I get dead last. I don’t even place in the top three. I am simply the baseline. The example of what not to do.
And you know what?
I stand in the wreckage of my booth—flour everywhere, Morris’s hoofprints visible in honey, cinnamon footprints across the counter, my brick of a sourdough sitting there like evidence of my hubris—and I laugh. I laugh until my stomach hurts, until tears come out, until Patrice is staring at me like I might need medical intervention.
Jace is standing next to me, right there in the wreckage. He’s not saying anything. He’s not trying to fix it. He’s not offering solutions or encouragement or the words people use when something goes wrong. He’s just… there. Standing next to my disaster like it’s fine. Like I’m fine. Like this moment where I lost completely and publicly is exactly where I’m supposed to be.
“I brought a sourdough starter to an outdoor competition in Alaska,” I say, laughing harder. “I trained in classical technique in a climate-controlled kitchen in Austin. I packed all these tools I never learned to use in high-altitude conditions. I thought that would be enough.”
“It wasn’t,” Jace says.
“No,” I agree. “It really wasn’t. And then a moose exploded my entire operation and I lost publicly and spectacularly to a woman who is just… better at this than I am.”
“You tried,” he says.
“I failed.”
“Yeah. But you’re still standing here.”
I look at him. He’s covered in flour dust too, from helping me. There’s cinnamon in his hair. He’s wearing an apron that has honey on it from Morris’s explosion. He looks at my destroyed booth like it’s a perfectly fine place to be.
“I’m never entering another competition,” I say.
“Okay,” he says.
“I’m never moving to Alaska full-time and becoming a baker.”
“I know.”
“I’m going to stress-bake at three in the morning for the rest of my life and fail at things publicly and come in dead last at everything I attempt.”
"Probably not true," Jace says. "But if it is, you seem fine with it."
And standing there next to him, covered in flour and honey and cinnamon, holding a sourdough brick that I baked into a disaster, I think: maybe this is what it means to be okay. Not the winning. Not the mastery. Not the elegant presentation. Just standing in the wreckage and laughing because the wreckage is real and I’m still here. The failure is real and I survived it. The dust is still settling and I’m still standing.
Jace is still standing next to me. He’s not going anywhere. He’s not saying anything, which is exactly right. Words would ruin this moment. This is the moment where I lost everything in front of everyone and someone stayed anyway. He’s not offering me a hug or a pity speech or some warm reassurance meant to make me feel better about failing. He’s standing here in the flour dust and the sticky honey hoofprints and the wreckage, and his presence alone is saying: I see you. I see this. And you’re still okay.
That seems important.
Morris has wandered away toward the honey station again, apparently unfazed by his earlier chaos. Jax is still narrating from the crowd, but his voice has shifted. It’s not laughing at me anymore. It’s laughing with me. The whole crowd is doing that now—they’ve moved from observing my disaster to inhabiting itwith me. We’re all standing in this together. All of us covered in evidence of the catastrophe. And that makes it less catastrophic.
Birdie is still working on her next creation, but she’s not ignoring me anymore. She looks up once. Our eyes meet across the competition space. And in that look, I see the smallest nod. An acknowledgment only another baker would catch. You failed. You’re still standing. That matters.
I failed. Standing next to him, that feels like enough.
Chapter 12
Jace
The day after the competition, I find her at the bakery, stress-baking like someone is personally coming to steal joy from her. It’s nine in the morning. She has made seven different types of pastry. The cases are full. There’s a tray of croissants cooling on the rack. There’s a bowl with what looks like cream puff dough.
She’s wearing the baggy apron. Her hair is tied back. There’s flour on her left cheekbone and she hasn’t noticed.
“You don’t have to feel bad about yesterday,” I say, which is the wrong opening. I know it’s the wrong opening the second I say it, but I’m already committed. This is the problem with words—you can’t unsay them.
She looks up from the croissant dough she’s decimating with violence. Her hands are deep in it. She’s pushing it down like it personally wronged her, which is how stress-baking looks on Gabby. Creation as punishment. Building as a way to not have to feel.
“I don’t feel bad,” she says.