisp corners and pretty sugar ice bows. It hit me as the clock counted down and I finally got the last light in place that I could lose this.

How did I feel about that? Gutted of course, that was a real emotion and I owned it, but also so excited for Justin. It genuinely didn’t matter who won because we were both winners.

“That’s time!” Courtney called, and I stepped back and away, admiring the work in my seven tier Christmas cake with a meandering path in the snow and the lights in the trees. There was even a snowman in the wintry forest wearing a hat with a J iced onto it. This would mean nothing to anyone else, but to me and Justin, this was Jeremy the snowman, and that made me smile.

The judges deliberated but unlike a normal round, they didn’t announce the baker of the week with us behind our benches. This was going to be done with family and former participants in attendance. I noticed that even though Justin didn’t have family with him, Adam and Lacey stood on the other side of him including him in the family fold.

“And the winner is… ”

Adam was making faces at me, and Mom and Dad were hugging each other hard. Lacey and Joe were so proud of me. Kristen and Ivan were also near Justin, but I wanted to tell him so badly that my family would be here for him as well. Clare wasn’t here, but no one expected that, and Shauna was leaning into a man with kind eyes who I assumed was Ronan. This was the moment we found out who the winner was and the pause was interminable. Instinctively, I gripped Justin’s hand and waited for the announcement. It seemed like forever just standing there and waiting—

“… Brody!”

Justin whooped and spun me around before we were consumed by my family. It felt great to win. I felt success right inside me, but it was nothing like the feeling that I’d found the best prize of all. Justin.

The celebration went on into the night and I had to rescue Justin from my family several times, the last one from a very serious Adam threatening bodily harm if Justin hurt a hair on my head.

Today it was going home day. I’d extended my stay to spend the last few days with Justin, but now I needed to head to Calgary and the flight home. He was going west to Seattle for an appearance that he couldn’t get out of unless he forfeited the money he’d been promised. It was the final KlecksoCream event, even though he’d left pointed posts on his social media about how he would prefer his fans not to use it. They seemed to think any publicity was good. Particularly when they somehow found out he’d been the runner-up in the show. So, today, in the carpark was our last chance to make plans for the future.

“Mom has invited you for the big day. Will you come?” I said as we kissed by his loaned BMW.

He nodded, but I could tell from his expression that he was lost in thought.

“Maybe it could be possible.”

I’d take a maybe over a no any day besides, we could text and call, and it wouldn’t be long until he was done with everything at the end of the year. Then maybe we could meet in the middle and give this new love of ours a go. He still hadn’t repeated the words, but that was okay, I understood why, and I was happy for what I could get at the moment. I’d work on him for the rest. As I said to Adam, meeting Justin had been fate, and I was