Page 28 of Fauxmance in the City

“Cool.” If Max senses something is amiss, he doesn’t comment. His smile is amused, not suspicious.

“Everything looks good. I think I’m ready,” I say brightly. I can’t review anything with Max beside me, but it’s probably for the best. I need to go up and unwind before the big day. “I’m done here. I’m gonna—”

Before I finish the statement, Bailey bounds around the counter and leaps up, grabbing the turkey between his jaws.

“No!”

The bird is swept off the counter, and my heart stops as the two cheesecakes fly to the floor, splattering apart. Bailey drags the raw turkey across the kitchen floor and into the laundry room. Leaving the ruined cakes, I chase Bailey and reach for the turkey, but he growls, and I pull my hand back.

“Stop,” I scream, but he ignores me and sinks his teeth deeper into the leg. The sound of a box of food shaking behind me draws Bailey’s attention, and he leaps past me and back into the kitchen, where Sam holds some kind of treat.

The sad carcass lays before me. From the laundry room, I take a clean towel off the shelf and wrap the mangled turkey in it, carrying it back to the kitchen and dumping it in the sink.

“Can it be saved?” Max asks, scratching Bailey behind the ear.

One of the legs hangs on by a thin tendon. I snap a photo of it, then send it to Natalie. Immediately, she sends back an emoji face with wide eyes, then instructs me on how to salvage it.

“I can pin it together,” I say, repeating what Natalie texted me. “And we can angle this section away from the camera. It’s gonna need a good scrub. But”—I kneel in front of the cheesecake massacre—“there’s no saving the cakes.”

My fingers shake as I text Natalie a picture of them and ask what to do. Three dots appear, but after a minute they disappear, and then there’s nothing.

I rinse and scrub the turkey and try and pin the leg, but it keeps falling apart. I take a picture of that and send it, but still, there’s no response. Giving up for tonight, I place it safely in the roasting pan and back in the fridge. I vigorously wash my hands and dry them.

“What are you gonna do about the cakes?” Max asks from the ground. Sam and he are cleaning up the mess with paper towels and dumping it in the trash.

Defeated, I drop my forehead on the island and hold back tears. I want to laugh at how silly this all is. It’s only cakes and a turkey for a stupid morning show.

“Do you have the ingredients?” Sam asks. “I’ll help you remake them.”

I nearly cry at his offer. “No. I’ll text Karen and tell her what happened. In the morning, we’ll have to figure something out.”

My anxious thoughts are spiraling me down a hole of disastrous what-ifs. What if they want me to make something else? What if they discover I can’t because I have no idea what I’m doing? What if I’m finally exposed and they fire me? This only works when everything is planned. I can’t bake on the fly.

“It’ll be okay.” Sam puts his arm around my shoulder, but I shake him off.

“Don’t,” I snap. “Leave me alone.”

My nerves are shaky, and I walk out of the kitchen. I can’t deal with Sam and our confusing relationship right now. In the living room, I sink into the sofa and wonder for the hundredth time if this special is my downfall.

I’ve finally flown too close the sun.

eight

“Do you want me to walk you up to your room?” Max stands by the doors from the foyer, looking into the living room where I’ve been sitting for the last ten minutes, staring at the floor, thinking of how to salvage tomorrow. But I’m bone-tired, and my mind is mush. When I’m on the set of Good Day USA, it’s a well-oiled machine. But “on location”—as this is referred to—there’s a lot more planning. I spent hours with Karen in preproduction meetings this week as she went through every shot.

“Okay,” I say.

“Thank you for putting up with me tonight.” Max slides his gaze to the steps, and a soft emotion—sadness? melancholy?—crosses his features before he turns his gaze back to me. “It’s nice to be in a home. Hospital living is tough, but Aunt Gilli was right. Being in a home is different. Better.”

“Will you stay with your aunt and uncle after the special is over?”

“They have an odd relationship, don’t you think?” Max cocks one side of his mouth up. “I hope after I’m married that long I don’t treat my spouse as a business partner. Otherwise, what’s the point of getting married?”

His gaze lingers on my face. I turn away, unsure if he’s inferring anything. Walking in the dim, secluded hallway at night has a soft romantic vibe. I steal a glance at Max. He’s handsome, but Sam flashes in my mind, and a warm, cloying feeling circles my belly.

“This is me.” I lean against the wall outside the master suite, delaying what waits behind that door. A night spent with Sam. One bed. Two people.

Physically, I’m in the hallway but my mind is behind those doors, imagining what comes next. Nothing tonight. I can’t handle it, but my mind and libido don’t always agree, and I can feel myself faltering.

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