Page 45 of I Love a Good Challenge

“So, whatcha makin’ for round one this year?” Sparrow interrupts my downward spiral by changing the subject. I send her a grateful grin. Only she can ask me about my baking and get away with a smile from me instead of an eye roll.

“Fluffernutter cookies,” I reply. I lift my eyes to Graham, who looks as if he just caught sight of Gladys when she decides it’s seventies day and wears bell bottoms and a flower crown in her hair. What a hero that gal is.

“George?” I say in his direction. “Something offensive about the cookie I’m making?”

At this, Graham shakes himself out of a stupor and clears his throat. “No, not at all.”

“Is this that peanut-butter-and-marshmallow thing that is common here?” Rafe asks, taking a bite of one of the maple croissants Sparrow packed from the shop.

I grin at the smile he flashes Sparrow while he bites into it, like he just can’t help but look at her no matter what he is doing. I mean, the man sings for her, for crying out loud. You’d think she’d combust from all the affection, but in truth, I’ve never seen her so happy. The sentiment shoots discomfort throughout my chest, and I rub the spot to try to massage it away.

“Yes, it is,” Graham answers before Sparrow can reply.

At first, I think he jumps in because, after all, the man lives for questions and riddles and attempting to make sense of the world around him.

But then, he continues, “They’re my favorite. I grew up on those sandwiches.”

I freeze. His gaze flits over to me for the last bit, and my hands instantly tense as I try to make sense of this sophisticated man eating the humble (but incredible) fluffernutter sandwich. I know he experienced a rough few years when his father left. My whole class knew they sustained me during my senior year of high school . . . and that makes sense to me, but Graham? The man with the perfectly creased pants? I can’t fathom it.

“That can’t be true,” I mutter under my breath.

His eyes remain focused on mine as he replies, “I assure you that it is.”

“Well, I can’t wait to try these cookies,” Rafe says with a smile.

Sparrow wishes me luck, and she and Rafe turn toward their picnic area. As Graham pivots to follow them, I find myself murmuring, “I didn’t know.”

He looks back at me. His face catches the light, transforming his eyes into a deep pool of blue water. “There are a lot of things you didn’t know.” He’s in motion but pauses to say, “Oh, and I’m sorry your parents didn’t call you. You deserve to know how valuable you are. In what you think are the small things and the big things. Even when you doubt it.”

I’m left staring in his wake until I jump at the sound of the buzzer.

∞∞∞

Round one was a breeze. My fluffernutter cookies knocked the socks off the judges, so much so that their feet should be feeling cold right about now.

I’m confident I can win this contest again with my second-round recipe. I’ll be using homemade crunchy shelled eggs—the pretty pastel ones with a sweet coating—and integrating them into brownies. The dessert is decadent. It’s sweet. And it’s my favorite thing to make around Easter. The holiday may have already passed, but the spirit of it is still going strong in Birch Borough.

It’s a good thing too, because I may have gone a bit overboard with my candy-making a couple of weeks ago. There are approximately two hundred chocolate bunnies left that I need to distribute before my landlord realizes the chocolate scent in my studio apartment isn’t a room freshener.

The scent of burned sugar carries on the light breeze, and I search the stations for the culprit. I nearly cackle when I see a ruined pan fly through the air, landing with a thud on the grass. One down.

I am in the process of stirring the batter, thinking of all the ways I will celebrate (or gloat) my victory, when the air around me suddenly begins to buzz with intensity. I know that feeling. Graham.

I spare a few precious seconds of concentration to lift my head. Sure enough, he’s a few yards from my station, leaning against a tree, and just . . . watching. Not in a creepy way, of course—he doesn’t have it in him. No, he’s staring at me as if he remembers exactly how much he loves sweets and how much I used to love making them for him.

I drag my attention away and back to my task. After scraping the bowl with a spatula and filling the baking pan with the batter, I chop up the chocolates and arrange them across the top so they sink in, but only just. Since they are so sweet, the trick is to add dark chocolate and decrease the sugar in your brownie batter just a bit for the perfect balance.

I look up to meet Graham’s eyes again, wishing I could decipher him. The fluffernutter thing isn’t sitting right. I know he had a rough time growing up and started working when it was close to illegal, but the look in his eye when the sandwiches were mentioned tells me that—true to his character—there is a weight in his past that he tried to shield me from when we were together. I guess it’s hard to see people clearly when we’re sure we already know the full story.

With a start, I realize the stand mixer has been spinning nonstop for the past several minutes while I’ve been distracted by Graham’s presence.

“Argh!” I growl into the air as I check my egg whites. Completely deflated. I throw the batter bowl down and look up to find Graham again, but he’s gone.

Pulling off the mixing bowl and beginning again with a clean one from our table of supplies, I start over.

Minutes fly by, and it’s only when I’m cutting into the brownies and using a piping bag to create little meringue flowers across the top that I feel the relief of creating something I love. Plus, I get to use a torch to brown the meringues, which is excellent.

Sparrow and Rafe are standing up and cheering as the crowd counts down the dwindling time left in the competition.

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