“Maybe the viewers aren’t as stupid as you think they are,” he suggested dryly and then closed the door behind us. What if she was right though? Brody worked hard to get to this position, and maybe what we had going on would jeopardize his career?
“Maybe we should cool things until this is over if this is going to be a problem—”
He kissed me hard, right in front of everyone, then set me away and patted my shoulder.
“Good luck, Justin.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
It’s all in the wrist action
Brody
I was pissed at Rita, and I needed Justin to focus on me and the competition and not start doubting the words he’d given to me last night. I still couldn’t believe that he’d told me he was falling in love with me, or that I’d told him I loved him outright. Now he was blinking at me, his tongue darting out to taste our kiss, and I’d never seen anything so beautiful.
“Good luck, Brody,” he murmured, and just when I thought we were done, he cupped my face and kissed me back. “Let’s do this thing.”
Makeup tutted. Apparently kissing was bad for the powder, but I don’t care what people thought. We teased and laughed our way through the cupcake round and as the world and his wife expected, Justin’s were perfect. Only not as perfect as the peck on the cheek he gave me in post-cupcake interviews live on camera.
Justin had won the cupcake round—his take on Christmas movies had included a tiny Die Hard tower with flames and a hand drawn chocolate bad guy falling from the top, suspended on the thinnest of cotton. Each cupcake was stunning, but it wasn’t just the design. It was that he’d thought outside the box and not only that but the bake itself, the most important part of the whole thing, was perfect. I snagged one when the cameras turned off, pulling the tiny chocolate terrorist off his cotton suspension and pushed him back in the small piped building. Justin tussled with me and pulled out the smallest John McLane I’d ever seen, complete with a white T-shirt.
“Yippee-ki-yay, mother—” I swallowed the rest of the words with a kiss and couldn’t fail to hear the collective awwwws from the crew. I didn’t care we were being watched because I was in love, and I wanted everyone to know it.
“Way to go, bro.” Adam high-fived me as I walked off to get my makeup fixed. My family was here in the wings, watching the process and to see the big final reveal. It was good to see a friendly face even if the rest of the gang had been hustled away to the Green Room by an efficient Rita. Justin was behind me. I tugged him forward, and he and Adam shook hands. I waited for fireworks, but there was nothing but strong shaking, back slaps, and the exchange of quotes from Die Hard.
“It’s not even a Christmas movie,” I interrupted them.
Both turned to me with open mouths.
“How are you even my twin?” Adam gasped.
“How do I even like you?” Justin added.
Then the two of them sniggered at me, and yet another piece of my broken heart healed.
The second bake that day, the blind bake, was a simple chocolate raspberry Charlotte Royale. A deep chocolate cake and ganache formed into a dome, with a creamy raspberry mousse interior. Justin might have won the cupcake challenge, but I beat him with the Charlotte Royale. Everything went right, and even though we both aced the challenge, my mousse was smoother. Just that tiny thing was enough to have us draw at one all.
So, it was the cake on the second day of filming that was going to be the decider. With twenty-four hours to prep, the theme we’d been given was simply Christmas. That was it. Just a single word that could be interpreted in any way. I’d chosen a wintry forest where each tree was covered in lights. Justin decided to go the more traditional route with a tree and presents wrapped under it. I didn’t care who was going to win because we’d spent all last night talking about falling for each other and making lists of how we were going to make things work. I already knew what I wanted. More dates, Justin spending time in Corning, me going to the city, splitting our time and exploring this mad thing that had consumed us.
Not to mention he’d made me watch Die Hard, and I had to finally agree that yes, it was a Christmas film. Although to be honest, with the kisses he was trailing down my body, I would have agreed to anything.
The problems with my Christmas themed bake started with a bake where two of the layers dipped in the middle. I never had cakes that sunk, that just didn’t happen to me, but I cut them down, worked with what I had, and tasted the bake which was good. God knows what went wrong, but that was live TV. But then there were issues with the addition of the delicate string of LED lights to my trees. 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.