by Ellie Hall
Likely, she’s delaying so they can clean the room.
Hazel’s comment on us not being together stung and forces me to think about what I want. The answer is simple and swift. Her.
Then there is the reality of how I’m afraid of not only sharing a cabin suite with her. I have a horrific black and white image of us playing house: me wearing an apron and cooking and her with her feet up reading the paper. A warped, roles-reversed vision of my mother flitting around, tending to my father’s every whim creeps in. The part about recreating what broke up my parents tightens the knots inside.
The lounge off the lobby has leather seating focused around small tables with flickering lanterns. It’s all very magical and quaint. The cider comes. A fire blazes in the massive stone hearth nearby. Music that reminds me vaguely of Christmas carols plays from the shadowy corners.
“This is the indoor version of a winter wonderland,” Hazel says.
She is a wonderland. I settle into the chair, my head balanced on my fist, my long legs splayed. “So, we made it out of the city.”
“I try to make a habit of escaping every now and then, but I’m a city girl through and through. Though I haven’t been back to London in over a year.”
“Is that where you grew up?”
“Until I was eight for the most part. Bounced all over after that—my parents were trying to make things work, until—” She goes quiet a beat then says, “Where did you grow up?”
“I’m from Boston, well, Newton, if you want me to be specific. Lovely, snooty—” I roll my eyes. “Do you like the city pace?”
“Never a dull moment. What I want to know is when it’s not ski season, what do the people do around here? Where do they get their coffee? No Starbucks for miles.”
“I don’t hate the idea.” Driving up here, I felt my energy relaxing. I don’t think I could commit to the rural life long term...never mind. Don’t want to think about commitment. My lips quirk. “To hold cabin fever at bay, they’re likely to keep each other amused, content, entertained...”
“And just how do they accomplish that?” Hazel asks. I read the words on her lips more than I hear them. I want nothing more than to kiss her at this moment.
The fire is hot. She’s hotter.
Another couple enters the lounge and sits a few places over.
“We could ask.”
“I’d rather hear it from you,” she says.
We are in full-flirtation mode.
If she doesn’t want to be in a relationship, be together, or have anything to do with commitment, I can revive my former self—the guy who’d go to Javier’s. The charming, one-and-done bachelor I was before Hazel. “I could show you.” I leave the invitation there as I finish my cider.
When we step outside, we get the full winter wonderland effect. The night sky is clear and stars pierce the boundless black like lace. The lantern-lit paths glow halos onto the drifts of snow. The air is somehow soft when I exhale.
With my hand on Hazel’s low back, I guide her to the waiting shuttle, outfitted to look like a toboggan, to take us to our cabin.
The driver gives us a tour of the grounds as we pass various lodges, cabins, ski trails, and event halls, pointing out where the contest will be held. “You can download the app to your phone or call from your room anytime you need transport,” he says when he stops in front of our cabin.
He loads our bags in and I leave him with a tip.
Inside, the cabin is decorated in shades of cedar and cinnamon. It smells of winter and wood smoke. The low firelight illuminates Hazel’s soft features.
We’re both quiet as if we want to put off the conversation we know we need to have—the one we left in front of the reception desk in the lobby. The one we both seem to want to avoid like a broken limb...or heart.
But Hazel’s blue eyes almost say more than words. They say she wants there to be more between us but is afraid. That makes two of us. Both.
This magnetic push and pull, a confusion in polarity, a freak of science in our attraction to each other caught me off guard. Do I want to go back to my simple dating life? Or do I want to hold her hand...forever?
I toss my jacket on a chair and pluck her hat from her head. I untie her scarf and unbutton her jacket. Then I find a little patch of cold skin by her collar.
If words won’t come, there are other things we can do with our mouths. I push her hair to one side and press my lips to her neck.
Hazel shivers much like she did the night the power went out, and I’d put my arm around her.
Then her arms wrap around me, fingers squeeze my shoulders, and our lips meet.
It doesn’t matter whether I’m warm or cold. Awake or dreaming. Breathing or not. Her kiss gives me life. Gives me hope. Makes me wonder whether this is the beginning of the end…
Of life as I knew it.
Seconds Please
Hazel
I am a kitten in Maxwell’s paws. Our lips press together. Pull apart. I’ve been waiting for this moment since I first laid eyes on him, but fear it means more than it should. I draw away. Like a magnet, my lips return to his.
What is it about Maxwell that keeps me coming back for more?
His eyes are amazing.
His lips.
His everything.
He caresses the curve of my neck. I practically purr.
The scruff on his chiseled jaw is like soft sandpaper as our lips meet again. I pull his head closer to mine—not that there is a closer; we’re pressed together.
The heat of the fire burns between us like we’ve ignited, lit a kind of connection I’ve never before experienced.
When we part, I want the action of his mouth pressing against mine again. We go back and forth, seesawing like this between answering our immediate desires and possibly fearing what’s to come if this continues...or if it stops. Could we combust? Self-destruct?
Will I be able to turn away, kiss him once and forget him?
His full, kissable lips quirk, tremble and return the connection every inch of my being longs for.
Fingers tangle in hair.
Palms explore muscles.
I am lost and confused and happy about it. I forget about my rules, trepidation, and the stupid thing I said while at the reception desk about Maxwell and I not being together. If we’re not together then what is this?
“You are amazing,” he says.
I pause and pull back for a moment, studying Maxwell Davis. Long, clean lines of muscled arms and powerful legs. The kind of posture that nothing can sway, except maybe me. I never want to see him so ruined as when I said we weren’t together. He looked crushed.
So I dive back in. Kiss it away. For him. For me. So we both forget.
The kiss deepens and continues until the crackling fire flickers, demanding more logs.
When we part, Maxwell stokes the embers and tosses on some more kindling.
I lounge on a chair, wondering if this is a dream. If Catherine were here, she’d be waving her hand in front of my face, saying, Earth to Hazel. Earth to Hazel. I’m on another planet. Overcome. Maxwell makes me feel a little heady and a lot in my own world. In our world.
No one is perfect, but Maxwell is deliciously close.
But what if one kiss turned into two? One weekend together turned into two, three, more? A lifetime?
Beyond the window, the snow continues to fall, blanketing the world in winter white set aglow by the full moon.
I try to come up with flaws. Objections. The usual protests that keep me at a dating distance.
There’s no such thing as prince charming. He’s a myth. Catherine would tell me that I have a habit of finding something wrong with all of the guys I’ve dated. She’d accused me of being scared.
With the picturesque backdrop of the sparkly scene out the window, quilting the mountainous scenery in a snowy hush, I already have cabin fever.
As if sensing that I’m not quite myself, ready to melt into a puddle and jump out of my skin at the
same time, Maxwell sits down beside me, warming me through.
And there it is. The look.
Maxwell’s eyebrow follows the lifted angle of the corner of his lip. His buttery brown eyes burn into mine, sending a flare that practically splits me in two.
It’s the I want to kiss you again look.
The I want to kiss you for a long time look.
He brushes the back of his hand along my arm.
My breath catches with a slow burn of anticipation.
I get a lazy gaze. A quirk of the lips.
The look.
We kiss again.
I’ve figured out what people do to ditch the cabin fever.
In Maxwell’s embrace, I feel full, complete. No fears, worries, or hang-ups.
But when he lets go? That’s another story. All my fears, worries, and hang-ups surface.
Loudly.
For most people, one of their deepest desires is to be seen, acknowledged, and for their experience and existence to be recognized. However, so often people hide. We hide behind careers, relationships, stuff, weight, and stories we tell ourselves. We hide because we simultaneously want to be seen but are afraid of being judged.
Afraid of making the wrong decision.
I’ll have to follow some of my own professional advice to dig down and figure out why commitment scares me so much.
Never mind. I know. All. Too. Well.
“We should grab something to eat and settle in early. Big day for both of us tomorrow,” Maxwell says when we part again.
His kisses could probably sustain me for a long time. Then again, who am I kidding? I’ll take his baking too.
He glances through a brochure listing the resort’s cuisine options. “Pizza?”
“Not in the mood.”
“Chinese?”
I wrinkle my nose. “Had it yesterday.”
He leans against the doorframe, going down the list. “Cuban? Thai? Curry?”
“I’m overwhelmed by options.”
“It’s a good problem to have.”
“What do you want to eat?” I ask.
“Crazy-roni?”
My chest buoys that he remembers what my mum and I used to eat whenever we were in a new place. Maxwell and I are definitely in a new place.
I read the menus over his shoulder. “That pulled pork and black bean taco with pineapple and heirloom tomato salsa sounds yummy.”
After a short jaunt to the main lodge and a bite to eat, we return to our cozy cabin. Maxwell seems to want to pick up where we left off, but I hold my hand over my mouth. “The tacos were a questionable choice. Onion breath.”
With a hand around my waist, he draws close. “I don’t mind.”
I do. And I need a minute to think about this. See, the problem with perpetually being a “both” kind of person is I overthink things. Get unsure about which option to choose when I can’t have things both ways. I can’t date Maxwell once and be a couple. Life doesn’t work like that.
“As you said earlier, we have a full day tomorrow and you need your baker’s sleep. It’s like beauty sleep, only more delicious.”
Maxwell chuckles. “If you say so.”
He plants a lingering kiss on the top of my head and we go to our separate rooms.
I’m too wired to sleep. Should I bother trying? I can’t decide. I’m not usually the kind to waffle unless we’re talking about Maxwell’s waffles. He brought me some the other day from a recipe he tested. Oh. My. Yum.
I open a book to settle my mind, but Maxwell’s strong jawline, his capable hands reaching for mine, and our many kisses barge into my brain and combine with the love interest in the story.
A smile pushes its way onto my face as I recount those blissful moments. I feel the spark when his lips grazed mine. The buzz of his touch. I’m electric. Practically vibrating. But I need my rest. I’m facing Polly Spoonwell tomorrow. Never mind beauty or baking rest. I need to do everything I can to bank patience and my wits. She’s demanding and manipulative.
Mind-Maxwell won’t cooperate.
“I need to sleep,” I groan.
A shaft of light beams across my bed and Maxwell’s tall figure fills the doorway. “You awake?”
“I’m sleeping,” I mumble.
“Doesn’t sound like it.”
“What are you doing up? As you said, we have to get up early.”
He scrubs his hand down his face. “Couldn’t sleep.”
I sit up and gather a blanket around my shoulders. “Me neither.”
The night is long and luxurious in front of the fire. Yes, we kiss again, but we also chat softly. Sharing things I’ve never told a guy before: there’s a ticklish spot behind my knee, I love sour cherries, and Christmas. Don’t get me started. I go gaga over the holiday.
Tonight is the thrilling kind of occasion I’d want to tell Catherine and anyone else who’d listen, but this time, something is different. The time I spend with Maxwell I want to keep tucked away for myself; only to take it out like a rare and precious gem to examine during private moments. To relive the delight, the warmth, and the giddiness all on my own. I’m afraid to share it with anyone in case it diminishes or disappears altogether.
We snuggle in front of the fire, drifting and dozing, chatting and kissing. I don’t know what’s happening to me—to us—, but it can’t be good. I’m sure it’ll keep me awake for a week to come as I analyze every moment, every word, every possible meaning...
Especially when Maxwell kisses me on the temple, then in a half-asleep stupor (it was seriously late), he mumbles, “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
I let the words spread over me like a warm and welcome blanket, but I can’t repeat them back.
The Bake is On
Maxwell
I drop the soap three times while in the shower. Cut me some slack; it’s soap. It’s slippery.
I put my underwear on backward. It’s so early it’s still dark out.
My leg jitters so much in the shuttle-toboggan on the way to the bake-off orientation, the driver gives me a side-eye and tells me he’s only authorized to go ten miles an hour while on resort grounds.
I get it, guy. I’m just...overtired, overcome, overly excited?
Last night I stayed up way too late talking with Hazel in front of the fire. That woman captivates me. And today, I’m unexpectedly anxious and anticipatory and in it to win it.
On the first of the year, if Conrad had told me this would be the one in which I met the woman of my dreams and found my true calling as a baker, I would’ve laughed in his face. I would’ve clapped him on the shoulder and said Buddy, you have the months mixed up. April Fool’s day is on April first.
Had I not been up almost all night talking with Hazel, I would’ve been up all night going through each of my bakes like Olympic athletes mentally play out every move of their event. Well, I did that too. The mental-baking-rehearsal. Supposedly it works.
Hazel left the suite even earlier to give Polly Spoonwell her morning yoga session. The contest judge is notoriously known in baking circles as Bake-Zilla. I’ve seen clips of her throwing a contestant’s brownies in the trash, telling people their creations are inedible, and rumor has it she once made a grown man cry by claiming his grandmother’s shortbread recipe that he’d replicated tasted worse than sewer water.
“Here you are. Good luck today. I hear Polly Spoonwell is a man-eater.” The shuttle driver opens the door.
“I’ll pretend you said, macaron eater.” I don’t want to spend another minute thinking about how harsh she is.
The UUniversity modules talk about the power of positive thinking for manifesting positive outcomes because the energy we give is the energy we get or something.
Yeah, I need coffee. And maybe a shot of testosterone.
Balloons and signs welcome bakers and guests to The Great New England Bakehouse Preliminary Baking Contest.
A woman behind a desk asks for my identification and signs me in. Th
en I get a sticker badge with my first name. I glance down at my deep blue Tom Ford Pinpoint two-piece suit. Adhering a sticker to a five-thousand-dollar item doesn’t seem wise. I affix it to my white button-down. Likely, it’ll be warm with ovens cranking and the suit jacket will come off.
My choice of attire seems out of place when I enter a lounge area with the other contestants. T-shirts, jeans, and sweaters feature prominently. One guy with a bushy beard wears socks and Birkenstocks. They’re all chatting like they’re from the same small town in rural Vermont.
Fish out of water much?
I’ve been called charming, but that only works in particular settings. For a fleeting instant, I wish Hazel were here by my side with her wide smile, soothing accent, and buoyant personality.
A woman with short blond hair enters holding a tablet and a scepter with a golden cookie on top.
Everyone goes quiet.
“Welcome to The Great New England Bakehouse Preliminary Baking Contest. As you know, I’m Jenna Carmichael, cohost with The Great Ginger. He’s on vacation so you get moi. Along with the other twelve winners from previous prelims, the winner today will go on to the nationally televised show starting in September and running until the holidays when the winner will be crowned the New England Bakehouse Season 4 Best Baker Champion by none other than Polly Spoonwell and receive the sweets scepter!” She shakes it in the air.
My slow and uncertain clap is out of time with the cheers in the room.
I quickly assess the situation.
It did not register in my brain that this was a run-up for a nationally televised show. The word preliminary should’ve been a giveaway. Rather, I thought it was a quaint, small-town event. Not knowing anyone local, I’d slip in and out undetected. I scrub my hand down my face.
Glancing around at the twelve other contestants, I get the uneasy feeling they all have a leg up, in that they knew what they were getting into, and have binged the previous three seasons of the show repeatedly. And they have some idea who The Great Ginger is. I’m baking blind.
