Enemies in love

It is said that during Christmas time everyone becomes more understanding with others, more compassionate and thatmerriness and love are everywhere, making us more vulnerable to other people’s feelings. 

  Luis and Maeve, a beautiful merried couple, experienced together this type of Christmas magic ten years ago.  By that time, the young boy and girl were not even friends, even though they knew about each other existence, they were enemies. Both of them were running rival bakeries that have been  inherited from generation to generation for decades and once with the business being inherited the rivality was also passed on to the next generation, because this two bakeries have always been the best in the town they live. This is the reason why, despite never talking, Luis and Maeve were sure that they didn’t like each other.

   But if they are honest, whenever they would come across each other in different parts of the city, they used to find themselves staring one at another and not with a hateful look, but more with a curious one and to their amazement, they were feeling some kind of attraction and interest about their enemy. But both of them were stubborn and they didn’t want to let go of the tension between them because they thought that if they would be on good terms, their families would disapprove.

   Ten years ago, a cooking contest was organised at their town’s annual Christmas festival. This contest wasn’t new to Luis and Maeve because they had participated in it before, for three years in a row, since the age of eighteen when theystarted to lead the bakeries. In those three years, the final fight was, of course, between them two, the other bakeries from the town being eliminated with ease by their skills. 

   But ten years ago, the contest was different. It wasn’t a competition only between the bakeries in their town. Allrestaurants were included, meaning that the contest wasn’t only about sweets as usual, but about every type of food.

Cooking food and baking sweets are two different activities which request special acknowledgements that neither Maeve or Luis have when it comes to cooking food. They only know how to cook for their needs, but nothing extravagant that deserves to be shwoed up in a competition. 

  The contest lasted three days and at the end of every day a winner was chosen by five judges that were all important people from the Town Hall. 

    Luis was confident with his baking skills, but Maeve was intimidated by the fact that the cake she was making was competing with food cooked by chefs, because most of the time, food wins over the sweets. Because they are from the same city and have the same age, their working tables were next to each other. 

 It was probably for the first time when they were standing so close to each other and for some unknown reason, this made Maeve even more nervous. 

 Luis realised that his ”enemy for life’’, how he named Maeve years ago, was nervous and he thought that it might be because the contest is more different than what she was used to and even though he didn’t like to say that, Maeve was a great baker and he wished a baker would the competition at least in one of the three days, even if it was him, Maeve or others. And before he realised he turned around and told Maeve:

’’ You shouldn’t be nervous. You are talented and I know you will do a great job.’’  

At first, Maeve thought he was talking to someone else, but then she realised he was looking in her direction.

She didnt’t know what was more shocking. The fact that he talked to her or that his voice was soft and low, but at the same time strong enough to get to her ears through all the noise that was around and to make her feel calm. 

She started blushing when she realised that she only stared at him in amaze and didn’t say at least a ”Thank you”.  

Before she could even get back to reality the bell had rung to point out the start of the first competition.  

 Before opening the ingredients which she brought, she remembered herself to calm down, having in mind the fresh memory of Luis’ encouragement. 

While she was preparing her ingredients she uncontrollably peeked a few times at Luis’ work table. He was calm and concentrated on his work, doing everything with dexterity.  

Maeve took a deep breath and focused all of her attention on what she had to do. It wasn’t the right time or the right place to be distracted by a man who she is supposed to not like, because after all, he still remains her enemy.  

 She had a limited time to cook her famous salted caramel cheesecake that she cooks every week because of how requested it is. 

 While minutes were passing and her ingredients were getting mixed, she started to regain her confidence. ’’Luis is right. I’mtalented and all of us have equal chances to win, no matter what we cook.’’ she told herself.

 While she allowed herself to take a break because the time was in her favour, she looked at Luis again.

 She expected to see him bake the carrot cake which is also extremely famous in their town because it is made with carrots planted and gardened by Luis and they have an authentic and natural flavour. 

If we’re being honest, the rivality isn’t probably even between Maeve and Luis, but between the cheesecake and the carrot cake; even though they have other delicious sweets, everybody loves this two specific cakes.  

  But to her surprise, he was baking a lemon cake, something she didn’t expected to see. 

She then realised that she should have chosen another type ofcake, something more original that people from her town didn’t see at her bakery. But it was too late to bake anything else, so she kept going with her cheesecake, but her confidence was decreasing more and more with every thought of an original idea which she could have used. When the time was over, she was even more dissappointed in herself. The arrangement of the cake wasn’t looking as good as it should because Maeve got lost in her negative thoughts and only half of her mind was paying attention to her work while the other half was criticizing her for jumping into the decision to bake her usual cake and not something unexpected.  

Even Luis was surprised when he turned around and sae Maeve’s arrangement. It was a beautiful one, lovely to the eyes of people, but it wasn’t Maeve’s fullest potential and even he knew it because he saw a few images of her cakes on the internet. When he moved his eyes from the cake to Maeve’s face, he felt a sign of compassion for her when he saw the dissappointment on her face.  

”Probably the emotions distracted her from being as professional as people say she is’’ thought Luis. If his hearthad been filled with rivality, he would have been happy that he was doing better than Maeve, but he couldn’t feel one ounce of happiness. 

When the judges came to taste Maeve’s cake, they were surprised to see her signature cake and not something new as they wished. To make things even worse, the caramel topping was too salty and Maeve couldn’t understand what was happening to her. Why was she so distracted and nervous just because the contest included food this time and not only sweets. It wasn’t like her to get scared of challenges and to be so distracted by her thoughts that she can’t focus on her workwhen she usually fiend relief in working and her thoughts leave her when her mind is busy. 

   When the winners were announced she had absolutely no expectations to be in top three, knowing the mistakes she made, but she expected at least one baker to win, more specifficaly, Luis. 

But no baker from the ones participating entered the top three; they were only chefs that cooked delicious dishes.

   In the second day of the contest Maeve was more put together. She had a creative idea and she deleted all of the bad thoughts and dissappointment that she had in the first day.

That day Luis didn’t tell her anything, even though he felt the need to encourage her again.  

 In spite of things going well this time for both Maeve and Luis, they still couldn’t make it to the first three winners that were again only chefs and not one baker.

   The third day of the contest, which was also the last, brought another surprise along with the judges’ announcement:

”Today, because it’s the last day of this competition, we decided to change the game a little. Because it’s Christmas time, a holiday that brings people together, today you will not cook by yourself, but in pairs of two that will be announced by us’’

 And when you think faith stopped working, in that moment it comes and surrounds you with its power until you are wonderring:’’ Is this just pure coincidence or is this the faith trying to tell me something?’’

That’s what both Maeve and Luis thought when they heard the judges saying that they will form a team. Both of them were trying to hide their happiness, but they couldn’t do it so they turned around and smiled to each other.  

”Looks like we have to go from enemies to parteners’’ said Maeve with a smile on her face because it’s impossible to not get amused when you think about this situation. 

And if two days before Maeve froze when she heard Luis, now was his turn to fall in the spells of her soft voice. He realised that he had known this woman for years, even before he took over the bakery’s management, but this was the first time hearing her voice. But, unlike Maeve, he was able to give her a response:

’’ Probably faith, or the judges, are over our rivalry and they want us to get along. But I know we will form an amazing team. We are the best bakers in town, right?’’ 

But before Maeve got the chance to respond, the judges had another announcement, informing the teams that they have five minutes to talk about what they will prepare and Maeve was grateful for the judges’ interruption because she could barely find some words in her mind to form a response to Luis’ words which filled her hart with joy. 

“What should we bake? As you said, we are the best when it comes to sweets, so the judges and the rest of the people probably have high expectations.’’ said Maeve.

“I was thinking that we should do something that will get people into the Christmas spirit. Everyone loves eating cookies. But I don’t think we can impress someone just with some cookies. We have some serious competition, as you noticed in the last two days.’’ said Luis who couldn’t stop wondering why have they been enemies for years when it is clearly that neither his heart nor hers contain hate or rivalry. “Is the rivalry between our grandparents and parents a solid motive to stop us from having at least a polite friendship?’’

“I know!’’ screamed Maeve with excitement, capturing Luis’ attention, because he was lost in his thoughts. “We should combine our famous cakes and your idea with making cookies. More specifically… we should make a cheesecake with salted caramel topping and the base will be made of carrot cookies. What do you think?’’ 

When she saw that Luis doesn’t say anything she added: ’’We both know that when it comes to cakes, people argue which one is better, mine or yours, but because it’s Christmas we could show people that if rivalry is put away and we combine our talents, we can make an amazing job together.‘’

Luis loved the idea. Not only because it was an original and unexpected one, but because he felt that Maeve’s words have a deeper meaning; like she has the same thoughts as him, wondering about the rivalry between them that never had a certain reason to exist. 

They grew up watching their families having a constant battle of who has the best bakery and they thought they have to carry on the rivalry, but for the first time in they life they started questioning the importance of this behavior; just because they run different bakeries it doesn’t mean they have to be in war. 

 And when the bell rang for the last time in that competition, they started to work on their idea. Looking at them, you couldn’t tell that this was the first time they were talking and collaborating. They were working in the same rhythm helping and even teaching each other different secrets which they use when they bake.

For the first time, in the last three days Maeve didn’t feel the pressure of the contest and the need to impress everyone with her work. She knew she has this calming feeling because of Luis. His voice was soothing and his confidence gave Maeve more power and trust. 

They both could feel the tension between them, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable one. 

It was the tension that appears when two people slowly fall in love with every minute they spend in each other’s accompany, with every spoken word, every gaze into each other’s eyes and with every laugh that appeared whenever one of them was saying a joke or they were doing a silly mistake.  

None of them felt like they are in a competition; they felt like they are just some friends which have a good time while baking.  

They barely felt the time passing and when it came the time for the judges to announce the winners, Maeve didn’t feel the same need to win. 

 She had an amazing time with Luis and they baked a delicious cake, but most importantly, she felt that between them two was a connection and she hoped that they could give up on their rivalry and work on their bounding, or if not, to at least salute each other when they would come across each other.

The winner of the third and the second place were announced and Maeve wasn’t surprise that they weren’t bakers. But the surprise came when one of the judges, the mayor, said: 

“For the first time in those three days, the trophy is won by a delicious dessert” 

Maeve’s hart started racing when she started to believe that she and Luis might be the winners. When she looked at him, he was having a smile all over his face because he was sure they are the winners.

“The winning team is the one formed by Maeve Anderson and Luis Carter. Congratulations for the original idea and the amazing work team that you two had!’’

It wasn’t the first time for either of them to win a competition, but it was the first time when they did it together, as a team,and probably for this reason Maeve got so excited that she started jumping of happiness and she hugged Luis.

Luis was shocked at the beginning, not because of the judge’s announcement, but because of Maeve’s hug, but a second later he hugged her back and her excitement made him even happier.  

After they went to the judges to take their trophy Luis took his opportunity and proposed to Maeve that both of them should let go of their rivalry and create a friendship because they hadan amazing time together today; even though, deep in his hart he hoped there could be more than just a friendship between them.

Now, ten years later from that competition, the battle between Maeve and Luis is just an old memory that they will betransformed in a life lesson for the two beautiful children they have.

They got married four years after the contest that brought them together on the same path and they united their two businesses in one, becoming from rival bakers and from ‘’enemy for life”, how Luis used to call Maeve, “partners for life’’. And the famous signature cake of their bakery is, ofcourse, the salted caramel cheesecake with a base of carrot cookies.  

This cake represents to this day what Maeve said ten years ago: it is the representation of success that can be formed when negativity is put away and if two beautiful things are put together, the result can be magical. 

This is Maeve’s and Luis’ love story. A boy and a girl who thought they should be enemies because of their common occupation, but who where actually brought together by their obstacle and when they let themselves be surrounded by kindness, joy and love, they discovered the deep love which they have for each other.