I sighed inwardly and glanced at Justin, who was taking notes on his phone, and I knew exactly where that image had been sourced. Jeremy the snowman had been the audience to the moment when lust tugged at me for the sexy, serious, socially marketed Justin.
“How many oven checks?” Justin asked, glancing up from his phone. I found it insanely cute that he was taking notes.
“At least two.”
“So four is okay, or is that too much?”
“Perfect, and I want at least one casual breakout of ‘Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer’.”
“It’s not casual if it’s planned,” Ivan muttered.
Rita ignored him, in full-on floor manager mode. “Does anyone need the words?”
A chorus of no’s, and one yes. Justin was the one who’d said yes, frowned, and looked freaked out.
“That will be an issue,” he announced. “I only know the first line; can you get me a printout so I can have it on my bench to practice?”
Rita nodded, just as serious. “I can get that.”
“Laminated in case of spills,” Justin added. I checked his expression, but no, he wasn’t joking. He genuinely wanted the words to “Rudolph,” and he wanted it laminated, which had Rita in agreement as if she really enjoyed him playing the part with serious intent.
“Anything else you need from us?” Clare snarked.
Rita bobbed her head. “We need you to have visible fun at least twice each.” She sounded so perky and I genuinely thought Clare was very close to beating her with the nearest wooden spoon. Clare’s competition, season six, had been the most dramatic. Two contestants left in disgrace. One stole someone’s custard, and then one who threw an entire batch of cinnamon sugar puff pastry pinwheels at the judges.
Tensions were high, and Clare won only because her closest competitor had a refrigerator malfunction when his mousse wouldn’t set for the tiramisu. Accusations flew that the gelatin had been replaced. The fridge was tampered with, or the mousse was switched, but no one had proof, and Clare had the victory. Her flame-red hair was as bright as her temper, and her lack of giving a shit about the machinations of the show, and its viewing figures were legendary. With Clare, it was all about the winning, which I guess it should be for all of us. Justin was currently taking a selfie with the tables in the background and grinning like a maniac until the photo was done and the smile dropped, and he was normal-Justin again.
My cell vibrated in my back pocket after a short moment, and I knew it was his post. He was the only person I followed that I had notifications turned on for. I follow him. I save some of his bakes. I imagine how he might cook something and yes since Marc had broken me maybe I watched some of the videos on repeat.
“Okay then,” Rita announced and hugged her clipboard. “On the left, can we have Shauna at the back, Ivan in the middle, Clare at the very front. On the right, Kristen at the back, Brody in the middle, Justin at the front.”
“I’m not sure that works for me,” Justin said in all seriousness and glanced down at his phone, frowning. “My team says the optics suggest I should be in the center.”
“We have our own optics, and this has been decided in consultation with the focus groups.” Rita was firm. Focus groups? What the hell? This wasn’t the competition I recalled, but hey as Adam said, with his normal twinly perception in our last call, things move on, and you need to play the game. Rita led us to our stations, giving the first four a spiel about what we could find and where. She worked from Clare and around until it was just me and Justin left, but for some reason, we weren’t separated, instead she pulled the two of us to one side and lowered her voice. “As our sole queer representation, we recommend you make a few comments that emphasize your situation.”
“Our what?” I glanced at Justin, who didn’t look as bemused as I did. Our situation? What? The fact I was gay? Or that Justin was whatever Justin was, gay, or bi, or whatever.
Justin made a noise as if he’d been considering the question, a cross between a thoughtful hum and a huff. A huffum, as my mom likes to call them. This was ridiculous, and I was ready to back him when he launched into Rita explaining how wrong she was.
“Okay, fair enough,” he said and my mouth dropped open. “But if we’re talking sexual innuendo, then I’ll need to scrutinize my contracts.” Justin checked his phone again. “However, at this point I’m prepared to negotiate one, maximum two, comments about cream, and one use of the word erection with an added smirk when creating the gingerbread house.”
What the fuck?
“That’s fine,” she said. “And you, Brody?”
They were looking at me. “I’m baking,” I said lamely.
Rita made this face that implied I was hopeless, or maybe I was reading too much into it.
“Justin, you suggested in the prep meeting that the two of you could do some on-camera flirting, fake an attraction or something?” Rita asked and glanced between the two of us.
“Well it was my team that suggested it, but yes, why not?” Justin said. He spoke with such conviction that my heart hurt. So much for thinking of getting coffee, or building snowmen, or soft kisses in the snow.
“Huh? I’m not—”
Justin rolled right over me. “I’m sure we can manage something, Rita.” Then he hustled me away to another corner. “Roll with it,” he murmured. “Selfie.”
I was clearly in shock but managed a smile when he pointed his phone at us, knowing I was going to be immortalized on his social media again.
“But I asked you to go for a coffee for real—”
“You did?” He looked surprised.
“Yeah, I’m not pretending to flirt.”
He pressed a hand to my chest, leaned in a little. “My team is right. It wouldn’t hurt to get the publicity,” he whispered, but I stepped back and away, and I felt dirty. I thought we’d connected over the snowman, but now I felt like that had been nothing at all. Just like with Marc, I’d been assigned the convenient extra.
“That’s not what I wanted to do,” I muttered under my breath so only he would hear.
“We don’t always get a choice.”
“Yes, we do. Life is all about fucking choices.” He shot a surprised glance at my show of temper but soon went back to his phone. I headed to my bench and made a whole show of checking things out, opening and closing the oven, familiarizing myself with what I had, to see if anything had changed. I wasn’t going to be someone who pretended attraction just to get public appreciation or to raise ratings. I couldn’t even bring myself to look at him and spent the next hour until first filming making it very obvious I was ignoring the fuck out of him. One bathroom break later, I couldn’t help myself and checked my phone. He’d posted the first selfie talking about day one, and then there it was, the one of the two of us.
“Day one filming with this cutie, Brody Thomas, Snowman Rescuer, #season4winner #sexybaker #darkeyes #askhimforcoffee #coffeedate #sorrynotsorry.”
Faker.
When I stepped out of the bathroom, Justin was waiting for me with a neutral expression, but with his arms crossed protectively over his chest. He looked oddly vulnerable.
“Brody,” he began but didn’t get to say anything else as Rita came bustling out and called for us to take our places and get ready for shooting.