Sugar Rush (17 page)

…

Acid rose in Nick’s throat as he sat at the coffee shop near his house and read the text from his father for the third time.

We’re in the finals. Unfortunately, so is Candy Land.

In a perfect world, Dulcie would come up with something spectacular and make huge headlines as the winner of the competition.

He imagined her holding the trophy, shaking the hand of the president of the chocolatier association and, most importantly, clasping the check in her hands.

If anyone ever deserved the money, and would put it to good use, it was Dulcie.

Nick couldn’t care less anymore. Not about the competition, and not about taking over How Sweet It Is. All that mattered was Dulcie.

He hung his head close to his coffee. She would never speak to him again. She’d made it clear she didn’t believe a word he said..

There was only one thing left to do.

Eat his troubles away.

And what better place than in a coffee shop where they happened to have some rather delicious looking cupcakes. He ordered the Double Chocolate Supreme, anxious to dig in. To feel the sugar bliss that temporarily erased almost anything.

The disappointment was like a living thing as he took his first bite, certain the cupcake wasn’t even homemade. In fact, he was pretty sure it came from a regular boxed cake mix, disguised as a fancy cupcake. Was this what coffee shops got away with these days? Whatever happened to homemade treats and specialty coffee?

Oh right, they’d gone the same way his father’s store had gone. All profit and no pride.

That first bite was the only one he took.

The situation called for a real cupcake. Something made with a little care and attention and time.

It was time to get his bake on.

Back at his apartment, he mixed ingredients, realizing how much he needed this. Working with his hands, making something from scratch was more therapeutic than even eating the results. Sure, the sugar helped, but before he even took one bite, before he had even decorated the cupcakes, most of the stuff that had gone on in the past few days started to fade.

As he filled his icing bag with a decadent chocolate buttercream—because a cupcake is not a cupcake until iced and decorated—he barely registered the stress of the competition suddenly looming over him again, and of being without Dulcie with little chance of winning her back.

He decided then that while a good cupcake—and good cupcake making—could fix almost anything, no sugar high could compare to the rush he felt when he was with Dulcie.

Still, he shoved the first bite of cupcake in, Dulcie present in every thought. As he relished in the bittersweetness of the chocolate, an idea began forming.

He chewed faster, the plan solidifying in his mind.

Chapter Seventeen

“Drum roll,” Grams said as Dulcie tallied up the scores on all her creations.

“The best part of this whole thing,” Constance said, “is we’ve got so many new recipes we can use in the shop. This place is going to stay hopping for good if you keep coming up with candy like this.”

“And you only had one week,” Jess piped in.

“Well, I have been thinking about some of these for years. I wouldn’t expect this all the time.”

“But can you imagine if we unveiled just a few new things each month?” Grams said. “Or did special items for holidays? The wedding and party crowds are going to go nuts over this stuff.”

Dulcie’s face burned. “Um, thanks,” she said, turning to her grandmother. “Since when are you all excited about how much business we have?”

Grams glanced down. “Since I saw how many customers you have now. I didn’t realize this little shop could do so well without your mother.”

“Well, let’s hope it keeps up. Of course, it would help if rent weren’t so stinkin’ high in Port Leyton.”

“We’ll figure something out,” Grams said. “Besides, with these, I bet there won’t be much to worry about.”

“Especially after you win the contest,” Ava added, jolting Dulcie back to the task at hand. Ava rubbed her hands together. “I definitely know which one was my favorite.”

“Me, too,” Constance said, and Grams, Jess, and Lila all nodded in agreement.

“If only it could be the same one,” Dulcie said. “It would make this a whole lot easier.” She went back to her calculations.

Soon, a pattern became very clear. All of her creations were scoring high, although her “judges” were hardly impartial, since each of them had at least a small stake in what happened with the store. Constance and Ava with their jobs, of course, Grams would probably love to retire if the store succeeded, Jess would have to find a new place to stay that might not be as safe and wouldn’t smell nearly as good, and Lila…well, Lila would have a whole lot less sugar in her life. Which might just kill her.

As Dulcie added the scores, though, one item stood out above the rest for every one of the women.

And it was the same confection Dulcie was most enamored with.

Her face spread into a wide grin.

The decision had been made.

…

Nick felt like a thief, all covered up; he was unshaven with a hoodie draped low over his head and large aviator sunglasses, but he couldn’t think of any other way—short of paying some poor kid, and he did not want to stoop so low—to get some of Dulcie’s candies.

Constance looked at him funny as she filled his order, but he’d made it back out to the street, streaking off in his Bentley toward his father’s store.

His plan had to work.

The Lemon Squeeze was the perfect contender for the job. It was light in color, which was important for quick recognition, and special enough to convince his father it would be perfect for the competition.

He could only hope his father hadn’t seen it at Candy Land in the past.

As Nick drove, he tried to decide what he could tell his father it was called, then smiled as he thought of just the thing.

He pulled up to the store, shed his sunglasses and hoodie, quickly placed the lemon treats on a paper plate, and tried to appear as excited as possible as he burst into his father’s office.

“I’ve got it!” Nick yelled, a goofy grin plastered on his face.

“Good Lord, what has gotten into you?” his father asked, startled. “And why the hell did you come in without even shaving? For God’s sake, this is a place of business.”

“I know, I know,” Nick said without missing a beat. “But I was up all night working on this.” He laid the paper plate down with a flouish. “I call it…the Lemon Illusion.”

Nick held his breath, praying his father had no knowledge of the Candy Land recipe. The surprise on his father’s face quickly evolved into something resembling pride. It wasn’t an expression Nick saw from him every day, which gave his heart a twinge of guilt.

“These actually look good, son,” his father said, picking one up to taste.

Nick’s anger simmered just under the surface at the surprise in his father’s voice. But his expression never faltered. Too much was at stake.

His father’s eyes opened in surprise. “These are really good,” he said. “
Really
good.” He popped the rest of the confection into his mouth.

“So we’ve got our recipe for the finals, then?” Nick asked.

“Sure, why not? This is as good as anything I would have come up with.”

“Thanks,” Nick said, though it almost pained him to spit it out.

But it didn’t matter.

Phase one was complete.

…

Dulcie had been in the same position so many times, mostly with her mother, and then…well, the time she’d rather forget. But this time felt different.

She
was different.

She was on her own now, without the confidence of standing beside her mother—though she swore she felt her presence stronger in that moment than she had since her death—and without the naivete of that first time on her own, when she thought anything different, no matter how different, would wow the judges.

This year had been a whirlwind, but the process had still been careful, controlled, tested.

It was the first true test of Dulcie’s talent.

And she was terrified she wouldn’t measure up. Sure, she’d gotten this far, to the finals, but not without stumbling, and not without her mother’s recipe, or her reputation.

But mostly it felt different because she could stand there and whatever happened, win or lose, she was proud of her creation, and for the first time in her life, she could truly call it her own.

“Grams, come out there with me,” Dulcie had said, grabbing her grandmother’s arms. “Please.”

But Grams had shaken her head with the tiniest smirk on her face. “No, this one is all you. Now get out there and do Candy Land proud.” She chuckled a little. “You know, it’s fitting, coming full circle like this.”

“Full circle?” Dulcie asked.

Grams nodded. “The only reason we even have a candy shop is because of you. Did your mother ever tell you?”

Dulcie shook her head, tears threatening.

Grams had smiled, remembering. “There was a time when your mother was frustrated. Not happy with any of the jobs she’d taken on since you were born, trying to make ends meet and everything,” Grams said with a wave both dismissive and serious. “One day she was making you some kind of treat.” She’d smirked at Dulcie conspiratorially. “You always begged your mother to make you one sugary thing or another.”

Dulcie had been afraid to talk. Afraid to break the spell of the story.

“So anyway, your mother was all ‘I can’t do this’ and ‘I’m no good at anything’ and I honestly didn’t know what to say. Jobs weren’t easy to come by and she had a child to take care of.”

“Well, you both took care of me,” Dulcie whispered.

Grams smiled, and Dulcie detected a hint of a tear in her Grams’s eye, too.

“At that exact moment you came bounding in as happy as could be, like always, and you heard your mother say the part about not being good at anything. And you walked right over and said, ‘I know what you’re good at, Mommy. You’re the best at making me treats.’ Your mother crouched down and kissed you on the forehead. All she said was, ‘Thank you, honey, it’s my favorite thing to do,’ and you skipped out of there full of smiles. But you know what?” Grams said. “Your mother was full of smiles from that day on, too. We planned it all right there in the kitchen while she finished making your Peppermint Fudge.”

“You planned the whole store?”

Grams had nodded. “Your mom started creating recipes right then and there. We figured out how much startup would be and went to the bank a few days later. They didn’t want to give us the loan, of course, but your mother had quite the business plan all done up, I cosigned, and bringing samples of the product didn’t hurt, either. Those poor bankers didn’t know what hit them—besides the sugar high. Now here we are, all these years later, and it’s your fault,” Grams finished, winking.

“Thanks,” Dulcie said, giving her a rare hug. “Thanks for everything.”

Grams held Dulcie at arms length, like she was pleased with the way she’d turned out. “Now get the heck out there already; the judging is about to start.”

“Okay,” Dulcie had said, turning toward the contestant area, wondering if Grams shooing her had more to do with the tears still teetering in her eyes than it did with Dulcie being late.

Either way, Dulcie stood proudly at the table now behind her new creation, though she wished so many people weren’t staring. Okay, they weren’t all staring at her—there were nine other finalists, after all—but it sure felt like it in that moment.

The room fell silent as the judges made their way in, the two men walking softly and the woman’s heels echoing ominously through the large space.

Dulcie’s spot was at the end, on the far right side of the contestants. She would either be first, or last. She had no idea which would be better. Nick and his father stood near the middle of the table.

When the judging started opposite her, making her last, she was certain it was destined to be her downfall. She tried to tell herself that was ridiculous, but her stomach rolled along anyway, as if on a runaway train where the tracks were about to break.

The judges spent much more time with each sample than in the last round. At least a full ten minutes discussing each candy so quietly it was a miracle they even heard one another. Dulcie picked up only tiny murmurs as the contestants strained their ears, their eyeballs dancing among each judge.

She glanced at Nick, who she could tell had been staring at her, and the temperature in the room increased by what felt like ten degrees as she looked away.

Dulcie felt like throwing up. Everyone’s entries so far looked amazing, and the judges seemed to like every one. It was clear these contestants had gone back and made their creations even more spectacular after the preliminary round. Everything seemed so much prettier, more artisan, and probably more delicious.

Her palms began to sweat.

The judges would be to Nick’s station next. She noticed movement and glanced up to see Nick whisper something in his father’s ear, then walk out the back door of the room.

“And what is yours called?” the short judge asked loudly as they stepped directly across from Mr. Sugarman.

Nick’s dad pulled the cover from his entry. “The Lemon Illus…” He frowned, stopping short, then cleared his throat. “Sorry.” He looked sheepishly at the judges and leaned over to glance at the small card in front of the creation. “It’s the Dark Chocolate Watermelon Confection of Truth,” he said, his words fading away, along with his grin.

“Oh God, not again,” the female judge said, just audibly enough for Dulcie to catch.

The short judge took a tiny step backward while the taller man loosened his tie slightly.

Dulcie tried not to react, but a tiny noise left her anyway. Nick had recreated her disaster…basically, he had forfeited the competition. By the look on Mr. Sugarman’s face, it was also Nick’s way of giving his father a taste of his own medicine.

But why would Nick steal her Caramel Apple recipe only to do this?

He had claimed all this time that he didn’t know anything…but that couldn’t be true.

Except…

Oh, God. Dulcie’s stomach clenched, suddenly struggling to hold down her lunch. She’d forgotten all about the night Mr. Sugarman had been at Candy Land. She closed her eyes, thinking.
Could it be?
She opened them again. Oh, no. It
had
been the night they first made the Salted Caramel Apple Enchantment, and he had been standing right near them at the counter. He could have easily snuck a candy or two into the pocket of his giant coat.

But what about the expression on Nick’s face at the judging? It had been so cocky, so pleased with himself…

Or maybe he had just been proud of his store and his father.

Dulcie groaned, her stomach rolling now. Nick had been telling the truth.

The female judge squinched up her nose and bit gingerly into the watermelon candy, chewing with her front teeth only. The short judge was already coughing. Dulcie was sure he coughed the actual chocolate into his handkerchief.

Beads of sweat formed on Mr. Sugarman’s head, making it even shinier than usual under the bright lights. He looked around, as if searching for an escape. “I just… This wasn’t…,” he tried to say, but soon seemed to realize no words would fix it.

The judges moved to the next finalist in record time; no discussion necessary.

Dulcie breathed in and out, in and out…not wanting to think about all she had said to Nick.

She had been
such
a bitch.

Of course, given the circumstances and what she thought he’d done…

Dulcie glanced around the room, searching for Nick. She had to find him, had to apologize.