I snorted.
“Okay, maybe when I first started out, but my sister, Belle, didn’t let that go on for very long,” he said. He snagged two red cocktails with green garnish from a tray and handed one to me.
“Belle and I should be best friends,” I said. A passing server offered me a lobster croquette. “You definitely have a body worthy of a tailored tux.”
I had just stuffed another of the croquettes into my mouth when Penny waved to me, her boyfriend, Garrett Svensson, on her arm.
“I love your shoes!” Penny gushed, hugging me. “Also, I don’t know what you’re doing after the bake-off, but you totally need to produce more pieces for theVanity Rag. Everyone loves you!”
“You know what?” I said, snapping my fingers. “I was thinking of this sex-and-baking series, kind of like whatCosmodoes but better.”
Penny jumped up and down. “Maybe when celebrities come to be photographed for the cover, some of them could do drunk baking or something!”
“Sex baking?” Owen asked with a scowl.
“You should be a little more open-minded,” Garrett replied. The two men stared mulishly at each other. Then they both looked out into the distance like two cats who refused to acknowledge the other’s existence any longer.
Penny giggled. “Garrett didn’t want to be here. He hates parties.”
“I do not hate parties. I find them mildly intolerable.”
“Owen likes parties.” I squeezed his arm.
“I’m here because I want to find out the rankings,” he said with a shrug.
“You better beat the Holbrooks,” Garrett warned. “Greg and Hunter came here specifically to see them beaten. And both of my brothers are insufferable when they don't get what they want. And speaking of annoying people…”
“Hey, Archer,” Owen said, shaking his hand.
Archer kissed my cheek then Penny's. “Ladies. Everyone's dressed to impress to watch Owen win. Especially me, because I’m tired of hearing about this stupid contest.” He had a plate piled high with hors d’oeuvres.
“Where did you get one of those?” I said. “I want a huge plate of snacks!”
The woman next to him giggled.
“Hazel, this is Holly. Holly, this is Hazel, my fiancée and also a baker. Wait, isn’t that a Christmas song? Garrett, help me out here. You're the freak show with the good memory.”
“It’s ‘The Holly and the Ivy,’” I said, laughing. “Not the Holly and the Hazel.”
“Well actually, maybe you two could call your new food sex line the Holly and the Hazel. Has a nice sort of innuendo to it, right?” Archer said, taking a huge bite of a duck slider.
“She’s not making a sex food line,” Owen stated.
“It’s the twenty-first century, Owen,” Archer said, stuffing a cracker piled high with caviar and sour cream into his mouth. “Sexy food is big business. Why, I’ve been trying to convince Hazel to bottle her edible body paint for months!”
“I’m not starting a sex food line,” she said, shoving him.
“This is why I don’t go to parties,” Garrett complained. “Because there’s no escape from my family!”
Speaking of no escape from family—across the room, I saw a woman who looked suspiciously like Amber. She half turned, and it was definitely her.
“Just give me a second, Owen,” I said “Gotta use the little girls’ room.”
He nodded, and I scuttled off, grabbed Amber by the upper arm, and dragged her to an alcove.
“What are you doing here?” I hissed.
“I have every right to be here,” she said, jerking her arm away.
