“I think I might jump off the balcony. I can barely stand them in December, let alone all year round.”
“I seriously doubt there's not one single Christmas movie you like,” I said, shoving him playfully. He hauled me onto his lap, making me squeak. I kissed him and smiled. “We're going to watch one next that you'll love. It's calledBad Santa.”
*
“If I'd knownit was going to take you away from me, I'd have never asked you to help with theTechBizcompetition,” Owen said, pinning me to the front door and kissing me.
“I have to make cupcakes,” I said against his mouth, “and a crap ton of food.”
“No you don't. Just have it catered. The grocery store caters, and they have cupcakes.”
“What kind of baker would I be if Iboughtcupcakes?” I demanded as Owen finally opened the door for me. “If you're good, maybe I'll bring you a cupcake,” I called over my shoulder.
I pulled out my phone in the elevator.
Morticia:These cupcakes are about to be not happening if you don't hurry up.
Holly:Once you land your own dream guy, you'll understand.
Morticia:Never.
My friend was standing in the kitchen, arms crossed, when I walked into the penthouse.
“You need to do something with your stepsister. She's in there being weird,” Morticia said.
“Hard pass,” I said. “She's trying to ruin me in the bake-off.”
Unfortunately, I had to go through the living room to go upstairs and change before I could start baking. Amber was sitting in the living room scrapbooking. She was cutting out pictures of Owen very carefully then pasting them onto a page. She already had several pictures of herself cut out and was doing some sort of demented scrapbooking Photoshop to make it look like the two of them were together.
“I'm going to pretend you aren't down there seeing him,” she said, looking up at me. “You've been drugging him with all those sweets you give him.”
“I’m not drugging him!” I shouted. “You're delusional. You were always like this when we were teenagers. You were obsessed with the high school quarterback. He kissed you once behind the bleachers, and you were convinced you two were going to get married. Then there was the foreign exchange student who you were convinced was going to take you back to France with him to his château, even though he lived in a cramped apartment with his mom in one of Paris’s outer-ring suburbs. Now you think Owen is your soul mate. I don't even see how. He has never given you the time of day.”
“He's the one keeping me in the bake-off,” my stepsister said dramatically. “It's because he knows we're supposed to be together. He's looking out for me and making sure that I advance to the next round.”
“Are you seriously feeding her delusions?” Morticia said, stomping into the room. “Spoiler, Amber, you're not making it past the next round.”
“I will,” she insisted. “Owen will protect me.”
“I have to make two thousand cupcakes. I literally do not have time for this.”
My stepsister started crying. “I don't understand why you can't just let me be happy.”
When I came back down from changing, Amber was gone.
“She left,” Morticia said when I asked.
“Did she say where? What if she goes after Owen?” I said with concern.
“Owen is a grown man and a large one at that. I'm sure he can handle himself.”
I smiled a self-satisfied smile. “Yes, heislarge.”
“Ugh. I did not need to know that,” Morticia said, adding the flour to the batter.
For the themed cupcakes, we were making chocolate cupcakes decorated like elves, white vanilla cupcakes with buttercream frosting like snowmen, and red velvet cupcakes decorated like reindeer. I'd even found muffin tins that looked like the bottoms of snowmen and reindeer and elves, so the cupcakes would be extra unique and festive.
“These are going to be super cute!” I gushed as I started spooning the batter into the muffin tins. Morticia dumped a bag of confectioners' sugar into a bowl of softened butter for the frosting.
