Chances for Serendipity

by Natalie Chung

  He leaned closer to the counter, his focus still on the cake pops. “That doesn’t sound easy at all,” he said with a chuckle, straightening up and turning back to face me. One side of his mouth lifted. “Why does it feel like you downplay everything you do, Not-Serena?”

  “Not…Serena?” I repeated slowly, fiddling with the tongs in my hands. Now that was a name I hadn’t used in a long time. “But how do you know—”

  The bell on the front door jangled, cutting off the rest of my sentence.

  “Miss Tsang!” a cheery voice sang out in Cantonese. “Nice weather today.”

  I pasted on a smile that probably looked overdone. Time to put my rusty Cantonese skills to the test. “Good morning, Aunty.” It was just like Mum’s most gossipy friend and customer, Mrs Wong, to pop in at this time.

  She paused to look around. “Where’s Ming?”

  I dropped the smile. “Uhh, Ming already left for the day. She’s not feeling well.”

  Mrs Wong frowned. “Poor thing.” She patted down the unruly black wisps of hair beneath her sunhat. “She’s always working so hard.”

  No disagreeing with that, even though Mrs Wong was Ming’s biggest supporter and therefore completely biased in her favour. She’d often stay and chat with Ming when she dropped by. No surprise there. Ming’s angel-like personality charmed just about everyone, and unlike my occasionally off-tone and mediocre Cantonese, she was near fluent. Mrs Wong could’ve gone toe to toe with Max on how much they loved her.

  Probably the only things Mrs Wong loved just as much were gossip and red bean buns. The former was sadly missing without Mum here to chit-chat with, but as for the latter… It explained why she currently glanced forlornly at the right side of the shop where some of the cabinets were empty.

  I bit my bottom lip, feeling like I’d personally failed her today. “Sorry, Aunty. No red bean buns.”

  She gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Don’t worry. One person can only do so much by themselves. But do you have my favourite tarts?”

  Oh my gosh, the tarts! Thank goodness I’d made them last night, or I wouldn’t have had time this morning. “Of course,” I said quickly to reassure her, accidentally reverting back to English. That was when I noticed Aiden’s gaze lingering on us from a corner of the room with the buns we had in stock. He must’ve been clueless about what we’d been talking about. Not wanting to seem rude, I continued speaking in English. “They’re in the kitchen fridge. I’ll go get them now.”

  I scrambled around the counter, almost tripping over my feet in my haste to get to the tarts. Why was I even rushing? The combination of stress, no breakfast, and no coffee this morning was getting to me. Oh, and how could I forget—an unexpected visit from a pro tennis player to top it off. It was like the universe had decided to throw me down the deep end today.

  When I reached the kitchen, I chucked the dirty tongs I was holding into the sink, my heart pounding like a heavy drum.

  Breathe, Sere. The bakery wouldn’t disintegrate into dust if I stopped for a bit. I inhaled through my nose, basking in the relaxing smell of all the freshly baked goods still cooling on racks. For a moment, with my eyes closed, it felt like a normal day. I could almost imagine Ming working nearby, whistling along to a Disney song.

  But then a distant chortle trickled in through the gap in the kitchen door. Aiden Andale was in my family bakery. Aiden. Andale. And he remembered me.

  Just like that, my vision of a normal day was thrown out the window.

  Nope, this was reality now. Me, deadbeat tired, and a pro tennis player in the next room over. He was here. Really here. It didn’t make any sense. How was he here? Why was he here? And why did his mere presence have such a weird effect on me? It was almost like—

  No. I quashed the thought before it fully formed in my head. My exhaustion was starting to affect my brain.

  I switched on the tap at the sink and doused my hands with cold water, splashing my face with it. I scrubbed my hands clean with soap, then snatched a paper towel to dry them and sponge the droplets off my face, leaving me feeling cool and refreshed. Ready to tackle the world. Or, well, maybe start with the situation outside.

  Aiden’s sudden appearance had simply taken me by surprise. I’d been starstruck. That was all. End of story.

  I had to get myself together. Mum and the bakery were counting on me.

  Okay. Here was what I would do—go back there and be nice. Act as if he and I were good old friends having a long awaited reunion. Pretend he was like anyone else I knew. I could do that, right?

  With that settled, I pulled out Mrs Wong’s order from the fridge and ambled back, careful not to jostle the box cocooned in the safety of my shaking hands. I elbowed my way through the door, just in time to hear the end of Mrs Wong’s answer to a question I hadn’t heard. It was surprising to know her English was as good as Mum’s, only with a minor accent to it.

  “Yes, yes, exactly. The first time I came here…”

  I tuned out the rest of her words automatically—thanks to my inability to multitask—and slipped open the box of tarts on the counter. Paranoia always had me double-checking that everything was still in the same condition I’d left them in. Sometimes I had nightmares of coming back to nothing but crumbs and mice scuttling everywhere in the kitchen. Totally not a realistic scenario, but still a very real fear. Losing goods meant losing customers which meant losing profit. Losing all around.

  I sighed in relief at the sight of the tarts inside the box. Not a strawberry out of place. No crumbs. No losing today.

  “Are you Sere’s friend?”

  My head snapped up at Mrs Wong’s use of my name, all thoughts of tarts, crumbs, and losing forgotten.

  Aiden pulled on the strings of his hoodie. “Friend? I guess you can say that. She and I go way back.”

  Him? Friends with me? I’d been joking about the whole old friends reunion thing. Though I liked how he wasn’t lying. In the strangest way possible, we did go way back. Back to a time when I’d accidentally whacked him with a tennis ball.

  Mrs Wong hummed, and she got that look in her sharp brown eyes that I’d learned meant she was fishing for gossip. She tapped a finger on her chin. “Were you on TV before?”

  Aiden froze. “No,” he said, dragging out the one syllable. “But people do say that I look a lot like a young Tom Cruise.”

  I cupped a hand over my mouth, holding in my laughter. Yeah right. A young Tom Cruise? Might as well have said Colin Firth was his distant cousin. That would’ve been more believable.

  Mrs Wong’s forehead creased. “Who is Tom Cruise?”

  “He’s a famous actor. You know Mission Impossible? I look like him in that, but with slightly longer hair.”

  This time I couldn’t stop a bubble of laughter from bursting out of my mouth.

  She totally didn’t buy it. Mrs Wong was the shrewdest woman around. It was how she collected all her gossip. No lie passed through people’s lips undetected by her. Max had once tried telling her that he didn’t have a problem with Ming when she’d first started working at the bakery. Mrs Wong had shot him down for his lie pretty quickly. Luckily for Aiden, Mrs Wong had no idea who Tom Cruise was, and must not have been an avid tennis fan, or she would’ve asked for an autograph by now.

  He shot me a pleading look that begged for me to save him. Who knew Aiden Andale could do puppy-dog eyes?

  “Aunty,” I called, taking pity on him. “Your order is ready. Six strawberry-choc custard tarts.” I pushed the box toward her.

  “Oh, good, good.” Seemed like Aiden’s presence had made her politely switch to English. Or maybe it was because I’d given up speaking full Cantonese.

  She opened the box, adjusting her tortoiseshell-framed glasses on her nose bridge to inspect the tarts. “Beautiful. Very beautiful.” She smiled brightly like a moon on a starless night, and my heart swelled with pride.

  This. This was the reason why I loved baking. Seeing people appreciate what I made. Putting smiles
on their faces.

  Aiden hovered behind her. “Wow, they look delicious.”

  Mrs Wong nodded, her smile still beaming wide on her face. “My mahjong friends and I will be enjoying these today. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, Aunty.”

  As soon as she was out the door, I turned to Aiden. “Really? Tom Cruise?”

  His lips twitched into a half smile. “Hey, it works sometimes.”

  “Uh-huh. Maybe you should look in the mirror again.”

  He tipped his head back and laughed. A loud, chortling laugh that left his mouth wide open. It was so unlike his sensible confidence in the media that it took me off guard. When he finally composed himself again, he smirked. “So, have you hit anyone in the head with a tennis ball lately?”

  “Of course not.” I grimaced at his reference to our fateful first meeting. The memory of hitting him with a tennis ball would be branded in my mind forever like a tattoo. “That’s never happening again. Never ever. It was like a once in a lifetime thing.” I wasn’t sure if I was trying to convince him or myself.

  His smirk only widened at my defensiveness. “And here I thought I was just one of the many unfortunate victims of your tennis skills, Not-Serena.” He tugged on the collar of his dark grey hoodie, exposing the smooth column of his collarbone, his arms flexing at the movement.

  I dragged my prying eyes away, trying to steady my accelerating heartbeat. “How did you find out that isn’t my name? Actually, how did you even find me?”

  “Good questions. Maybe I’ll tell you the answers if you go out with me for coffee.”

  Go out with him? Had I heard him right?

  I stole a glance at him. That smirk of his hadn’t disappeared. Might as well have been etched in permanent marker on his lips. Did that mean he was joking, or was he serious? What would it be like, sitting opposite him for an extended period of time? Disastrously embarrassing for me, most likely.

  “Um, I’m working right now.”

  “Not right now, then. When are you free?”

  “Uh, I don’t know.” Technically, Saturday was my day off—the one day Max offered to manage the bakery during Mum’s absence—and the bakery was closed on Sundays. So why was I giving myself excuses? I mean, this was Aiden Andale. A pro tennis player in the flesh. If Dad were here, he’d be hitting my head for passing up this once in a lifetime opportunity. But…

  What were his motivations for asking me out for a drink? Purely friend? Or was he a player like a lot of other famous athletes? I didn’t see him as that sort of person, from what I’d gleaned of his personality in public. But going out with him for coffee sounded too much like a date. And that was one thing I was certain about—I didn’t do dating anymore.

  Not to mention, I had no time to think about anything else but the bakery with Ming’s absence. An image of her dimpled face filled my mind. This wasn’t the day to risk going out and wasting precious sleep time. Not when I had the bakery to worry about tomorrow or the possibility that she wouldn’t be in again. All those buns I had to make weren’t going to make themselves.

  Oh crap. The buns! I still had a few trays of them to bring out.

  “Surely you can’t be busy twenty-four seven?” Aiden said, but I was already breezing past him to the kitchen. “Hey, where are you going?”

  “Give me a second,” I said over my shoulder, pressing down on the door handle and pulling the door open.

  The smell of baked buns still clung to the air, and I tried not to salivate as I breathed it in. Snatching a clean pair of tongs, I started heaping pineapple buns onto a plastic tray.

  By the time I made my way back to the storefront, my eyelids felt unusually heavy. I rubbed them with the heel of my hand, ignoring Aiden’s expectant stare following me as I deposited the buns in their display cabinet. With that done, I spun around in the direction of the kitchen for the next round.

  But out of nowhere, a rush of dizziness overcame me. One of my feet tripped over the other and I lost my balance. All of a sudden, the floor rose up toward me.

  Chapter 14

  I reflexively flung my hands out in time to break my fall. That worked for a few seconds. Then my limbs felt so heavy that I gave up. My head slumped to the ground like a dumped sack of flour, the cold floorboards pressing into my skin.Andale Announces Shocking Split and Early Retirement.

  In the back of my mind, a voice told me, Not appropriate. Get up! But it was like all the energy inside me had been zapped away clean.

  “Holy crap.” The vibration of footsteps pounded close. “Are you okay?”

  A rough shake of my shoulder forced my eyes open. It took a moment for my blurry vision to adjust. Aiden’s head swam into focus. “Sorry. I just feel tired.” Understatement of the century, but I wouldn’t be a complainer. “Just give me a second.”

  “You should at least sit down for a bit.”

  “I’m fine. I can—” His glare made me swallow down the rest of my words. “Okay.”

  His expression eased into something that looked like pity. I didn’t need pity. Didn’t want it. “Let’s get you up first.” He looped an arm around me—why were his hands still so damn hot?—and helped me manoeuvre myself into a more appropriate sitting position. “Got a chair somewhere?”

  “Yeah. In the kitchen.”

  “I’ll go get it.”

  “Wait,” I said, but he didn’t listen. I watched as he disappeared into the kitchen. Not a minute later, he came back with a small wooden chair.

  “Thanks,” I said, settling into it.

  He knelt down to my eye level and fixed me with a penetrating stare. I tried not to look away from those piercing hazel eyes. Even if they seemed all-seeing, it obviously wasn’t possible. “Are you sure you’re okay looking after the bakery by yourself?”

  “Yeah. There’s usually another person working with me, but she went home sick.” His eyes widened in disbelief. “But I’ll be fine,” I added quickly. I wasn’t some damsel in distress. People like him probably worked a lot harder at their jobs. Who was I to complain about one day of working by myself?

  A crinkle formed between his eyebrows. “I don’t think you can call yourself fine after falling over like that. Either you rest, or I’m calling for an ambulance.” He stood back up and fished a sleek phone out of his shorts pocket, waving it at me threateningly.

  He wasn’t serious, was he?

  His phone screen lit up and he tapped on it, emitting doot doot noises.

  Dead serious, apparently.

  “Oh my gosh. Don’t!” I reached up and latched onto his arm without thinking.

  He jerked his head down at me, lips parted in surprise.

  I let go and found myself clutching onto the ends of my apron instead. “I’m—I’m not feeling that bad.” Not enough to go to a hospital. I was just utterly embarrassed, that was all. There was no cure for that. Unless hiding under my bed covers for the rest of my life was an option. But I was pretty sure that after a coffee and some food, I’d be fine.

  Aiden heaved an exasperated sigh, staring down at me with his hooded eyes. “Give me one good reason why you can’t rest.”

  His unwavering gaze sent weird sensations shooting through my stomach. “I—you wouldn’t understand.”

  He folded his arms and puffed out his chest. “Try me.” If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was possibly offended by what I’d said.

  I fumbled for words that could explain how I felt. “This bakery is my family’s pride.” My chest ached. I might not have promised Dad directly to take care of the bakery like Max had, but that didn’t mean I loved the bakery any less. And besides… “My mum put a lot of faith in me by leaving me in charge while she’s on holiday. I can’t—I don’t want to disappoint her. This is her everything.” I swallowed down the lump in my throat, willing him to be more understanding.

  “It’s your mum’s everything?” he repeated. “That’s why?”

  “Mm-hmm,” I mumbled with pursed lips. The overwhelming
ache in my chest constricted, squeezing tighter and tighter. More than anything, I wished Dad were here to help. Unlike me, he could man the shop easily. I was mentally crumbling under the pressure of working on my own. The next thing I knew, tears welled in the corners of my eyes. I held my breath, lips still pressed together, trying not to blink. But a single tear slipped down my cheek, betraying my inner turmoil.

  Aiden stared at me unblinkingly for so long that I wondered if he was going to physically shove me into a bed and force me to sleep. I wouldn’t have put it past him to try.

  After what felt like an eternity, he sighed and pocketed his phone again. “If that’s the case, you leave me no choice. Consider me yours for the day. Hire me.”

  His words struck me numb. Consider me yours. “What?” I croaked out. More tears had escaped from my eyes, and I rubbed my face furiously to get rid of them. “I can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  I shook my head slowly. “You’d have to sign a contract and I don’t have the authority to—”

  “Forget about all that. It’s just for today so you don’t overwork yourself.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “Pretend I’m on a trial run. Unpaid.” Aiden smiled like it was no big deal. As if he did charity work every day. I doubted it. “If it makes you feel any better, you can repay the favour by having dinner with me.”

  I chewed on the inside of my cheek, considering his offer. I’d be a fool if I rejected his help. “Okay, if you really don’t mind.” Some part of me felt like I should’ve been thanking him profusely for being so nice, but another part of me felt like this was happening too quickly. Like it was all a dream I could wake up from at any moment. Even if this was a dream, I wouldn’t let him have his way so easily. I wouldn’t be charmed by someone’s supposedly kind nature ever again, even if he had been nothing but nice to me so far.

  If he wanted to have dinner with me, he’d have to earn it. And the best way to do that?

  “Why don’t we make it a challenge?” It was something Max and I used to do a lot when we wanted to have something our way, and we couldn’t come to an agreement. “If you win, I’ll have dinner with you.” If not, then more time for me to take a nap and prepare for tomorrow.