"You're going down, Charleston,"
"In your dreams, Grayson,"
We narrow our eyes at each other but both break into smiles after a few seconds.
"Aspen?"
I whip around to see Dustin walking into the room with Jaxon in tow behind him. They must be Ivy's team.
"What are you doing here? Just watching, right?" Dustin questions me with a small laugh.
"No, I'm competing actually," I say confidently all while sending Dustin a look that I hope he interprets correctly, if he opens his mouth about my oven incident then he's dead. He just shrugs and walks over to where Ivy is now setting up her station, my message obviously having been delivered.
"Trouble in paradise?" Jaxon asks me as he looks back and forth between Dustin and I.
"Excuse me?"
"You and Dustin. I thought-"
"We're just friends," I tell him flatly.
"But Ivy said-"
"Oh, you know how Ivy is. Little loopy sometimes," I say with a forced laugh.
"Yeah-"
"Don't agree to that," I snap at him, while narrowing my eyes.
"But you said-"
I just cut him off by walking away, back over to my team who all greet me with smiles.
"Are you ready?" Naomi asks me, clearly excited for the competition.
"I think you should be asking yourself that. I'm clearly going to be the one giving orders around here," I say with false confidence. Margot snorts at my comment, causing me to send a glare her way.
"Says the girl who-"
"Don't finish that sentence," I interrupt Margot.
"Then don't make false claims about our roles in this," Margot snaps back with a small smile.
"Alright bakers," the teacher who volunteered to host the competition calls out.
"Wait. Aspen. What did you do?" Naomi hisses at me.
"What?"
"What was Margot going to say?" she asks in a hushed voice.
"Oh. It was nothing. Don't worry about it," I try to play it off. I can tell Naomi doesn't believe me, but she doesn't push any further.
I don't even bother listening to the instructions for the competition, knowing that I'm really only here to meet the team number requirements anyways. Naomi could probably do this singlehandedly if it was allowed and Margot is no where near as much of a hindrance as I am, she'll actually be able to help.
But Naomi clearly isn't aware of my lack of baking skills as she begins to bark orders at me as soon as we start. My eyes widen at her before I send Margot a helpless look which she gives no pity to.
"What the fuck does she mean by mix the dry ingredients. Where are they?" I hiss to Margot who's already beginning the task Naomi set her off on.
"They should be in the pantry,"
"Ok, but-"
Margot groans at my cluelessness before she pushes past me and grabs what I'm assuming to be the dry ingredients and lays them out in front of me. She then slides a paper with the measurements into my hands.
"Were you seriously not paying attention the entire time we practiced?" she asks me, clearly slightly annoyed.
"No. I was obviously too caught up in being a spectator to the singing and dancing you were up to," I respond cheekily, thinking back to the time when Margot was singing and dancing around my kitchen to rock songs I had never heard, but which I wish I had already known every line by heart.
Margot flushes in what I assume to be embarrassment as she shakes her head.
"Well, I assume you can read the measurements and figure that out,"
I wince slightly, having hoped that I wouldn't have had to do anything for this competition, that I wouldn't have to actually be the one to risk what should be Naomi's win.
"We already covered that this isn't my strong suit," I tell her, knowing that if I mess these cupcakes up in the slightest then Naomi may never forgive me. Margot lets out a sigh.
"I think you'll be fine. I'll stay right next to you so I can double check you out of the corner of my eye, how about that?" Margot asks, trying to make me feel more confident in what should be a simple task all while clearly not wanting to take the blessed opportunity from me. I nonetheless nod in response, knowing that Margot will watch out for me so that I don't mess up too badly.
I finish measuring out the flour and that's when I hear footsteps approaching from behind me.
"Aspen," Ivy hisses my name as she walks over to me, still stirring whatever is in the bowl in her arms.
"Is this allowed?" I ask cheekily as I continue to do the task that was assigned to me, now measuring out the sugar.
"Shut up. What happened with you and Dustin?" Ivy snaps at me, the stress of the cupcake wars clearly already getting to her.
"What?"
My concentration on the task before suddenly breaks completely as I look up at my best friend.
"Jaxon just told me that you two aren't together anymore," Ivy pouts as if it was her fake relationship that just ended.
"No good snitch," I say under my breath.
"What?"
"Dude, Dustin and I went to homecoming together. That's it," I say, going back to measuring sugar.
"But I thought you liked him,"
"I guess it just wasn't meant to be," I say in an almost wistful tone. Ivy goes quiet for a moment, causing for me to look at her to find her cutely pouting over the situation. Her lips are pushed out and I can tell that she's biting the inside of her cheek, a habit that she's had for as long as I can remember.
I swear, she is the only person that actually thought our relationship made sense.
"You're oddly ok with it," she says after a minute.
"I think I'm just the right amount of ok with it," I quickly defend myself. Ivy stays silent.
"We mutually decided that friendship is better. That's all," I offer an explanation. Ivy frowns at this, but nods her head anyways.
"I just want you to be happy, bird," Ivy tells me, stopping stirring her batter for a minute to squeeze my hand.
"I know," I tell her, turning to look her in the eye and she looks right back. They say the eyes are the window to the soul, but I can't express how much I wish I could just see into her head right now.
"Ivy!" Dustin shouts from the other side of the kitchen space, snapping us out of our trance.
"What?" she says back in a more acceptable tone.
"Stop fraternizing with the enemy," Dustin yells back, causing for Ivy's cheeks to go pink.
"Sorry," she says to me sheepishly before running back over to her side of the kitchen space and beginning to bark orders at her team. I smile at the sight and sound. That's my competitive girl.
"Hey, Margot. Is it all looking good so far?" I ask the girl next to me who is washing the strawberries we are going to use in the sink and cutting them up. She looks over and nods but doesn't say anything else for a minute as she turns back to her assigned task.
"So you told Ivy about your fake boyfriend?" she asks me, not even looking my way.
"Excuse me?" I ask her, in slight shock due to her words.
"Dustin. Fake boyfriend," she emphasizes her main points.
"How did you...." I trail off. Margot knew that Dustin and I were always just friends, but I was sure Naomi was the only one that knew deception was involved.
"You went to homecoming together, but barely saw each other all night. The only time you ever act like a couple is when Ivy is around. You now claim that you only went as friends though I doubt such a public ask was meant to emphasize just that. Need I go on?"
I let out a sigh at her words before turning to look at her to find her already looking my way.
"So I guess you've been watching me," I say awkwardly, not sure of what else there is to say.
"I just can't figure out why you'd do that," Margot says just loud enough under her breath that I can hear her. My heart nearly stops at her words.
"Well...." I try to stall, an attempt to come up with an explanation, but my mind is blank.
"Unless it was an attempt to hide something...."
My heart nearly jumps into my throat.
"I don't know about that. I-"
"Oh my goodness,"
"I don't-" I start, hoping I could come up with some kind of defense at least.
"Dustin and Declan. That makes so much sense," Margot whispers to me.
"I-"
"That's why Dustin disappeared on you and you didn't seem to mind. That's why we found him with Declan," Margot whispers to me, her eyes shining in pride because of her conclusion.
"I-"
I don't know what to say. I don't want to out them to someone. But I also don't want to out myself either. And so I compromise.
"Ivy thought that Dustin and I would be cute together and we wanted to try it for her sake. That's all," I offer an explanation that only has a small amount of truth in it.
Margot gives me a side eye but doesn't ask any more questions, most likely feeling that it isn't really her place.
It's then that I finally finish mixing the dry ingredients and walk them over to Naomi as her instructions entailed.
"Took you long enough," Naomi says under her breath, hardly even looking at me because she doesn't want to break her concentration.
"Sorry...."
"It's fine. She's an intuitive one, isn't she," Naomi says with a small smile.
"What?"
"Margot,"
I glance back over at the girl who's still cutting up strawberries but is now swaying to a tune within her own head. I can't help but smile at the sight.
"Yeah,"
Naomi hums at my response and it's then that I snap my head back around to look at her.
"Wait. You were listening to our conversation?"
"Aspen. I'm like two feet away from you two. I at least got the gist," she says with an eye roll. I narrow my eyes at her even though she still won't look over at me.
"Ok. Well, get back to work. We have a lot to get done if we're going to win this thing," Naomi tells me. I groan at her commands, but follow them nonetheless. I wouldn't want to be the one to mess this thing up for our team.
And as it turns out, I wasn't the screw up in the kitchen after all.
As our names are announced to be the winners of the competition, smiles break out over the three of our faces and we almost instantly pull each other into a group hug.
"Yes. I didn't fuck anything up too badly," I say quietly yet excitedly into the hug. The other two laugh at my comment which only results in my smile widening, however the smile is nearly wiped off of my face when I see the disappointment on Ivy's. And yet, as soon as she sees me looking at her, her demeanor changes and she smiles at me. So I smile back.
I only smile wider when I see Ivy whack Dustin over the head as he is clearly the one who fucked up the recipe, the other two being strict rule followers and Dustin's literacy being questionable at times.
"Hey guys. How about we go out and get dinner. Celebrate your victory, on Dustin," Ivy suggests, causing Dustin's mouth to drop open, clearly not having agreed to this.
"I'm down," I say, sending Dustin a wink. He glares at me but I shrug. He brought this onto himself.
————
As I sit across the table from Ivy, I can't help but wish I had sat next to her. She and Jaxon are sitting next to each other, coloring on the kids menu that was accidentally given to us like the dorks that they are, and I have to force myself to look anywhere else in the restaurant.
"Hey, Aspen. Come to the bathroom with me?" Naomi asks from beside me. I nod in agreement absentmindedly.
"What is it with girls always going to the bathroom together?" Dustin annoyingly asks.
"Shut the fuck up," I say as I turn around and follow Naomi away. However, it's clear as soon as we enter the bathroom that she had ulterior motives.
"If you want me to make up an excuse so we can leave then I will," she tells me as she adjusts her blonde locks in the mirror. I just give her a confused look.
"Ivy and Jax were just acting all coupley and I assumed-"
"They're not a couple," I say darkly.
"I know that, but...." she trails off. It's then that I realized my tone may have came across harsher than expected and guilt immediately floods my chest.
"Sorry, Nao. I appreciate the offer, I really do. But I don't want to run away from this," I tell her quietly.
"Alright. But if you want to leave at any time...."
"Got it," I confirm with a small smile.
As we emerge from the bathroom and I look out at our table, I can't help but be happy that I didn't take Naomi up on her offer. Though, as I smile at the sight of Ivy animatedly talking to Dustin, clearly forgiven him enough to speak to him while her overall demeanor says otherwise, and Jaxon not being able to get many words in, the smile disappears at the sight of Margot drumming her fingers on the table in a way which I can sense she doesn't want to make things awkward but also doesn't want to be alone.
And so I quickly scurry over to my seat next to her with a smile on my face because I want for her to return it. And to my relief, she does.
"How does it feel to be the winner of cupcake wars," I ask her as if I were conducting an interview.
"It honestly feels amazing, but I couldn't have done it without my amazing team, notably Aspen Grayson who clearly was the mastermind behind the whole thing, not having known what dry ingredients were before we started," Margot jokes.
"You heard it here, folks. Aspen Grayson, cupcake wars mastermind," I repeat only the important parts of her answer. She rolls her eyes at me but pride swells in my chest knowing that I brought up her mood. It's then that Naomi launches into conversation with her about some class that they have together and I let out a sigh of relief, knowing that everyone at the table seems to be having a good time.
"So, Ivy. How does it feel to be part of the losing team?" I ask my best friend. She scowls at me before turning to look at Dustin.
"Well, we wouldn't have lost if I hadn't invited this imbecile to join,"
"Shit! I thought we were over that!" Dustin exclaims.
"Oh, we won't be over that for a while, my friend," Ivy says darkly.
"Well I'm sorry I measured the salt incorrectly," Dustin tries to blow the situation off.
"There is a clear difference between a tablespoon and a teaspoon!"
"Some of us aren't bakers, Ivy!"
"I'm not a baker and yet I still won," I say with a shrug. Dustin immediately sends me a glare, warning me to not make this any more difficult for him.
"Yes. Exactly!" Ivy says, motioning over to me in emphasis.
"Fine. Maybe Aspen should've been on your team then,"
"Maybe she should have!" Ivy says with a huff.
"This was our last day of midterms. We're on Christmas break now, woman. Be happy!" Dustin exclaims.
"I would be happier if we would have won that competition like we should've!" Ivy retorts back.
Jaxon just rolls his eyes at them and I take the opportunity to stick my tongue out at the loser.
"What did I ever do to you?" he asks me, slightly exasperated.
"Well, you are part of the losing team that crushed my best friend's hopes and dreams," I say with a shrug.
"Aw. Aspen, I didn't know you cared that much," Dustin says, placing a hand over his heart.
"I was talking about Ivy, you imbecile,"
————
"I still can't believe you guys won," Ivy says as she fiddles with her car keys. As we stand next to our cars, we're now the only ones of our friend group left in the parking lot.
"And I still can't believe that we didn't get a prize," I say as I cross my arms over my chest.
"You got your picture taken to be displayed in the foods room," Ivy offers with a small shrug.
"A picture taken of me after I had been baking for hours? I don't think that's a reward so much as a punishment,"
"Oh shush, you looked great," Ivy scoffs at me. I look down so that she doesn't notice the blush on my cheeks.
"Whatever. That was still barely a prize. Where's my victory trophy, victory medal, victory kiss even-"
My words suddenly get caught in my throat though as Ivy plants a kiss on the side of my cheek.
"Happy?" she asks with a smirk.
"I mean, it was better than nothing," I say as I try to prevent my voice from shaking. She rolls her eyes at me and shakes her head.
"There's just no pleasing you, is there?"
"And that's why you're my best friend. You like the challenge,"
"A little too much, apparently,"