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I remember a cast dinner together a couple of weeks into the competition, when he complimented me on my chocolate cake recipe. I admit, I preened. I struggled with that particular recipe for weeks, toying with the leavening agents and flavor balance until I got a reliable, easy, but delicious recipe.
It’s the type of recipe that seems deceptively simple, but is incredibly delicious and requires a bit of finesse. To have a world-renowned pastry chef compliment me for it made my chest warm with pride.
And there was Fallon’s finger, making maddening shapes on my shoulder all the while. His thigh pressed up against mine. His big, broad body so close, my head spun.
Is it possible Bernard mistook my attraction to Fallon for attraction to him?
Groaning, I drop my head in my hands.
No wonder I haven’t had a boyfriend. They’re too much damn work. The male brain is an organ I don’t think I’ll ever figure out.
Pounding on the door draws me out of my eddying thoughts. I drag myself to the door and check the peephole, then brace myself for a hurricane before opening.
“She lives!” Simone exclaims, then sniffs. “Is something burning?”
“I had an accident in the kitchen,” I explain.
Simone immediately puts the back of her hand to my forehead. “No fever. You sure you’re okay?”
I roll my eyes. “I’ve burned things before, Simone.” I open the door wider to let everyone in.
“We brought reinforcements,” Fiona says, jerking her thumb to Candice and Trina behind me. “But first, you need to tell us everything about last night. You never came back after you went out looking for Fallon.”
Trina lifts a bag. “We were thinking we could get you all dressed up and looking like a million bucks, then go to the Grove.” The Cedar Grove is a bar just outside the town limits. Mac’s father, Hamish, owns the joint.
Candice wiggles her eyebrows. “You could invite Fallon.”
“We’re not done celebrating your win!” Simone bustles into my apartment, then stops, gaping at all the greenery. She glances at Candice. “You weren’t exaggerating.”
Letting them all inside, I scratch my head. “Fallon left with Nora this morning.”
Silence crashes down on us.
Fiona’s the first to speak. “He left?”
“We, um, kind of had a disagreement last night,” I say.
All eyes are on me. I squirm.
“What happened, Jen?” Simone prompts.
With a deep breath, I let everything out. I start by telling them about Bernard again, going over our conversation from beginning to end, and am rewarded with more outraged gasps. Fiona assures me that I didn’t lead anyone on—he was the one who pushed himself on me. Then I tell them about my parents revealing that Fallon went to prison for robbery, and that a deadly weapon was used in the crime.
Everyone blinks as they stare at me.
Candice glances at Fiona. “Did we know that?”
Fiona chews her lip. “We hired Fallon because he’d worked for Wes’s parents.” Wes’s parents used to own the café space when they were alive. “I gave him the paperwork, but I’d have to check if it asks about criminal records. He never mentioned it.”
“Either way,” Simone interjects, “Fallon was a model employee. You said this happened when he was eighteen? I mean, shit, I should have been arrested for a hundred things when I was a dumb teenager.”
“Yeah, but did you rob a convenience store at knifepoint?” Candice asks quietly.
Simone pinches her lips.
“There’s got to be an explanation,” Trina says, her bag of clothes and makeup forgotten. She’s the resident style icon, and I’m secretly glad I won’t be getting a makeover today. All I want to do is crawl under a mountain of blankets and go to sleep for a hundred years.
“If there is, I haven’t heard it.” I slump onto a sofa and kick my legs up.
