To save her family's business, a small-town baker returns to a television competition that made her a national laughingstock, where her partner is the professional baseball player who broke her heart.
After another disaster hits my poor bakery, I re...
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My panties were soaked, and not in a good way.
Camera lenses captured every second of real-time existence. Every inch of me was exposed under lights like heat lamps from hell. Tickles of sweat rolled down my lower back and between my ass cheeks. The junctions with my thighs pumped heat into the flimsy cotton, and I might've also peed myself a little.
I directed my most potent glare at the back of Morgan's head.
"Can't back out now," she mouthed.
Given her stunt bringing us back to the kitchen of my nightmares, she deserved the incoming physical and emotional torture. Forging my signature on the show's application was a new low. Like during her argumentative loop on the overnight bus ride, Morgan whispered her most compelling persuasions.
A producer with a headset shushed us, but not before her lips twitched.
"Second loan."
"Ugh." I could only grunt...and glare at the baby hairs on her neck as if I could burn them off. My eyes strained from how much I'd glared at her, more from hating that this instant-cash crazy scheme made sense.
Hugo informed us that the worst-case scenario was true, and we were closed for four weeks. The bank rejected my second mortgage application because of 'too much risk.'
Carrying those setbacks on our shoulders, one humbling, jiggly overnight bus ride south brought us...here. But I didn't have to be happy about it or admit Morgan was right. The backstabber picked at her cuticles, nonchalant ease in her eyes like mine weren't mentally laser-incinerating her en flambé.
Her tiny ass propped against a marble counter that made ours look like rejects from a stone graveyard. Overhead, open shelves were stocked with more ingredients than our bakery went through in a year. Labels more exotic than we could afford front-faced the sponsor's labels. Common household names dominating the food market were aligned in a perfect display.
I swallowed the lump squeezing my throat. Being here–contractually, thanks, Morgan–I needed to strategize. Not speaking with my partner was the least of my worries.
Those damn crickets burned hot under my skin. This kitchen's memories brought them right back.
"For the final round, Paige... We expected more."
No knife existed that cut crickets into non-disgusting pieces of their former selves. I swore I'd blended all those damn bugs into protein powder for a crumb coating, but a rogue squish sent me home. How had a full one ended up in Miranda's sole bite?
No, the producers were more creative than recycling crickets.
Like it or not, this was a second chance. Shy, scrappy underdog Paige sniffing for redemption was probably my new persona, but better than the 'orphaned, alternative ingredient Paige' the producers angled last time.
