And I already had one of those in my life.
Chapter 2
FINN
What thehellwas wrong with me?
I was still asking myself that as I dumped the bag of groceries on the kitchen counter in my apartment.
There was zero excuse for buying all the fondant out from under the hot guy at the store. None. Would it have beensohard to offer him one of my buckets? No. But instead of doing that and maybe getting his number, I’d waltzed off pretending I didn’t know what he was hinting at, like a total dick.
Good job with that whole “getting to know the locals” thing, Finn. Truly stellar.
It wasn’t like I evenneededtwo buckets of fondant. But this morning when I’d woken up, for the first time in a long time, I’d been seized with the urge to bake. It had been a welcome sensation, and I’d headed to the store while my enthusiasm was still fresh. And I hadn’t been lying when I told Cameron I was surprised to see decent baking stuff for sale. So I’d stocked up, more out of habit than anything else. It genuinely hadn’t occurred to me until later that I wasn’t living in the city now and there wasn’t another store nearby. I’d accidentally screwed the hot guy—Cameron—over.
Which was a shame because I’d seen the way his expression had brightened when he’d clocked my rainbow pin, and I hadn’t imagined him checking me out. That would have been the perfect opportunity to invite him over for a cookie-making session, dazzle him with my kitchen skills, and then see if he was interested in maybe licking my frosting.
Wow. Was that seriously the best baking innuendo I could come up with? I’d have to up my game unless I wanted to stay just as single in Sugar Hollow as I had been in New York. And I didn’t wantanythingto be like it was in the city.
Sugar Hollow was meant to be a fresh start, a chance to take a breath and figure out what I wanted to do with my life.
Had I moved here in a desperate bid to escape the well-meaning friends back home who kept trying to hook me up with both job opportunities and their single friends? Absolutely. But that didn’t mean I didn’t like it here. The town had an innate charm, and even though I’d only been here for a couple of weeks, away from the noise and stress of Manhattan, I could feel peace settling in my bones. The few locals I’d met so far seemed nice enough. I just needed a chance to meet a few more of them. And I was good at making friends. I was outgoing and fun to be around. Everyone said so.
The guys at the sawmill where I worked had already invited me out for drinks, and I wasn’t sure why I’d said no. They all seemed decent enough, and I knew the gay thing wasn’t a problem. Their foreman Pete had a husband, and nobody seemed to care.
Maybe it was just a hangover from the last place I’d worked at being such a toxic shithole. I was still squirrely about getting caught up in workplace politics. Although now that I thought about it, I didn’t think therewereany politics at the sawmill—part of the reason I liked working there so much.
I decided that if they asked me again next week, I’d say yes.
I put the groceries away, and I had to smile to myself when I saw that I’d automatically left the butter, sugar, and flour out on the counter. It had been six months since I’d left my last job and in that time I hadn’t so much as lifted a spatula, but apparently the baking vibe wasback, baby. I was pulling on my apron and setting the oven to preheat before I’d thought about it twice.
I didn’t need a recipe to make my mom’s shortbread cookies—I’d started making them when I was five and it was basically muscle memory after twenty-five years—and by the time I’d rolled out the dough, cut it into festive shapes, and put the cookies in the oven, I was humming under my breath. I felt lighter than I had in months.
Huh.
I made a pot of coffee, and while it brewed I picked up the flyer that was lying on the counter. The guy at the store had put it in the bag with my groceries, and it was printed in vivid red and green ink with a font that practically beat me over the head with festive cheer.
I poured my coffee, then read the contents.
It’s almosttime for the Sugar Hollow Gingerbread Festival
Featuring the Annual Sugar Hollow Gingerbread House Competition!
First Prize—a one-hundred-dollar gift card from Wilson’s Grocery.
All proceeds will be donated to Sugar Hollow Animal Shelter.
Entries close December 1!
Reading further,it looked like the Gingerbread Festival was a big deal. The main street was closed off for a day for a variety of craft stalls and food vendors, and the whole thing culminatedin the judging of the gingerbread house contest. There was an entry fee that people paid to go and see the houses on display. There was also a bake sale that ran the weekend before the contest, and the proceeds all went to the local animal shelter.
The attached entry form had a list of the rules for the contest—entry must be completely edible, entry must be the entrant’s own work, entrant must be a resident of Sugar Hollow, finished product must be delivered to Sugar Hollow Community Center for display between December first and December tenth—and I found myself seriously considering it.
Entering a local competition and taking part in the festival activities would be a great way to meet people. And making a gingerbread house? That was child’s play—at least, it would be for me. But then, I’d spent the last five years working at one of New York City’s premier wedding cake bakeries, and a lot of the techniques that went into cake decoration also applied to gingerbread houses.
And I’d been fuckingamazingat wedding cakes.
I’d loved my job too, right up until the company had changed hands a year ago, and along with the new bosses came longer hours, an unrealistic workload, and a workplace so soul-crushing that it had me questioning all my life choices. The day I’d stood at the top of the staircase in my apartment building trying to decide if falling down the stairs was preferable to going into work had been the day I’d quit, and I hadn’t so much as whipped up a buttercream since.
