Waking up the next morning felt like Christmas and the first day at a new school combined. I was excited and nervous. I wanted to rush down to the courtyard to get ready for the competition and runaway from it all at the same time.

I peeked over the wall of pillows that separate Nate and me-per Aunt Mimi's request. She said wasn't getting yelled if my dad found out. He was still asleep. I envied how calm he looked.

That calm didn't last long when my aunt's ring tone cut through the silence. It was shrill and loud and jolted everyone awake.

"What?" she barked into her phone.

We only had fifteen minutes before our alarm went off, so there was no point in trying to go back to sleep.

Nate rolled over, crushing the pillow barrier and poking my ribs. "Did we win yet?"

"No," I said, poking him back.

"Then that dream I had was very vivid," he mumbled, eyes closed. "You were there. On a pony. In a bikini."

I squinted at him. "Why was I in a bikini?"

He popped one eye open, his lips lifting into an amused smirk. "The pony was in the bikini, actually."

I snorted. "Of course."

"Shit," Aunt Mimi cursed.

Sitting up, I asked, "What's up?"

"Your dad's on his way."

"When is he-"

There was a knock at the door. We froze, my aunt and I turning to Nate, who was sitting next to me. In the bed that we slept in together.

A second knock and the three of us jumped to action. Nate and my aunt switched spots and I dismantled the pillow barrier. Aunt Mimi tossed Nate his shoes that he left by the bed. He handed my aunt her eye lashes and contacts that she left on the side table.

One last quick scan of the room to make sure all evidence that I shared a bed with a boy was gone, and I opened the door.

"Hi, you're early," I said, letting him in. Nessa, Daisy, Lorenzo, and Lizeth filed in behind him. "I didn't know you all were coming."

"Neither did we," Liz said, handing me a box of donuts. It felt empty. "We brought you breakfast."

Nessa filled me in on how my dad ended up driving them all to the hotel. Long story short: It was to avoid an awkward drive with only my dad and her.

After donuts, Aunt Mimi lead everyone on a tour of the hotel while Nate and I got ready for the day. If my dad wasn't so distracted with figuring out how the stoves were going to work outside, he might've noticed he left me alone in a hotel room with a boy.

The room was eerily quiet after they left. The weight of the competition started to weigh on me in the silence.

Even though we knew what the four events of the day were, and had planned out what we were going to bake, I still felt unprepared. What if I got out there in front of all those cameras and forgot everything? Sugar and salt could look very similar when you're in a rush against the clock.

Nate tugged at one of my braids that peeked out from under my scarf, pulling me out of my head. "What's up?"

I plopped down on the bed and gazed up at him. "Don't you wanna run away? Forget the bake-off and go to beach?"

"After all those hours we spent in your very small, very hot kitchen? Hell no." He grabbed my hands and I let him pull me up from the bed. "Didn't I promise you a win?"

I held back on telling him he couldn't keep a promise like that and nodded.

"Then you have nothing to worry about," he said, guiding me to the bathroom. "So, get dressed and-"

The hotel door banged open and my dad stumbled in, his eyes narrowing in on Nate and I. "What the hell are you doing in the bathroom?"

It took him a whole two minutes to realize Nate and I were alone.

Nate's hands went up as if we were actually doing anything. "Nothing, sir."

My dad made a move for him and I jumped between them. "We don't have time for this. You can strangle him after the competition."

"Or never," Nate threw in. I shot him a look and he clamped his mouth shut.

To my dad, I said, "We have to get ready, so let's put the overprotective dad thing on hold, okay?" I smacked a kiss on his cheek and nudged him back out into the hallway, taking my aunt's key card from him to avoid future interruptions.

Nate watched with wide-eyed horror as the door closed in my dad's face. "He's going to kill me."

"You'll live," I said, patting him on the shoulder as I grabbed my overnight back and went into the bathroom.

"You still want to go to the beach?" He asked helplessly.

I laughed and shut the bathroom door.

♡ ♡ ♡

There were cameras. So. Many. Cameras. Some stationary. Some being held by men who were really good at walking backwards. I especially hated the ones that were pointed at me.

They were so distracting that I hardly heard anything the announcer or the judges said. And then we were baking. My body taking over while my brain fought with stage fright.

When I collided with Fred-or maybe it was Mark-my mind finally caught up with the rest of me. I had a bowl full of apples for the apple pie snickerdoodles we were making.

"You okay?" Nate asked when I rejoined him at our work station. He was mixing ingredients for the dough, so I started peeling and cutting the apples.

I tried hard to ignore the camera man that was zoomed in on us. "Yeah. How are we doing on time?"

"Relax, cupcake, we have plenty of time," he said with an easy smile.

I shot him a glare, but a smile pulled at my lips. That silly nickname had a way of soothing my worries. It was just like we were in my very small, very hot kitchen. No cameras or timers or judges.

♡ ♡ ♡

The sixty minutes we had for the first challenge felt more like sixty seconds. Nate and I barely had time to plate the cookies before the buzzer sounded and we had to step away from the counter.

Daniel Cho, the guy who ran orientation yesterday, was also the host of the show. He was a nice guy, but I wanted to scream when he was in my face asking questions while we were baking.

I knew that was how the show worked, but having to bake and answer questions and avoid crashing into the cameras was a lot to deal with in one hour. Plus, it was hot and the tent cover did very little to help that.

If Nate hadn't been there, I probably would've thrown in the towel. He was so cool, calm and collected. If I didn't admire his cavalier attitude about being on live TV, I might've been annoyed. But his calm kept me calm.

He knew it, too. I could tell by the way he always smiled when our gazes locked or how he'd squeeze my hand when the cameras weren't watching. Little things just to let me know he had zero intent on breaking his promise.

"Charm."

My heart stopped at the sound of my name. There were three judges: Lauren Gittleman, Alex Rubin and Rajani Bryne. Each one of them had their own cooking show or recipe books. Shows I might've binged after Googling them.

Alex was the one to say my name. They had just bitten into one of the snickerdoodles. I prepared myself for the worst possible review of the cookies.

"Your name is fitting," they said. "Because these apple pie snickerdoodles are absolutely charming!"

There was no stopping the grin the split my face in two. Nate wore a matching smile as he gave me a look that said "I told you so".

Lauren said the apples were too mushy and Rajani complained that there was too much cinnamon, but all in all, Nate and I were safe to go to the next round.

Alessa and Jason, on the other hand, weren't so lucky. Alessa made a joke about adopting another dog to make up for her loss. I didn't think it was a joke.

Rita and Erin won the round with their Banana Blondies-banana flavored brownies with a brown sugar frosting. Honestly, it was deserved because they were delicious. We all tasted each other food after the judging.

We had a bit of downtime while a crew cleaned up and prepared the work stations for the next round.

Nate and I sat in the grass, drinking the water Daniel forced on us. "Can't have anyone pass out from dehydration," he had said.

The next challenge was The Secret Ingredient. It could've been anything. What if it was...lobster? I didn't know how to cook lobster, let alone how to use it in baking.

I seemed to be the only one freaking out about this while Nate was so chill as he was taking photos with a camera-we weren't allowed to have our phones during the competition.

"What do you think the secret ingredient is?" I asked him, nudging his foot with mine.

He turned his camera on me and I stuck my tongue out at him. "Whatever it is, I'm sure we can bake it into a cupcake."

My eyes rolled. "What is it with you and cupcakes?"

"I just really love cupcakes." He took another picture of me.

I wondered if the photo caught the way my heart jumped in my chest. I didn't know why it did that. He was talking about cupcakes. He really loved cupcakes.

♡ ♡ ♡

When we got back to our work station, there was a plain blue envelope waiting for us. The blue matched our aprons. Nate had to open it because I was too nervous. Nervous about finding out what the secret ingredient was. Also, because Nate really loved cupcakes.

"Marshmallows."

That word was only a sound with no meaning, because Nate really loved cupcakes. "What?"

"That's our ingredient," he said, showing me the card. "Told you, something we can bake into a-"

"Cupcake," I finished for him. "Right. So, what should we do?"

We had a whole ninety minutes that round. Probably to allow us time to figure out how to use our ingredient. The timer had started and everyone but us seemed to be moving.

"I saw sweet potatoes," he said. "We could do a Thanksgiving thing. A cornbread muffin with sweet potato frosting..."

I could feel my entire face frown at sweet potato frosting.

"Yeah, I knew it was bad as I was saying it." He glanced at the giant clock on an LED screen. We wasted almost five minutes to come up with...sweet potato frosting.

We needed to make a decision quick. Everyone else seemed to know exactly what they wanted to do. To make matters worse, Daniel was walking over. Probably to ask us why we haven't made a move. I wanted to have an idea before he made it to us. Rushing through a list of things that had marshmallows in them, I landed on one that was perfect for the summer.

"Charm, Nate," Daniel greeted as he sidled up to our counter, another pastel-colored bow tie. I felt like he and Aunt Mimi would get along great. "What secret ingredient did you get, love birds."

Heat rushed to my cheeks. After our promo videos yesterday, Daniel asked us if we could play up our romance for the cameras. "Everyone loves a love story," he had said.

"We haven't-"

"S'mores!" I said, cutting Nate off. "S'mores cupcakes."

"S'mores cupcakes," Daniel repeated. "Well, I like the sound of that. I'll let you two get to it, then."

As soon as he walked away, Nate and I went to the ingredient shelf as I went over what we'd be doing. Chocolate cupcakes with a graham cracker crust and topped off with marshmallow frosting.

We got to work. Nate worked on the cake batter, and I made the frosting and smashed graham crackers into crumbs.

"Remind me not to piss you off," Nate said, watching me turn crackers into dust with a rolling pin.

"Don't piss me off," I threatened playfully, pointing the rolling pin at him. "And get a cupcake pan."

He held his hands up in mock surrender as he back away towards the shelf of pots and pans.

Unlike the camera men, Nate wasn't as skilled at walking backwards. He walked right in to Ibram who had just pulled a cookie sheet out of the oven. Nate cursed when his elbow made contact with the hot pan.

The cameras were all over him to catch the action. I could imagine them editing it to make more dramatic for later broadcasts.

Ibram's Fruity Pebble brownies were unharmed. Nate was fine too, aside from the bright red mark right above his elbow.

In a blink, we were back in front of judges and holding our breaths as we waited for their critiques. Lauren Gittleman joked about the incident between Nate and Ibram's hot cookie sheet. Saying Nate was distracted by flirting with me.

I knew they were going to play that angle, but after what Nate said after the last challenge, the "young and in love" jokes held more weight than they probably should've.

Nate said he loved cupcakes. He calls me cupcake. My brain refused to let that go. Was he saying he loved me? Absolutely not. We weren't there yet. We've only been an official couple since yesterday. Less than twenty-four hours. I was over thinking it.

"Charm, Nate," Rajani said our names and I snapped to attention. "Your s'mores cupcakes took me right back to summer camp. The cake was moist, the marshmallow frosting was light and airy, and the graham cracker crust really brought it all together. You two are the winners of this challenge!"

Nate's smile was full of pride and joy and it made my tummy flutter and heart cartwheel. If I didn't know my dad and a good chunk of the United States weren't watching, I probably would've kissed him right there. I settled for a hug.

Fred and Mark were eliminated because their oatmeal raisin balls didn't wow the judges. I felt bad for them. They ended up with the worst ingredient. Raisins didn't belong in anything. Nessa might've disagreed with that, so I took one of the raisin balls for her.

"And then there were three," Daniel said to us, a devilish grin on his face. "The challenges only get harder from here. I hope you brought your B game competitors." At our collective, confused silence, he explained, "Get it? B as in baking. Oh, forget it, we'll be back after a word from our sponsors," he told one of the cameras.

"You know what this means now, right?" I said to Nate after a medical staff smeared some type of gel on his burn.

His brow quirked up. "What?"

"You have to injure yourself for us to win," I said, squinting up at him. "If we want to win this thing, you might have to cut a finger off."

"Done," he said, a slow smile spreading across his face.