Baking With Boys |✔

53. Camote Cue

We ran to our kitchen booth like our life depended on it. It was funny, really, everyone scrambling to get out the ingredients faster than the other person, just to get an upper hand in the competition. The audience—mainly the rest of the participants—hooted like anything. They had visibly segregated, each section supporting a team. Sarah and Henry had the biggest clique rooting for them. But, since in this round, I wasn't up against Sarah, all her supporters shouted words of encouragement for me too.

Bea handed me the paper with the description of the cake we had to bake. For a moment, I wondered if Henry and Patrick had to do the same thing, though I hoped not. Comparisons made it harder.

Biting my lip, I mustered up the courage to look at it. Unfolding the paper, I concentrated on the printed text.

Bachelorette party.

Tilting my head, I reread it. Bachelorette party. My heart dropped in my chest. Wasn't the competition about wedding cakes? I frowned. The immense of amount of surfing wedding cakes designs was of no use now. I had to make something else now! Before I could read the other details, Brandon took the paper from my hand. I let him read it since I hadn't said anything. Looking around, I saw that my confusion was mirrored on the faces of the other contestants too.

To the right of our booth, Patrick held his paper in his hand. He saw me looking at him, and called out, "Tyler, what did you get?"

"Bachelorette party. What about you?"

"Bachelor party." Patrick made a face, in the same jeopardy as me.

Sharing the pain, I pointed to Henry, curious about his design of the cake as well. "What about him?"

Henry turned, his face distraught, and with a sigh, said, "Baby shower."

My eyebrows went up, perplexed. Hesitating, I gave him a weak smile. Patrick joined in too, sympathizing with him. That was going to be difficult. Mouthing both of them best of luck, I turned back to see a smiling Brandon. Feeling discerned under his gaze, I asked, "What?"

"We got the better deal."

"You think so?" I took the paper from his hand, and flipped it over, placing it on the table. "We'll be serving ladies. They're the most judgmental."

Brandon made me turn back to him by wiggling his fingers in front of my face, and distracting me. "How do you think they'll react when such a handsome gentleman will serve them cake?"

I shook my head at his antics, not wasting time standing still, and sketching up an outline for the cake.

"So? Will you take off your shirt and flex your abs?" Bea pitched in.

Brandon laughed. "That's not a bad idea."

I stood up straighter, and gave Bea a hard stare. Brandon would not be doing that. Diverting their attention from the topic at hand, I held up the paper. "What do you think?"

He pondered over my rough sketch. Bea peeked in as well. For a minute, they didn't say anything, exchanging brief glances and knowing smirks. I pressed my lips together, embarrassed at my horrendous drawing and their silence. They could at least act for my sake, and say something. I pulled the paper back, and stared at it myself. Well, I had attempted to draw a rough sketch of a three tier cake with black and pink zebra stripes, and added a heel, pearls, a clutch as embellishments to make it more bachelorette looking.

But, what the drawing had come out as was a topsy-turvy cake, with worm-like stripes, a haphazard thing which I called heel, dots as pearls, and a potato for clutch.