Usually, she lingers, smiles, or throws me a dorky thumbs-up. Now, she’s avoiding me, and everyone else, entirely.
As she silently tucks herself into one of the window seats of the van, she curls toward the window and closes her eyes, shutting the world out. I tentatively take the seat beside her, not sure what to say, so I don’t say anything at all.
That’s when it hits me—I don’t have a clue what in the hell just happened.
Because whatever Taylor is carrying right now is more than just losing a fellow baker. And she’s carrying it alone.
The ride back to the house passes in a blur of cracked jokes and forced laughter all around us. Diane, I think, starts talking about what she’ll bake next week forSouthern Classics Week. Khalil jokes about carbo-loading afterItalian Week. It all drifts past me.
Taylor doesn’t move from her spot, arms wrapped tight around herself. A low pang of unease unfurls in my chest as I sit there, completely useless.
Fuck.
Taylor is the last one out of the van and the first one inside the house. She doesn’t look at anyone as she barrels through thefront door. I linger in the foyer, watching her disappear up the stairs before a door clicks shut in the distance.
“Don’t,” Julian says quietly, appearing at my side.
His hand lands on my shoulder, grounding me. “You don’t need to fix everything you notice.”
I huff out a breath, still not looking at him. “I wasn’t going to.”
He gives me a look that says he knows better.
Inside, the house hums with that uncomfortable post-judging energy. Everyone searches for distractions to avoid replaying the same three moments in their heads. A champagne bottle pops somewhere, and music rises to fill the silence.
Julian steers me toward the kitchen under the guise of grabbing a beer. “Walk with me,” he says. “I want to know where your head’s at.”
I don’t fight him this time because a beer sounds perfect.
“You look like hell,” he taunts, smirking.
I grunt in response and grab the bottle he offers. My hands are still faintly tacky with sugar and citrus oil despite the scrub I gave them before we left the tent. I press my fingertip against the glass a few times, focusing on the slight pull.
“Good showstopper?” he asks.
I take a long drink. The cold steadies me. “Yeah.”
“That’s all I get?” Julian arches an eyebrow.
I shrug, leaning back against the island. My body aches in that deep, satisfying way it only does after hours of standing, repeating the same precise motions. A sign of a day well spent and a job well done.
“I got star baker this week,” I say.
He breaks into a wide grin. “That’s agoodthing,right?”
“It is.”
“You should tell your face that.” His grin shifts into another smirk when my exhausted gaze meets his.
“I don’t know,” I reply after a beat. “It’s hard to be excited when someone else’s dream was destroyed in the same sentence.”
That earns me a look. Julian twists the cap off his beer and takes a sip, eyes never leaving mine. “That’s new.”
I let the silence stretch. The house creaks softly around us—footsteps overhead, someone laughing down the hall. The others are decompressing in their own ways. I don’t feel like joining them yet.
“The judges really liked it,” I admit. “They said it was great. I’ve been working with bolder flavors, and they’re responding to that. They gave me all the words you want to hear in a competition like this.”
“But?” Julian prompts.
