Didnt See That Coming.

Chapter 10Didn’t See That Coming.

Heron~A week later, and I was ready to ask Eliza to marry me. Yeah, I was very aware of the honeymoon phase, but that’s not what this was. Eliza’s personality had captivated me way before we’d fallen into bed together, and the fact that she wasn’t needy was another plus. The woman worked, had family and friends, and had no problem telling me when I was suffocating her. The woman really didn’t have much of a filter, and thank fucking God.With keys already exchanged, I let myself into her apartment without asking, and she looked adorably unkempt with a broom in her hands. I almost winced when I realized that she was cleaning, but I knew that she’d forgive me eventually for my surprise.“Baby?”Eliza stopped her sweeping, then turned around, the smile on her face dying the second that she realized that we had guests.“Uhm…”“We’re doing a surprise episode,” I announced, walking towards her as she eyed Sean, Oscar, Christian, and Charlie. “A bake-off.” I gestured towards the guys behind me. “Me, Oscar, and Charlie against you, Sean, and Christian.”“A bake-off?” she echoed. “With rugby players?”“You got something against rugby players?” Charlie teased. “If so, that’s going to make dating Treyton a bit difficult, don’t you think?”“Uhm…” Eliza scowled. “No, I don’t have anything against rugby players.”I slid my arm around her waist as soon as I was in front of her. “Baby, he’s joking.”Those warm eyes of hers looked up at me. “What are you doing?”“The guys wanted to come on your show,” I informed her, loving her surprise.“Why?” she asked incredulously. “Because they want to impress my three followers?”“Because they thought it’d be fun,” I corrected. “I mean, what could go wrong?”“Uh…they’re reputations as big, tough, sexy, badass rugby players could go up in dust,” she huffed.“You hear that, Heron?” Oscar beamed. “She thinks we’re sexy.”“She does not think you’re sexy,” I drawled out. “She thinks your reputations are sexy.”“I’m pretty sure that she said we were sexy,” Sean chimed in.Shaking her head, Eliza asked, “What are we baking?”“I figured we could do the sugar cookies again, but make sure that we’re using sugar this time,” I answered. “The real competition will come during the decorating portion of the show.”“What’s the theme?” she asked, still skeptical as she eyed the guys.“The theme is the Rapiers, of course,” Christian announced. “Since our season is ending soon, we figured we could celebrate our winning record.”Eliza’s eyes were back on me. “I look awful.”Before I could assure her that she didn’t, Oscar said, “Woman, our entire fan base already knows what you look like. Jumbotron, remember?”She let out a heavy sigh, not sounding eager at all. “Well, fine. Let’s get this over with.”I kissed her on the top of her head. “It’ll be fine, baby.”As Eliza and I started to set up the camera, the guys started putting all the ingredients out. Since this had been their idea, they had insisted on buying all the necessities. When they had first approached me about wanting to do an episode for her, I hadn’t been able to stop laughing for a full minute. However, once I’d realized that they’d been serious, the idea had grown on me.Once everything was set up, it was obvious that things were going to feel a bit claustrophobic with how big we were and how small Eliza’s apartment was. Not for nothing, but we were all rather large. However, it was too late to worry about that now. The important thing was that the camera’s panoramic view was wide enough to get us all in the picture.I looked down at Eliza. “You ready, baby?”She nodded. “As ready as I’m ever going to be.”“Relax,” I told her “This will be fun.”“I’m relaxed,” she lied. “I mean, what’s not relaxing about a bunch of rugby players taking over my kitchen in a bid to win a sugar cookie bake off?”I laughed as she turned on the camera, then went to go stand with her team. Everyone stood proudly as Eliza addressed the camera and her viewers. The part that I loved best? She hadn’t gone to change or brush her hair. She was still wearing her housecleaning clothes, and she hadn’t bothered with her hair or makeup.“Hello, this is What’s Next. I’m Eliza Dodger, and I’ve got a great surprise for everyone today,” she started out. “Some of the players from the Rapier rugby team have joined me for a sugar cookie bake-off. This time, they’ve made sure that we’ve got sugar with us, no salt.” The guys chuckled softly. “So, the theme is rugby, and because we seem to have quite a few viewers with us today, maybe we’ll let the viewers decide the winner.”“And don’t worry about hurting Eliza’s feelings,” I said into the camera. “She’s a tough one, and she’ll take the defeat with grace.”Sean snorted. “No way. You fools are going down.”“And I’m taking our prize-winning cookies home with me,” Oscar announced.“Hey, how do you get to take the cookies home with you?” Christian asked, scowling.“Because I called dibs,” he answered easily.“I’m sure there will be enough for everyone,” Eliza said, no doubt doing the math in her head.“Eliza, we’re big boys,” Sean said, tossing his arm around her shoulder. “We need lots of cookies to fill us up. Plus, I can’t possibly go home emptyhanded. My wife would kill me, and my kids would never forgive me. Is that the kind of future you want for me?”Eliza’s lips twitched. “I suppose not.”“Look, we’ll keep our award-winning cookies, and you guys can keep your runner-ups,” Charlie said, always finding the middle ground.“You guys are going to lose,” Sean repeated. “No way am I going to let my children down.”“Let’s do it for the children,” Eliza announced, the bake-off underway.*****Eliza~What amazed me most about the episode was how many people had tuned in to watch. The guys must have told their family and friends, because there were hundreds of people tuned in, and I couldn’t believe how happy I was over something so simple. Yeah, I knew that I still had a long way to go with my viewership, but I had no problem being patient when I had to be.“Okay, who wants to try the cookies first?” I asked. “We should probably make sure that their edible before we waste time decorating them.”“No problem,” Sean quickly rushed out before popping one in his mouth.“I’m the taster for our team,” Oscar announced as he reached for one of their cookies.Sean gave the camera a thumbs-up. “Perfect.”“Not as perfect as ours,” Oscar countered around a mouthful of diabetes.Ignoring all the testosterone around me, I faced the camera again. “Well, now that it’s been established that the cookies are edible, it’s time for the decorating portion of our show.”“Okay, to prevent any stealing of ideas, we need a barrier,” Heron announced.“Did you just call us thieves?” Charlie asked, affronted.“No,” Heron lied. “I called you guys unoriginal.”“We can grab a sheet, then hang it across the counter,” Sean suggested.Five minutes later, one of my extra bedsheets was hanging from my kitchen ceiling, blocking us on two sides. Though I hadn’t been sure about this at first, I found myself actually having fun, and I was also noticing how my channel kept getting new viewers. Granted, a bunch of sexy men in one room had a way of attracting attention like that.“Okay, we have five cookies each,” Christian recapped. “So, let’s write down our ideas for each cookie, that way those assholes don’t overhear our creative collaborations.”“Uhm, this is a family-friendly channel,” I said. “Not sure if we should be calling them assholes.”“Sweetie, I think if you’re going to keep having us on here as guests, then you should probably up that age-friendly thing,” Sean snorted.“Quit calling my girlfriend pet names,” Heron called out from the other side of the bedsheet.“Quit being a possessive dingdong,” Sean fired back. “Considering that I’m a happily married man, you know it’s innocent.”“Don’t care,” Heron shot back. “Her name is Eliza.”“Can we call her Lizzy?” Christian asked, grinning.“No,” Heron answered. “Call her Eliza, that’s her name.”“I like Lizzy,” Christian insisted. “Or we can call her Zee. Zee sounds more badass.”As my eyes darted around the kitchen, I said, “Uhm, we should probably get to work on decorating the cookies. Plus, my best friend already calls me Zee, so…I guess that’s okay.”“Actually, sugar cookies really don’t need decorating,” Oscar announced like a cookie expert. “They’re good the way they are.”“Good but boring,” Charlie snorted. “Where’s your creativity.”“I usually save that for the field or bedroom,” he chuckled.“Family-friendly channel here,” I called out, reminding them that minors might be watching.“Yeah, you’re really going to have to change that,” Sean remarked.I glanced around at my team. “Because you guys really plan on coming back on the show?”Christian’s brows furrowed. “Why wouldn’t we?”“I thought you guys were just…just doing a favor for Heron,” I stammered.Charlie snorted from the other side of the bedsheet. “This was our idea. He tried to talk us out of it, though we prevailed.”“Yeah, said that he didn’t want us scaring you off,” Oscar added.“Personally, I think he just doesn’t want his girlfriend to see him get his ass kicked in a bake-off,” Christian added. “I mean, I get it. No man wants to look like a loser in front of his girl.”“I’m not going to lose, assholes,” Heron called out, defending himself.“Family-friendly,” I repeated, a little bit louder this time.“Ignore him,” Sean ordered. “Let’s get to decorating.”Thirty minutes later, our team had all our cookies decorated, and I couldn’t remember the last time that I’d had such a fun time. Sean and Christian had taken the competition so seriously that it’d been hard to hold in my laughs while they’d decorated their cookies.“Okay, we’re ready,” Heron announced. “Let’s take down the bedsheet.”No one said anything as Sean and Heron took the bedsheet down, revealing our cookies to the other team, and I started laughing at how similar they looked. Granted, there were only so many rugby designs that could go on a cookie, so there was that as an excuse.Looking into the camera, I said, “Okay, the moment of truth. I enabled the comments for this episode, so enter your votes, folks.”We each held up our plate of cookies, letting our viewers get a good look, and after I showed my plate, I grabbed my phone to pull up my account, realizing that I had hundreds of viewers voting, and that I was actually going to have to count each freakin’ vote.“We really should have thought this through a little more,” I muttered as comments and votes started coming in.“What’s wrong, baby?” Heron asked as he walked over to look over my shoulder.“It’s going to take forever to add up the votes,” I told him. “We actually have several hundred viewers.”When I looked up at Heron, he was grinning down at me. “That’s a good thing, Eliza.”“I know, but…we might not find out the winner until later today,” I pointed out.“Doesn’t matter,” Sean said from the counter. “It’s clear to see that our cookies are way superior.”“Did you get high before coming over here?” Charlie asked. “No way are your cookies better than ours. Did you see the detail on our uniforms?”“That’s a picture of our uniforms?” Christian mocked. “I thought it was an ugly Christmas sweater.”“Yeah, because is that supposed to be a ref’s shirt or a high school band uniform?” Oscar shot back.I shook my head, trying to hold in my laugh, as Heron’s arm wrapped around my waist. “I knew they were going to scare you off.”Two hours later, the kitchen was cleaned up, the cookies were boxed up for Oscar, and my team had been declared the winner. Though the vote had been close, we had come out the victors, and I’d never seen three grown men look so bummed. Luckily, we had another bake-off rescheduled for next week, and I really was going to need a bigger kitchen.