Page 59 of Moist!

chapter three

LENA

One Week Later

I never cry over emails. Even when my inbox was inundated by rejections left and right.

But right now? Right now, I might cry.

Congratulations! You’ve been selected as a contestant in the New Vegas Dessert Showcase!

I blink at the words on the screen. Then I blink again. Nope. Still there.

The New Vegas Dessert Showcase is THE competition. The big leagues. The kind of event that could change everything for my bakery.

Fame. Exposure. Investors. A line out the door every morning.

If I win, Moist wouldn’t just be the weird little bakery with the terrible name anymore.

It would be a landmark.

I press a shaking hand to my forehead, inhaling deeply. Okay. Don’t spiral. This is good. This is huge.

I start pacing, brain already spinning through logistics. The competition itself is brutal—only the best make it past the preliminary rounds. The judges are Otherkin, humans, and culinary critics alike, and they’ll be looking for something that isn’t just delicious but visionary.

Which means I need a showpiece.

Something spectacular. Something that stops people in their tracks.

I grab my recipe journal, flipping to a blank page. I’ve been dreaming of this moment for years, so why does my mind feel so empty?

I jot down a list of my best ideas.

Ensaymada cream puffs? No, too simple.

Ube leche flan Napoleon? Getting closer, but not a showstopper.

Calamansi chiffon cake with a sugar-glass wave? Maybe...

I tap my pen against my chin, staring at the page.

It’s not just about the dessert. It’s about the presentation. The experience.

The theme for this year’s showcase is Wanderlust.

A concept that means movement, travel, longing for something beyond.

I close my eyes, letting the word sink in, searching for what it means to me. Not what it means to the judges or the other contestants.

But, what it means to Magdelena Reyes, the girl whose grandparents crossed oceans to make a life somewhere new, whose parents still speak of growing up in The Philippines with that soft look in their eyes, that mixture of nostalgia and pride that I’ve come to recognize as uniquely theirs.

Wanderlust isn’t just about the places you’ve been. It’s about the places that live in you .

I think about my parents’ stories of growing up in the hinterlands of Nabunturan where they had to live off the land and often didn’t get enough to eat.

The pride of having avocado trees lining their makeshift driveway.

Of riding the carabao around the property when it was supposed to be plowing in the fields.

Places I’ve never seen, but still somehow feel in my bones.

I’ve never stood in the kitchen of my grandparents’ home in Pampanga, but I can picture it perfectly through Lola Ruthie’s stories—the blue flame of the gas stove, the dented aluminum pots, the wooden spoon that belonged to her mother before her.

The first time I ever baked something on my own, I was six years old. My lola let me help shape pandesal, my small hands pressing the dough into clumsy little rounds. I remember watching them rise in the oven, golden and warm, filling the house with the scent of butter and yeast and comfort.

That was the first time I felt it. That pull in my chest.

That want.

Not just to bake, but to make something that lasts. Something that could carry people somewhere, even for just a moment.

That’s what Wanderlust is.

It’s not just about the destination. It’s about the feeling.

I scribble the thought down.

Pastry as a journey. Each bite should transport the eater somewhere new.

I underline it twice.

I can do this. I can build something magical. I need layers—textures that tell a story. Maybe...

Ube chiffon cake with coconut mousse, inspired by home.

Calamansi honey tarts, bright and sharp, for adventure.

Salted mango toffee, smoky and caramelized, for the unexpected twists along the way.

I scribble faster, the ideas finally coming together.

When Lola Ruthie taught me to bake, she didn’t use measuring cups. “Feel it,” she’d say, guiding my hands through the flour. “The dough will tell you what it needs.”

I thought she was being mysterious, but now I understand. Baking isn’t just about precision—it’s about intuition. About knowing when to follow the recipe and when to let your hands lead the way.

Like how she’d fold pandan leaves into a sticky rice cake, the scent filling the kitchen with something earthy and sweet. “This is how my grandmother made it,” she’d say. “And her grandmother before that.”

That’s what I want people to taste when they bite into my desserts—not just sugar and butter, but history. Memory. Longing.

I want them to taste a place they’ve never been.

I close my eyes and see my showpiece: a structure that rises like a landscape.

At the base, the ube chiffon—violet and cloud-like, the taste of childhood visits to Filipino bakeries where my lola would point out each pastry, telling me its story.

In the middle, the brightness of calamansi tarts, reminding me of my mother’s stories about picking the tiny citrus fruits from the tree in her parents’ yard.

And at the top, the golden toffee pieces arranged like islands in an archipelago.

But then, I pause.

A showpiece like this needs a structure. A display that holds the desserts, that tells the story before anyone takes a bite.

And I can bake anything—but I can’t build.

My previous attempts at constructing anything more complex than a layer cake have ended in disaster.

Last Christmas, I tried to make a gingerbread house for my old bakery window display.

It collapsed three times before I gave up and called it an “avant-garde gingerbread ruin.” The hipsters loved it, but I know better than to try that again with judges watching.

I drum my fingers against the notebook, biting my lip.

I need someone who understands structure. Someone good with their hands. Someone strong, steady, meticulous.

Someone who, despite grumbling and glaring at me like I personally insult his ancestors, would never let a project fail.

I groan. Oh, gods. I need Thorne.

Thorne, my landlord. The Minotaur who fixed my oven at 11 PM when it died the night before a huge order, cursing under his breath the entire time but still showing up.

Thorne, who once carried five 50-pound bags of flour up three flights of stairs when the elevator broke, looking like he wanted to murder me with every step but refusing my offer to help because “you’ll drop it and break something, probably yourself. ”

The one who builds furniture so beautiful it makes me want to cry, each piece perfect and sturdy and seemingly grown from the wood itself rather than constructed.

Thorne, whose dark eyes narrow every time I open my mouth because he braces for impact.

Thorne, who will absolutely say no to helping me.

Unless...

Which means I need a serious bribe.

I flip to a fresh page and write in bold letters:

THORNE PAYMENT PLAN

· One month of croissants.

· Ube-filled croissants (because I’m feeling generous).

· Possibly my eternal soul. TBD.

I sigh, tapping the page.

It’s not just that he’s grumpy—though he is spectacularly, gloriously grumpy. It’s that he’s busy. His furniture commissions have a two-year waitlist. His time is valuable, and I’m asking him to spend it on me.

On my dream.

But I’ve seen the way his nostrils flare when he smells my baking. The way he pretends he doesn’t care about the pastries I leave outside his workshop door, but the plate is always empty when I come back.

The way he actually smiled when he thought no one could see him when he bit into my ube ensaymada last month.

I know food is a language we both speak, even if his vocabulary consists mostly of grunts and glares.

I add another item to the list:

Weekly dinner for the duration of the project (homecooked Filipino food, the stuff my Lola taught me that isn’t on the bakery menu)

The Thorne I know might turn down croissants. He might even turn down ube croissants, though I doubt it. But he won’t turn down my pancit, my chicken adobo, my sinigang that simmers all day until the meat falls off the bone.

Food is my love language. And even if Thorne doesn’t love me back—not that I want him to, obviously, that would be ridiculous—he loves my food.

It’s a start.

I close the notebook, decision made. Tomorrow, I’ll march down to his workshop with a box of fresh croissants and my proposition. I’ll appeal to his sense of community. Or his pride. Or his stomach.

Whatever works.

This better work.

Because if I’m going to take Moist to the next level—I need my grumpy Minotaur landlord on my team.

I look back at the email, still open on my screen, and feel that flutter in my chest again. This is it. My chance to show what I can do. To create something that carries a piece of my family’s homeland, something that lets people taste a journey they’ve never taken.

Something that proves I belong.

I close my laptop and reach for my recipe testing notebook. Time to get to work. I have Filipino flavors to perfect and a Minotaur to convince.

No big deal. Just the future of everything I’ve worked for.

I take a deep breath, flip to a clean page, and begin.