Janet gave a curt nod. “Five minutes.”
Dahlia had no idea how she was going to walk back onto set after this. She wanted to crawl into a dark hole.
Janet stood. She brushed invisible dust off of her pants.
“You’re going to do great today, okay? We’re all so glad you’re still here. Go get ’em, Woodson.”
After giving Mack a nod, Janet smacked Dahlia on the shoulder and smiled before walking away. As if this had been an inspiring huddle before the big game.
Dahlia blinked, listening to the fading patter of Janet’s footsteps, the rhythm matching the lonely beating of Dahlia’s heart.
London frowned.
“You sure you’re okay?” Not for the first time today, they held the back of their hand up to Dahlia’s forehead. She swatted it away, eyes darting around the set.
“London, seriously, I’mfine,” she hissed.
“You’re pale. And . . . damp.”
“Thanks for the confidence boost. Focus on your cake, okay?”
She turned back to her own work, furiously smashing raspberries in a small ceramic bowl, her lips a thin line. London frowned deeper but did as they were told.
The Elimination Challenge today was all about cakes, and London, too, was all about cakes. They were having fantastic sex with a fantastic person. Everything about today should have been awesome.
Except for the fact that Dahlia looked like she was going to pass out. And was barely talking to them.
Still, everything was going relatively smoothly with London’s cake preparations—coffee, flour, sugar, chocolate, and peppermint, measured and folded and mixed—until the clock stopped unexpectedly. Right in the middle of the Elimination Challenge, the red numbers at the judges’ table came to a sudden halt with exactly forty minutes left to go.
Sai Patel called for their attention. The six remaining contestants’ hands paused in place at the edge of their baking sheets, on mixer stands, wrapped around spoons inside bowls of icing.
“Dahlia, Cath, and Khari,” Sai continued. “Please make your way to the judges’ table.”
London attempted to flash Dahlia a reassuring smile for whatever this was. She wiped her floury hands on her apron, face grim, and didn’t look back once.
Sure. Dahlia was obviously just fine.
“Let’s switch things up. Will the three of you please take a place behind the judges’ table?” Sai gestured behind him to the dramatic front table with the frozen clock. London watched Dahlia assume Tanner Tavish’s spot, flanked by Cath and Khari on either side of her. London couldn’t help but smile. She might be refusing to admit she’d come down with the plague or her appendix was about to burst or something, but Dahlia still looked good up there.
“You know . . . ” Sai strolled casually across the Golden Circle, steepling his fingers in front of him. “Having the responsibility of makingallthe decisions gets tiring sometimes. The three of you won an advantage in yesterday’s Face-Off. And this time, it’s a big one. Right now, you will pick one person out here”—Sai pointed to the remaining three contestants at their stations—“one person you choose to save, right now. They can stop baking this second and leave set to rest up until next episode, safe and sound.”
Sai turned back around to face the judges’ table.
“You will also choose one person to put at a disadvantage. They will have to finish their cake fifteen minutes early.”
London’s eyebrows lifted. Damn. That was an intense disadvantage.
Baking was all about timing. They were told they’d have sixty minutes to bake. There was literally nothing you could do if your cake wasn’t already in the oven.
“That seems harsh, boss,” Cath voiced out loud.
Sai smiled good-naturedly. “Perhaps. But if you had timed things well, you would have already planned to take your cake out of the oven fifteen minutes early to allow it to cool before applying your icing. This disadvantage will simply require some creative thinking. You have three minutes to decide.”
Sai made a big show of setting a timer on his smartwatch.
“Go.”
Khari and Cath huddled toward Dahlia. She didn’t say anything at all for the first thirty seconds, her face a strange blank while Khari and Cath talked heatedly around her, their voices a low murmur. London was contemplating calling for the medic. There was clearly something going on with Dahlia.
