“Monday through Friday,” Taylor says. “I can be back in time for the weekend bakes if I leave straight from work.”
That’s insane.
That’shoursof driving every week. Exhaustion layered on exhaustion, topped with a generous helping of stress.
Where did she say she was from again?
“I’ll be fine,” she insists, but her voice dips. “It’s just like Gram used to say, nothing worth having comes easy.”
Silence stretches for a while. I assume it’s her mom’s turn to speak on the other end of the line.
“Love you too,” she murmurs.
After the call ends, I hear it.
A single shaky intake of breath and a soft cry. Soon, her footsteps pad across the balcony, and the heavy glass door slides shut, sealing her back inside the house.
I sit there long after, heart pounding, staring up at the now-empty balcony.
It clicks into place then—the unfairness of it all. The invisible advantages people like me have, where we get to focus solely on the bake, while others here are juggling survival.
And suddenly, winning doesn’t feel as clean as it did an hour ago. I thought coming here meant bringing home the win for Chet to drape around his shoulders like a victory flag, when in reality, I’m taking a win from someone who needs it way more than we do.
Fuck.
What do I do with that?
Still on the patio, lost to the ethical war playing out in my mind, I hear a door open and close, the drag of a suitcase across pavement, car keys jingling, and tires crunching over the driveway.
Taylor leaves immediately, in the middle of the night.
And I hate how it unsettles me. I don’t have a name to place on the feeling, but it’s a lot like losing something I never actually had.
CHAPTER 13: TAYLOR
I don’t remember most of the drive back to the house in LA as much as I remember the moment it ended.
The headlights cut across the driveway just after midnight on Friday, my hands aching from gripping the wheel for three straight hours after a full shift at my day job.
This week has been one of the hardest of my life.
Trying to focus on client calls at work while my head was back here in the house with the other contestants was next-level taxing. But I did it, and I’m back.
I kill the engine and sit there for a second longer than necessary, forehead resting against the steering wheel, telling myself I at least made it. That I didn’t fall asleep at the wheel and die in a fiery highway explosion, and that counts for something.
Easing open the front door as quiet as I can, I slide into the dark foyer and slip off my shoes in an effort to make as little noise as possible. The door clicks shut, and I gently pad through the living room toward the stairs. In my exhaustion, a silent laugh surfaces because it feels like I’m fifteen again and sneaking back into the house after curfew.
Someone clears their throat.
I jolt, heart lurching, and look up to find Alex on the couch, legs stretched out, a book open in his hands. He looks up at me with tired eyes, but there’s something else there too. Relief maybe? I don’t know, that doesn’t make sense. Any social awareness or EQ I may have had seeped out of my body hours ago.
“Oh,” I whisper-laugh, pressing a hand to my chest, because apparently that’s all the vocabulary can handle right now.
“You made it.”
He doesn’t look up from his book when he speaks, but there’s something about the way he says it that jumps out at me. But, again, too tired to figure out why.
I smile, clumsy and half-asleep on my feet.
