Sugar Butter Flour Love

by Nicole Falls

  -7-

  Lord, please don’t bring me no’ more bad news! I thought as we rode in the Sprinter on the way to shoot today’s episode of Bake Off.

  I couldn’t take any more bad news today. I awakened this morning feeling ridiculously blissed out and simultaneously exhausted as I recalled the night before during which Travis had seen fit to use my body as his personal form of entertainment with zero resistance from me. If I was being honest with myself, my disgust and anger with him from my admittedly stupidly held grudge had begun to fade after just a few tapings of Bake Off. I wasn’t ready to thoroughly interrogate, however, what me finally acquiescing and giving in to the feelings that had me running hot nightly, actually meant. Luckily for me, or hell, unluckily truthfully my mind was occupied with a running Rolodex of bullshit that quickly turned my mood from elated to deflated. So I fled from his room in the wee hours of the morning, back to mine to get some sleep before I had to be ready to conquer the day ahead.

  However, I was rudely awakened by the ringing of my hotel room phone this morning just when I’d gotten back to my room and settled into a little cat nap. It was my cousin Malcolm calling on behalf of Gam who had to temporarily shut down the bakery because one of the convection ovens we used to bake all of our morning pastries had completely conked out on us. She’d tried to see if there was a quick fix to get it repaired, but it was found to essentially be a hunk of junk that needed to be hauled from our kitchen as soon as possible and replaced. More money that we had to send out of the door as less money continued to come in. Gam hadn’t wanted Malcolm to call me, which turned into a bigger ordeal because of course, I called Gam as soon as I got off the line with him, which caused a shitstorm of a mess in the group chat that I had with both of my cousins. They called themselves ganging up on me, thumb thugging it out and getting on my goddamned nerves. Then, we got to set and were having a banner day in the kitchen, and only for my best ally in this competition that wasn’t a former enemy to get eliminated.

  I was stressed, annoyed, tired and ready for all of this to be over, honestly. Upon hearing that Billie and Traine had been eliminated, it was like a dam in me broke, and all of the emotions I’d been holding back were flooding over me, and I was powerless to stop the rush. I knew I looked like a crazy person, sobbing like my only child was being sent off to war with no chance of return after my friends were eliminated, but I couldn’t tamp it down. Travis was looking at me like I’d lost my mind and I was honestly just ready to go back to the hotel and rest up before we had to be back here all over again to compete in the make or break episode of this competition.

  I’d planned on doing just that, but when we got into the Sprinter to go back to the hotel, somehow Traine and Billie talked everyone including annoying ass Marsai and negative ass Jacob into detouring to have dinner at Pot Liquor, the famed soul food restaurant of my partner’s personal favorite judge on the panel, Charlie and her husband, Nixon. Somehow, he’d managed to get us a reservation in a private room for this dinner, and I didn’t want to be the negative Nancy, Debbie downer bitch, so I went along with the group. I wasn’t really in the mood for socialization, but I pasted on a smile and tried valiantly to stay engaged with the different conversations that were swirling about around me, but my mind was twelve hours in the future when all of this friendliness would be set aside in favor of competitive spirit.

  I wasn’t necessarily worried about winning…but was more anxious about what would be the challenge that lay ahead of us. We’d been tested in every arena of baked goods so far, having to create all manner of cakes, cookies, and pastry. It would be just our luck that tomorrow encompassed some behemoth of a project that combined all three in a monstrosity of a dessert that had to be visually appealing as well as delicious. Despite my misgivings, in the beginning, being paired with Travis Coleman had a particular advantage that I hadn’t considered at all at the outset of this competition. That motherfucker was charming in combination with being panty soaking fine. So, even when we fell a bit short in a challenge, he always managed to put a spin on things in a way that I could never, and that, honestly, had saved us and gotten us this far in the competition. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely pulled my fair share of the weight because I was That Bitch in the kitchen, but Travis wasn’t short stopping either.

  “Are you here, Knight?” Travis asked, his breath tickling my ear and sending a shiver down my spine.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I asked if you are here? You seem to be in outer space. You good or nah?” Travis repeated.

  “Why do you care?” I sniped, trying to maintain that air of annoyance with him.

  It was a transparent ruse as he smirked and slowly sipped whatever amber liquid was in the tumbler that sat before him.

  “Pardon me for giving a damn, partner,” he chuckled.

  His low, rumbling laugh had a completely different effect on me now that I knew how he sounded while he was buried balls deep in me, growling my name in the sexiest way known to human kind. As much as I tried to remain unaffected by him, it was barely masked. Another layer of this anxiety with which I was currently doing the tango. I didn’t want to be that girl — the one who had sex with someone and immediately caught feelings. The only thing I needed to be concerned with was winning Bake Off and taking home those fifty thousand dollars. All of these other extra thoughts needed to vacate my mind expeditiously.

  “You’re excused,” I replied huffily, standing abruptly and making a beeline away from the table.

  I needed a moment to clear my head and his presence right beside me was not helping in any shape, form, or fashion. I went to the bathroom to splash a bit of water on my face and regroup. Examining my face in the mirror before returning to the table, I saw every inch of anxiety and irritation etched into my features, still. I closed my eyes for a brief moment of meditation, breathing slowly and trying to shake some of this malaise off enough to enjoy the rest of the night with Billie and Traine. Finally satisfied that I looked a little better for the wear after a few more moments of quiet relaxation, I stepped out of the bathroom and into the hallway to head back to the table and ran face first into Travis. Backing me back into the ladies’ room, he quickly locked the door and cupped my chin, bringing my eyes to his.

  “What’s going on, Knight?” he asked, earnestly.

  “Wow, I didn’t know my pussy was so good it’d have you ready to have a feelings powwow, Coleman!” I quipped, trying to bring some levity to what now seemed like a room weighed with emotion.

  He laughed before he could catch himself, “Yo, you’re wild. For real though, you seemed a bit less…you than usual. I mean, I know I didn’t fuck you into Eeyore status. As a matter of fact, I remember you being very pleased while tapping out after that third round, but then I woke up in an empty bed. Never took you for the smash and dash type, Knight. What’s up with that?”

  “Wooooooow, I need to bottle and sell my yoni juice if I got you out here like this,” I laughed, deflecting once again.

  I didn’t feel like getting into any of this right now and certainly not in the public bathroom of a restaurant.

  “Cute,” Travis smirked, “Look…I know I’m not your favorite person. Though, after last night, I know I’m not your least favorite either…but I do care if you’re all right. Generally speaking. You don’t have to spill your guts or anything…unless you want to, but at least let me know if I have to worry about you going into tomorrow or not.”

  I rolled my eyes and huffed, “Of course, you don’t really care about me…just whether or not the puppet will be ready to have her strings pulled once the cameras are rolling tomorrow. Don’t fret Coleman; I’ll be ready. And we’ll bring home that win you promised my grandmother. Now, if you’ll excuse me?”

  “Wait—that came out wrong—I didn’t—Isobel, wait!” Travis called out to my retreating back as I moved quickly to rejoin our party.

  After an emotional speech from Traine that had everyone choked up, including the
annoying queenz, we headed back to the hotel to turn in for the night and get ready for an early rise tomorrow morning. I couldn’t get into my room and into the shower quick enough. I luxuriated under the hot water, letting it wash away all of the day’s annoyances. Quickly moisturizing and slipping into my pajamas, I noticed the steady blink of the notification light on my phone. I checked it to find a few texts from Billie and a number I didn’t recognize. I opened Billie’s, and it was an apology which was wild confusing until I opened the second thread from the unrecognized number. It was a gif of Chandler from Friends saying, “I say more dumb things before 9 a.m. than most people say all day!” Underneath that was a text reading

  Truce? This is Coleman, by the way.

  I shot a quick text back.

  We’re all good. An overreaction on my part. Sleep well so we can kick ass in the morning, partner.

  Honestly, getting riled up about Travis was silly. There was nothing between us beyond that one night of incredible itch scratching, but it wouldn’t continue beyond us coming out of the bubble of Bake Off. I looked at it as an unexpected perk of my time away. After all, Gam did say I needed to enjoy myself some while I was here, and I definitely did that.

  You make sure to do the same. We gotta take the two dough queenz outta the game for Gam. - Coleman

  I smiled at his usage of my nickname for my grandmother.

  How in the hell am I supposed to sleep if you keep texting me, Coleman?

  I’ve got another method to put you to bed if you’re interested? - Coleman

  Call time is too early tomorrow to be messing around with you. Raincheck?

  All right now. Don’t write a check your ass can’t cash. - Coleman

  I grinned.

  Good night, Coleman.

  Sweet dreams, Knight. – Coleman

  I woke up the next morning raring to go. Today was the day we’d all been waiting for. We’d only been taping this show for a little over two weeks, but the intense schedule and all of the action that had occurred both in front and behind the scenes made it feel like it’d been much, much longer. The ride over to the soundstage was quiet, none of the usual chatter between everyone was occurring in the Sprinter, just the quiet murmurings between partners. Travis and I hadn’t said much to each other beyond greetings, both of us singularly focused and anticipating whatever was going to be thrown at us once we were on set.

  Once we got on set, it seemed like the day was moving in fast forward mode. The pre-heat went by in the blink of an eye, which Travis and I handily conquered and won once again. Stepping into the main heat, we were given a significant advantage of half an hour of extra baking time, which was clutch. We had five and a half hours to create an entirely edible advent calendar, including little treats for every day up through Christmas hidden inside. When Thad announced the project I was shook, despite having damn near six hours to complete the task—I wasn’t sure if that would be enough time to pull off the very ambitious idea that Travis had for our advent calendar. He suggested that we make a two-foot cake carved to look like a Christmas tree and let the ornaments be the different days on the advent calendar. For the ornaments, he wanted to create mini decorated sugar cookies encased in hollow balls of chocolate.

  “We gotta go big or go home, right?” he said at the end of his spiel, grinning that damn panty-wetting smile that I was sure had talked women into risking way more than what we were up against today.

  “Go big or go home! ”I agreed, and without a second thought he pulled me into his body for a hug, landing a quick kiss on my cheek before yelling “For Gam!”

  I stood shell-shocked briefly before shaking my head and snapping out of it, murmuring “For Gam.”

  Soon we were both scurrying around the kitchen to gather the ingredients needed to make the cake, mini sugar cookies, and ornaments. Travis insisted he had complete control over the baking and construction of the cake, having had something like this in mind no matter what the final challenge had been. He’d never made a carved cake as large as the one he was currently envisioning, but his confidence when speaking about it and his track record in the kitchen so far had me confident that he’d get as close as humanly possible to making his vision a reality.

  As I stood at the stand mixer creaming together the sugar and butter to begin my dough for the sugar cookies, Thad and that ever-present camera made their way over to me, and I repressed the eye roll that was always on deck whenever I had to interact with Thad. He was a decent dude before that red light on the camera came on, then he turned into the cheesiest parody of a show host that drove me insane.

  “The heat is on, Isobel! Walk us through what you got happening over here right now, girl,” Thad crooned.

  “Well, I’m just putting together a simple dough for my melt in your mouth sugar cookies, creaming together a little butter and sugar before I add the rest of the ingredients,” I said, congenially.

  “You said they were simple, care to share with us all of the ingredients in your recipe?” Thad pressed.

  “Well you see the sugar and butter here, gonna add some flour amongst other ingredients including the most important of them all…” I trailed off purposefully knowing it would cause Thad to ask what that essential ingredient was.

  And if he wanted cheese, I was going full mascarpone.

  “Now Isobel,” Thad began with a chuckle, “you know you can’t leave me hangin’ like that. What’s the most important ingredient?”

  “Love, Thad,” I said with a smirk, “all treats baked by Isobel include a generous sprinkling of love.”

  “Sugar, butter, flour, and love…I like that. Aight, I’ma get out of your hair and let you get back to it,” Thad said, with a two-fingered salute as he walked away to harass someone else.

  As soon as he cleared our station, I was back in the zone, creating the sugar cookie dough quickly and cutting out twenty-five cookies to be placed in the chocolate shells. Creating the chocolate for those shells was next, and I’d whipped that up in no time, getting it into the molds so I could throw them into the blast chiller to harden. While I was waiting for the chocolate sphere halves to solidify, I set about decorating the mini cookies with royal icing. Since I’d used the holiday mini cookie cutters provided for us in the Bake Off kitchen, I was decorating a variety of items including snowflakes, snowmen, Christmas trees, candy canes, and mini ornaments. I looked up to see how Travis was faring and he was currently stacking his cakes to carve. From where I stood, they looked amazing and smelled even better. Travis looked up as I gazed over and his direction and our eyes locked. Without communicating a thing verbally, it was clear that we both were confident that we had this whole thing in the bag if the giddy grin we shared was any indication.

  “Two hours left, bakers!” Thad shouted suddenly, which sent me back to my task at hand of decorating the mini sugar cookies.

  Those two hours streaked by in a flash and we were now in the last few minutes before the clock stopped. Travis and I were currently transporting our cake from the baking station to the display tray before placing the ornaments on. We didn’t want to run the risk of breaking an ornament before transporting, so we figured this would be the best way to do it. As the clock counted down and we placed each ornament, then covered the entire tree in a slight sheen of gold luster dust, I breathed a sigh of relief. We’d done it. Made it to the end of the competition, giving our all every step along the way. No matter what the outcome, we could honestly say that we put forth our best efforts and should definitely be proud of ourselves for making it this far. But we wanted that damn trophy and those checks as well, so I prayed our go big or go home tactics would have us marching toward victory.

  As luck would have it, we were last to face the judges’ panel. When the other two teams faced the judges then returned to the green room, neither gave any indication of how they fared. In the little hallway between the green room and the soundstage I paused, taking a few cleansing breaths before Travis and I headed in.

  �
��You good?” he asked.

  “Yeah, let’s do this.”

  I barely remembered speaking during our presentation, let alone any of the words of the judges sinking in. It felt like I was floating above everything going on right now, having a complete out of body experience. We retreated to the green room again, briefly, before reconvening with all three teams in the set kitchen before Thad announced the winner.

  “All right, bakers, here we are, at the end of the road. It’s not been an easy journey, but it’s definitely been one full of adventures. The judges have made their final decision and the winner of 2018’s Ultimate Holiday Bake Off is…”

  -8-

  ~ *four weeks later* ~

  Life was different these days, in a few ways. The first couple of episodes of Ultimate Holiday Bake Off had been televised as we were filming, so when we got back home, the general public had already seen at least two episodes. Since we’d been back home, Isobel’s Gamma Betty arranged a watch party for Bake Off in the sports bar that was located next to Whisk. The first week that the bar had been overrun with women of all ages, the usual motley crew of dudes that tended to overpopulate the place protested, but as the weeks went on, however? They were just as invested in the eventual turnout of the show than anyone else.

  We’d had to sign NDAs, so neither Isobel nor I were giving too many hints as we watched along weekly. Despite being there during the entire process, even Tesh didn’t know the winning result. Even after trying to worm it out of Dre in more ways than one. The only people who knew the outcome were the six contestants, the judges, Thad, and the crew. Judging from the craft services layout on set daily, working for Savor definitely paid well and had additional perks, so I knew none of the crew was risking their jobs to tell. Hence why Tesh was not able to get anything out of Dre.