We ran to our kitchen booth like our life depended on it. It was funny, really, everyone scrambling to get out the ingredients faster than the other person, just to get an upper hand in the competition. The audience—mainly the rest of the participants—hooted like anything. They had visibly segregated, each section supporting a team. Sarah and Henry had the biggest clique rooting for them. But, since in this round, I wasn't up against Sarah, all her supporters shouted words of encouragement for me too.

Bea handed me the paper with the description of the cake we had to bake. For a moment, I wondered if Henry and Patrick had to do the same thing, though I hoped not. Comparisons made it harder.

Biting my lip, I mustered up the courage to look at it. Unfolding the paper, I concentrated on the printed text.

Bachelorette party.

Tilting my head, I reread it. Bachelorette party. My heart dropped in my chest. Wasn't the competition about wedding cakes? I frowned. The immense of amount of surfing wedding cakes designs was of no use now. I had to make something else now! Before I could read the other details, Brandon took the paper from my hand. I let him read it since I hadn't said anything. Looking around, I saw that my confusion was mirrored on the faces of the other contestants too.

To the right of our booth, Patrick held his paper in his hand. He saw me looking at him, and called out, "Tyler, what did you get?"

"Bachelorette party. What about you?"

"Bachelor party." Patrick made a face, in the same jeopardy as me.

Sharing the pain, I pointed to Henry, curious about his design of the cake as well. "What about him?"

Henry turned, his face distraught, and with a sigh, said, "Baby shower."

My eyebrows went up, perplexed. Hesitating, I gave him a weak smile. Patrick joined in too, sympathizing with him. That was going to be difficult. Mouthing both of them best of luck, I turned back to see a smiling Brandon. Feeling discerned under his gaze, I asked, "What?"

"We got the better deal."

"You think so?" I took the paper from his hand, and flipped it over, placing it on the table. "We'll be serving ladies. They're the most judgmental."

Brandon made me turn back to him by wiggling his fingers in front of my face, and distracting me. "How do you think they'll react when such a handsome gentleman will serve them cake?"

I shook my head at his antics, not wasting time standing still, and sketching up an outline for the cake.

"So? Will you take off your shirt and flex your abs?" Bea pitched in.

Brandon laughed. "That's not a bad idea."

I stood up straighter, and gave Bea a hard stare. Brandon would not be doing that. Diverting their attention from the topic at hand, I held up the paper. "What do you think?"

He pondered over my rough sketch. Bea peeked in as well. For a minute, they didn't say anything, exchanging brief glances and knowing smirks. I pressed my lips together, embarrassed at my horrendous drawing and their silence. They could at least act for my sake, and say something. I pulled the paper back, and stared at it myself. Well, I had attempted to draw a rough sketch of a three tier cake with black and pink zebra stripes, and added a heel, pearls, a clutch as embellishments to make it more bachelorette looking.

But, what the drawing had come out as was a topsy-turvy cake, with worm-like stripes, a haphazard thing which I called heel, dots as pearls, and a potato for clutch.

I curbed my urge to crumple the paper.

In a straight voice, I explained the two of them what was what. It seemed impossible that they would have understood otherwise.

"That's a heel?" Bea asked.

I nodded.

Brandon pointed to the black dots. "And those are pearls?"

I rolled my eyes but nodded yet again.

"Do you want me to fair it out?" Brandon suggested. With a suppressed smile, he choked out, "Don't worry, I'll do justice to the original masterpiece."

"Thank you." I handed him the paper, giving him a stare for his joke. Even I had pride, okay? "Bea, let's get on with the baking."

Time ticked by faster than anyone expected it to go by. Twenty minutes into the competition, Brandon had sketched a better picture of how we wanted the cake to like. For the filling, we decided to go with chocolate ganache as the main theme. Each tier was to be made of four cakes, filled with chocolate ganache on the top and the bottom between the tiers, and then with a sweet and tangy raspberry filling in the middle. A softer more delectable type of chocolate cake as our starting base.

Getting rid of the idea to use fondant as the outer covering, we substituted it by attempting to cover the cake with a light dark chocolate layer, smoothed to perfection. However my drawing was on paper, my hand was stable enough for me to have good piping technique. And we had our resident decorator Brandon too.

Bea worked on getting the perfect chocolate ganache ready and cooled under time. While I had already poured the batter into the baking tray and inserted them into the oven. I was using two ovens, just in case, one batch went awry. At this point, a single mistake could ruin our chance in the top three.

"Go Tyler!" The group hooted, and I looked up, a smile on my face. They roamed over the faces. All smiles and crinkled eyes, supporting the teams that made to the finals. Then they met a startling pair of eyes. Calm and expressionless.

She was here.

The unexpected sharp intake of my breath made Brandon stop, and he turned to catch sight of Bella as well. For a moment, we stood there in wordless wonder. Then, as if splashed with cold water, I turned away, not giving Bella any attention, or attracting any of my own. Nudging Brandon, I urged him to do the same. He did as I asked without question. It was abrupt and rude...

But there was a reason behind this.

Or rather there was someone behind Bella. And on her left, and on her right. Right in the center of the audience sat Bella, flanked with three bodyguards.

Even with their sunglasses on, I had felt their cold stare, as if they were predators monitoring their prey. Fearing suspicion, I had looked away from her and told Brandon to do so too. They weren't here to stop Bella from running away--she didn't have any means--but rather to stop our trio from helping her accomplish that.

But one thing still made me satisfied. There had been this fear in my chest that Alard wouldn't let Bella come. That all our planning and strategies would go to waste. No. More than that, the fear that Bella will never be able to meet Giulia again. It wasn't a love story that deserved a tragedy. For all the trouble I had put her into, it was the least I could do to help her get her happy ending. To see her here had revived that glimmer of hope. Maybe that dream wasn't far away.

Brandon showed me the edible bow he was working on. The idea of a heel had been scraped when we weren't able to come up with an angle we could put it on the cake. We were fast with taking on new ideas and didn't waste time groveling about what could have worked better or not.

The ticking bomb that was the timer above our heads had never exerted such pressure before. Our hastiness was heightened by the presence of Bella. We rushed to get the cake together. Running, sliding, sometimes colliding, hands moving at the speed of light to not waste a single second. I knew Bella would be restless. Maybe thinking that we didn't have a plan at hand. But I couldn't signal her anything without raising suspicion.

Bea called out, "Brandon help me get the cake out of the oven."

I turned instead, seeing him busy with the detailing work. Bea's right hand was limp at her side, not having enough strength to carry the kilo heavy cakes. She sidestepped to give me space. Putting on the oven mitts, the one Brandon had gifted me not too long ago, I took a single tray outside and closed the oven.

"Check if it's cooked through." I gave the instruction to Bea, and took out the mitts, going over to check on the chocolate and raspberry filling in the freezer.

"Cooked through!" Bea called out.

I nodded, walking wordlessly back to my working island. I nudged Brandon, and he paused immediately, understanding my signal. This was the moment. A loud thud began in my chest at the thought of what I was about to do. But the sacrifice had to be made if I wanted Bella out of here, and on her way to the airport. Only one choice was left to be made...

Burn my hand or cut my finger?

Brandon was still. I pursed my lips. Taking a deep breath, I walked back to the hot tray I had taken out of the oven. There was another one inside. I could make this look like an accident. Open the oven, and take it out barehanded. No one would know it was intentional.

"Don't do it, Tyler." Bea clasped my hand, stilling me.

I snatched it out of hers. Gritting my teeth, I growled out, "We discussed this."

"Yes, we did. But this isn't right!" she whispered, enraged. "Are you going to throw away all your hard work by injuring yourself?"

"Look, this is for Bella—"

"That's not the point!"

"Then what is?" I snapped back.

"I'll do it instead."

My eyes widened and I shouted, "What?" Bea was my responsibility. I couldn't let her do this. Not after she just got her arm cast out. Not, because I had taken upon myself to help Bella. She didn't have to.

"Don't worry. I'll say I broke my arm again."

"Bea, let me do this, please." I pleaded. There wasn't much time to argue. We might have been efficient so far and got the basic structure ready, but the whole décor was left to be done.

"Brandon needs your expertise." Bea squeezed my hand. "If by any chance, you're not able to come back, we won't be able to finish the cake."

I took my hand out from hers again and kept them on her shoulder. Glancing at Brandon, I said, "You guy will be able to do it."

She smiled. "Yeah. But you will do it better."

Before I could argue further, Bea pushed me away. I staggered back, stumbling on my feet, but catching myself with the help of the counter in time. But she was faster on her feet. In one move she opened the oven with the gloved hands and attempted to take out the heavy tray.

Purposely, as I saw, she twisted her wrist while keeping the tray on the counter. I could only watch her when she screamed out, "Ack!"

"Bea!" I shouted, running towards her. Brandon left his counter on this cue, coming to her aid. "What happened?"

Brandon and I crowded over her, exchanging glances. He had eavesdropped on our conversation, so I knew he knew about the change of roles. There wasn't time to reevaluate our strategy. One of the crew members were ought to be running to the platform anytime. I saw a shadow pass behind us, and pinched Bea, signaling her to act.

"What happened?" I shouted again. Feeling the presence of someone behind me, I widened my eyes at Bea to make her say the words.

"I think, I-I twisted my wrist."

"What?" I over exaggerated my speech.

The person behind me mumbled and then in a louder voice spoke, "Move away, we're bringing in medics."

I breathed a sigh of relief. Then, hurrying on with the act, gave the production staff some space, while clinging on to Bea. "It'll be okay, don't worry."

"Tyler. There's no time, you have to complete the cake!" Bea said loud enough for everyone to hear. Other contestants had slowed down as well, looking over to us with curiosity and shouting words of encouragement.

Shaking my head furiously, I held on to her arm, even as the medic tried to pry her away from me. "I can't leave you alone!"

Bea pulled on a great scene, crying. "Tyler. Go. You have to bake!"

I gritted my teeth. Why wasn't she calling on Bella already? At this rate, we might end up shooing a tragic drama instead of completing the cake, or getting Bella away from here. Even I mustered up a sob. It wasn't really for her, but rather for our deprived lives, and horrible acting skills. "No, please."

"You have to bake. I won't be alone," she said, looking around. "Bella! Please come with me."

My expression slipped for a moment as I looked over Bella. She wasn't flustered, or out of it. Blending in right with the act, she stood up, and said, "Of course, Bea!"

"You'll help her?" I asked. The bodyguards had stood up as well, scanning the area as if I had hidden a bomb in here.

She nodded. "It would be my pleasure."

Even the audience was awed.

"Thank you! Take care," I said the words facing Bea, but my eyes were on Bella. She understood my signal and gave me a small nod, her eyes expressing gratitude.

Gulping down the onslaught of emotions, I backed away. This is probably the last time I'll see Bella in months to come, I thought, or maybe years. Or maybe never at all. Damn Brandon, he was probably cutting onions up there. It was a bittersweet feeling, watching the medic, Bea, Bella and her bodyguards trailing behind her on their way to the same old plain grey building Kiki's men were hiding in. I made my way back to my counter, relishing the last memory of the beautiful and narcissistic, cold yet warm foreigner I had made acquaintance with this time.

The smiles, the jabs, the hatred, and the love. We had shared a plethora of emotions in this short while. Friends turned into enemies, hatred into affection, and looking over at Brandon, like into something more.

As I picked up the knife and set the cake on the stand, slathered on the cream, I felt no regret over how I had spent my previous weeks. Bella would be a treasured memory, a— My hand stilled mid-air, the glob of cream dropping onto the cake, and the somber expression I had imagined on my face freezing into its spot. It wasn't what I saw, but it was rather what I heard...

The screams of Bella and Bea coming from the building.

***