I stripped off my suit jacket and shirt to wolf whistles from several of the drunk seniors in the crowd.
“You have my vote!” Ida hollered.
“He does birthday parties and bar mitzvahs!” Eli called to them.
It wasn’t all that cold outside—it wasn’t as if Harrogate was Antarctica—however, icicles were starting to form in my wet hair.
Belle tossed me a T-shirt. It had a picture of a chubby, happy snowman on it and readThe Great Christmas Bake-Offin loopy gold text.
“No thanks,” I said, handing it back to her.
“You’re soaking wet.”
“I’d rather freeze than wear that.”
Besides, Brody wasn’t the only one who had a great body.
“I’m your number-one fan!” Ida yelled to me. “I have money on you!”
Don’t bother.
“And time!” Anastasia announced to the bake-off hopefuls.
I stood next to the rest of the ten contestants. I was pleased to see several women swooning over me.
Suck it, Brody.
I watched the bake-off hopefuls assemble at the front of the stage. Merrie was shooting me dirty looks. I licked my bottom lip, and her cheeks went red.
I smirked at her.
Of course she’s aroused by the sight of my bare chest.
Wait…
Merrie pulled out a large chef’s knife and made a threatening gesture.
No, she was definitely red with anger, not lust.
I chanced a glance over at Hensley. She was blatantly staring at me.
I crossed my arms.
“Aren’t you cold?” a girl asked me, eyes wide.
I gave her a magnanimous smile. “Of course not.”
Merrie dry heaved dramatically.
“As mentioned,” Anastasia said, “the contestants will be voting on which bake-off hopeful they think should be in the competition. Everyone please come up and quickly give us a description of your dessert.”
It was a parade of the worst of the worst of small-town bakers. There were the ubiquitous dump cakes, the icebox cakes, the Jell-Os in various festive configurations, which for some bizarre reason, the Svensson sisters cheered for. Then there was Merrie with her cookies. She only had five of them intricately decorated; the rest had only icing. To her credit, the icing had been piped on in little frills and waves, not just slathered on like another middle-aged woman’s cookies that looked like they had been run over by a truck on the way to the judging station.
As soon as this event was over, I was going to chip what was left of the frosting off of me and burn my clothes.
“A big thank you to our bake-off hopefuls. Please drink some well-earned hot cocoa while the contestants vote on who they want to join them in the bake-off!” Anastasia passed out sheets of paper with the bake-off hopefuls’ pictures.
“This is a ranked-choice vote. Everyone gets five candy cane stickers they can allocate for whichever hopeful they want to win and five snowman stickers for who is their least favorite. You can parcel them out however you want.”
