Page 63 of The Baking Games

"A crab crawled over your foot, and then you mauled me."

I laugh and finally let go. His hands slowly fall from my waist. Why does that make me feel sad? We turn around and notice that the other contestants are staring at us from different areas of the beach. Some of them smile as if they know a secret I don't know. And then there's Connor, who is looking at me like he's sending waves of fire in my direction. The last person I want to look at is Rhett, but I do. And the look on his face is nothing I've seen before. I don't know what he's thinking, but I know what I'm thinking.

That was nice.

CHAPTER 17

RHETT

We had a good day at the beach despite the fact that we were having to pick up trash. I have to say that was something I had never done before in my life. Coming from a family of wealth, we didn't even handle our own trash. We had “people” for that.

My parents had people for everything. They had people to cook for us. They had people to watch over us while they were at work or on one of their vacations. They had people for the yard and people for the cars. I'm glad that they could employ people, but at the same time, it left me with an unrealistic view of the world.

Watching Savannah pick up trash like it was nothing was interesting. She enjoyed the day and her first time at the beach. I have to say that it was inspirational to watch her at the beach. She was so awestruck. It was like watching a little child experience something for the first time.

That was something I had never witnessed in anybody. I've been all over the world. I've seen all kinds of things, but I don't think I've enjoyed seeing something as much as the look on Savannah's face when we came over that bridge onto the beach and she saw the ocean for the first time.

The rest of the day was spent as free time. Because Savannah is so social, we talked to just about every one of the other contestants, which is not something I would normally do. I can be friendly when I need to be, but I'm not a person who enjoys meeting others or small talk. I'm not sure why that is.

Still, we talked to Zara about her travels around the world. We talked to Maggie about losing her husband and how she had started her life over again. We talked to Nate about his family tradition of baking. We also talked to Tanya about her kids and her catering business.

Getting to know all these people wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Of course, we avoided Connor and Lainey like the plague. We all had lunch and dinner together, so there was plenty of small talk. It wasn't as bad as I thought, either. We learned a lot about each other.

Of course, I didn't say much. I didn't talk about my job, even though I got asked a million questions about it. Connor kept eyeing me during these conversations as if he wanted to say something. I'm sure he did. He always wants to say something stupid. Thankfully, he refrained.

Now, it's our second night chained together. We have to go to sleep. Everybody's in bed, and Maggie, as usual, is already snoring. We asked the producer to unchain us so we could get into our nighttime attire before they chained us back together. Tomorrow is the last day of this.

I'm not sure whether to be happy or sad about that. I never thought I would enjoy being chained to another person for days at a time. We both lie down and turn off the light.

"Goodnight," Savannah says softly. She sounds tired. It's been a long day. We did a lot of physical work this morning.

"Goodnight," I say, knowing I won’t fall asleep.

We lay there for a while before Savannah sighs, the same thing she did last night.

"I can't sleep."

"Why?"

"I don't know. I guess I'm thinking about the competition. I'm thinking about my sister. I'm thinking about the ocean," she says, looking over and smiling. She has the best smile.

"I have an idea if you're up for it," I say, smiling back at her.

"Okay. What is it?"

"Well, why don't we go downstairs and do a little late-night baking?”

"Late-night baking?" she asks, laughing. “Is that a thing?”

"Yeah. We'll have the kitchen all to ourselves, and we can bake up some goodies to share with the others tomorrow."

"Rhett Jennings wants to share with others?" she says, rolling over onto her shoulder.

"Okay, well, maybe it's not really for them. I just like to bake, as you can probably determine."

She laughs and sits up, pulling my arm along with her. "In our pajamas?"

"Well, I'm not going to get dressed in formal wear for it," I say.

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