Matt was leaning against the counter at our bake-off station, typing on his phone, while I sliced the fruit.
I had a whole basket of bounty like it was the middle of summer. The strawberries? Small and sweet. The raspberries? Bright and tart. All the fruit was super flavorful, and none of it was mushy. It all tasted fresh from the vine. Tree? What did pears grow on?
This is why I’m a baker, not a scientist.
I had been thinking I would have to boil the fruit I’d found at Ida’s down to make it into something edible. But this fruit was so perfect I was going to leave most of it fresh.
Of course, since there was a lot of fruit, I wasn’t just going to make one type of jelly roll. Nope, I had to redeem myself. I had been given a last-minute save and I wasn’t going to waste it.
You’re not getting lucky again.
On the menu were fruity jelly rolls, chocolate jelly rolls, even a matcha green tea jelly roll. Some of the rolls would be frosted and decorated, and some would be just the plain cake and filling, though I was going to use colored cake batter to make different patterns on the naked jelly roll cakes.
Naked, heh.
I’d like to see Matt naked.
My eyes widened.
Uh, no. No way. Brody, maybe.
Brody was wearing flannel pants and a shirt and flexing his muscles that sported flannel tattoos.
He probably has flannel bed sheets.
My nose itched.
I snuck a glance at Matt. Just looking at him seemed to ease the hot itchy feeling.
He shifted his weight, leaning one hip against the counter. He was like a male model in an ad for an expensive brand of jewelry or car. He seemed as if he was about to grab his keys and drive out into the wilderness or get down on one knee and propose.
You shouldn’t have eaten all that turkey, I scolded myself as I went back to coring the pears.
I had so much to do. Matt and I had been gone much longer than everyone else to find our ingredients, and now we were behind. Again. I glanced at the clock then back at Matt.
He looked up from the phone to meet my eyes.
“Can you—”
“No,”he said brusquely.
I can’t believe I ever thought he was attractive.
“We are going to lose,” I hissed at him.
He waved his hand with the phone at the pile of fruit. “I supplied the fruit; I basically hunted it for you.”
“Your robot grew it,” I said flatly then switched to begging. “Just slice the pears so I can start on the cranberry sauce and pomegranate sauce.”
“Seems like you stretched yourself a little too thin.”
I picked up my phone and started snapping photos.
“Hey!”
“If you don’t help, I’m posting unflattering photos of you online,” I threatened.
“You can’t take an unflattering photo of me,” Matt retorted.
