by Anthology
“Half a day then. Just until you’re caught up.”
He knows he has me. I can tell by the look on his face. But it’s making it almost impossible for me to deny him now, because I don’t see triumph there; I see gratitude. Genuine happiness. A tiny hint of desperation sliding away in the light of hope.
I remember what it’s like to be desperate. It was never fun. My cold heart melts just the tiniest bit.
“Fine.” I hold up a finger at his face. “A half day only.”
He nods and holds out a hand. “Deal.”
“And you can’t tell the manager,” I say.
Yes, I’m supporting the illusion his misjudgment started, but I’m also saving my butt from a very strongly-worded lecture. Amelia doesn’t like it when I throw the rules that I made out the window, namely the one that says she does the hiring for the store. She’s better at it than me. Less critical. More open-minded.
Amelia fights hard against my chaos, which I appreciate most of the time, but sometimes we must let chaos reign, especially when it’s working so hard to be in charge of my life. Today, I’m throwing rules out the window. Some of them, anyway.
“It’ll be our little secret,” he says.
I take his hand to shake it and try not to jump when I feel how warm and solid it is. I wasn’t expecting it, I guess. When he pulls his hand back, I again feel the regret that parting from him brings.
Mental note: Take temperature at earliest opportunity. Flu likely taking hold.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“Alexios Tripolitakis. But you can call me Alex.”
Boom. Nailed it. He’s Greek. Very possibly a Greek god.
“What’s yours?” he asks.
“Anna,” I say, for some crazy reason using my middle name instead of my first name. I’m not ready to blow my cover as the owner, and if he was serious about his job hunting, he probably already looked me up online. I want the illusion to continue for some crazy reason. Today, I want to be someone else, if only for a little while.
Pointing around the room to distract me from my wandering thoughts, I give Alexios a quick tour from my spot near a marble-topped prep table.
“Dry ingredients are there, all of them labeled. Fondants on that shelving unit. Equipment’s in that corner, as you can see, and in the cupboards above. Walk-in is back down that hallway. Freezer at the end of it. Bathroom just past the janitorial closet. Orders are up on the bulletin board there. Recipe binder is behind you on the shelf. We’re starting with a yellow sponge, then onto Black Forest, then German chocolate, and finally a pound cake. The photographs and descriptions of what they want are on the orders, recipes in the book.”
“Wow, talk about variety.”
“Don’t remind me.” I take a couple test steps on my hurt leg. It’s not as bad as I thought it was going to be. I consider telling him I actually don’t really need him in light of the now barely aching knee, but quickly decide against it. Not only do I have customers who are bound to come in near lunchtime, I like having someone else in the kitchen to work with. It could be anyone, though. It doesn’t have to be him, this completely hot Greek bad boy who can probably make better cakes than I can, who has tattoos all over his muscles and who is taking his shirt off!
“What are you doing?” I ask, backing up a step.
He pauses with his shirt mostly over his head. “Getting changed?” He nods over at shelves where we keep freshly dry-cleaned cooking smocks, hand towels, aprons, and promotional Tshirts.
I swallow with effort since my throat has gone mostly dry.
He is not tattooed everywhere. Just on his arms. I can see every line of every defined muscle from his waistline to his neck. Obviously in his off time between jobs, he’s been working out.
Mental note: Join gym immediately. Yesterday. Join gym yesterday. Also, go to Greece for next vacation.
He ignores my distress and grabs one of our bakery Tshirts off the rack and slides it on over his head. It’s tight across his chest, but I don’t have time to enjoy it before he’s putting a coat on over it. Now he looks like all of the other chefs I’ve worked with over the years, except for the hair and those eyes; those are like none I’ve ever seen before. Is he wearing makeup or are those really just eyelashes giving him that dark, sexy look?
“Ready to get started?” he asks after he ties a short apron around his waist and tucks a towel into the front of it. He begins to wash his hands at the sink, scrubbing them with the brush I have there for that purpose.
“Sure.” Normally I have more to say, but he’s stolen the words from my mouth just by getting undressed and then dressed in front of me. I definitely need to get out more.
Mental note: Booty call someone tomorrow night. Someone. Anyone.
“You want me to start on Cake Number One or Cake Number Two?” he asks.
“You do One. I’ll do Two.”
I’m giving him the easier of the first couple cakes because even though his resumé is impressive, I’m not naive enough to think that he hasn’t padded it to some degree. Hell, he could be making the entire thing up for all I know. But he’s here in my kitchen and he’ll be working right next to me, so if this is a scam, it’s a scam that won’t fly for very long.
My eyes slide to the right and my gaze lands on my knives. I make sure to stay close to them as he moves around the kitchen and gathers things he’ll need to make his cake. Just in case. Even though he hasn’t given off a single scary vibe yet.
“So how long have you worked here?” he asks me, measuring flour out and putting it into the mixing bowl of my Hobart. I can tell from that one gesture that he knows what he’s doing.
My attachment to my knives fades away and I drift over to the equipment area, looking for another bowl I can use instead of the stand-up mixer he’s taken.
“A few years,” I say. Five to be exact. That’s when I finally bit the bullet and said yes to the personal loan my uncle offered me to start The Sweet Affair.
“Do you like it? You must. You’ve been here a while.”
“Love it. I wouldn’t want to work anywhere else.” Only once in a great while when I’m behind on orders do I fantasize about not being in charge and responsible for everything. That only happens about once a month.
“Does the owner ever come around?”
“Yes. Sometimes.”
He pauses to connect some equipment and begins the process of adding ingredients one at a time in the correct order as the beater slowly spins around the bowl. My recipe pages are out in front of him, but I’ve only seen him glance at them once. Even so, he’s doing everything right.
I try not to spy, but I can’t stop watching him. His hands move like they’re guiding a symphony orchestra. Small burn scars on his hands and forearms tell me he’s spent many hours in the kitchen. I forget about needing to be near the knives entirely.
“So is it his idea that pastries are too fussy or yours?” Alexios asks. Alex. He told me to call him Alex, but he looks like an Alexios. I almost sigh like a schoolgirl, but stop myself just in time.
“Excuse me?” I blink a few times, replaying his words in my head to try and understand what he’s saying.
“The owner… is he the one who thinks pastries are too fussy or is that your personal opinion?”
I smile half to myself. It feels devious to keep the secret going any longer, but for some reason, he makes me want to be devious. Just a little.
“What makes you think he’s a man? Why not a woman?”
Alex shrugs. “I don’t know. The decor of the place, maybe?”
“What’s wrong with the decor?”
Alex stops what he’s doing and looks up all of a sudden. “Taking it a little personally, aren’t you?”
I shrug. “Maybe. I do work here, you know.”
He goes back to his task. “It’s just not all frilly and foofy like most women-owned bakeries are.”
I want to beam with pride over his observation, but I don’t. I act coo
l so I can keep up the charade just a little longer. It’s kind of thrilling to be someone else, to see my business through the eyes of a stranger like this.
I specifically went out of my way six years ago when I was in the planning phase of my business to make sure my bakery wasn’t so frilly that men wouldn’t feel comfortable coming in here for lunch. They make up more than half my clientele now, and I know it’s not by accident.
“You’re right. It’s not very foofy.” I smile inside at his choice of words. Can he really be that cute? “That’s how the owner wanted it.”
“So what about the pastries?” he asks again. “Is it his opinion or yours?”
I shrug. “Doesn’t matter, does it?”
“Guess not.”
Truth is, it’s my opinion only because I was never trained to do pastries. My skills were honed in my own personal kitchen, and after years of cupcake-eating friends telling me I should start a bakery, I took some business courses and then did. Cakes, cookies, sandwiches, and soups. That’s what I do because that’s what I know. Pastries being fussy is code for pastries being difficult.
We work together in companionable silence until he’s sliding his first cake into the oven. When the door shuts, he turns around and wipes his hands on his apron. “Want me to start on Number Three?”
I nod. “Yep. I’m almost ready to pop this in the oven. I can get started on the icing after.”
“Fondant on the first one, right?”
“Yes. And lots of flowers. This is for a baptism so it has to have a lot of white.”
“With a hint of blue. Yeah, I got it.”
He’s quick, I’ll give him that much. He only looked at the order sheet once that I could tell, and he already knows enough detail to do the whole thing properly. My other employees have to keep the info sheets nearby so they don’t get confused among the different projects, and the papers inevitably end up covered in batter and smudges of different colors. I have this dream that one day, all my record books will be devoid of kitchen smears. It’s probably not very realistic.
I’m cutting candied cherries for my cake as it bakes and fills the air with the scent of chocolate when the knife slips out of my gooey hands and cuts my fingertip.
“Dammit!” I hiss, jamming my finger into my mouth as I run over to the sink. The strong metallic taste of blood tells me this is not a minor cut.
Alexios drops his spatula on his prep table, turns off his mixer, and rushes over to stand next to me. “How bad is it?” he asks, reaching for my hand.
I take it out of my mouth and give it to him, using my other hand to reach up to the shelf above me and take down my first-aid kit. “I’m not sure. It didn’t feel good.”
He turns on the cold water and rinses it. I grit my teeth against the sudden, stinging pain.
I’ve cut myself plenty of times, and it’s always when I’m in a hurry. I will never learn, apparently.
“Got any butterflies in there?” he asks me.
I can smell his sweat. It’s nice the way it mingles with his cologne or shampoo or whatever it is and the scent of vanilla getting warm in the oven. It distracts me from my pain.
“Here,” I say, handing one over.
He dries my finger off with his towel and then pinches the skin together, placing the butterfly bandage on either side of the cut. Then he grabs a regular bandaid out of the box and puts it on over the butterfly.
“Tape?” he asks as he smoothes down the edges of the bandaid.
I hand him a role from the bottom of the kit.
He wraps two layers around the bandages and squeezes my whole finger gently to set the adhesive. He’s standing so close I can feel his body heat through my coat. My face flushes in reaction.
“We’re good.” I turn so I can look him in the eye. “Thanks. You’re a good doctor.”
He gives me his lopsided grin, revealing teeth I hadn’t noticed before to be slightly crooked. “I’ve had lots of practice.”
I look down at his hand resting on the sink. “You have some pretty righteous scars. You didn’t get those from doing just pastry work.”
He nods and pushes up a sleeve to show me some more of his battle wounds. “I used to work the regular line too. Did a lot of chops, sauté, fry cook. You name it, I’ve done it.”
“You didn’t mention that on your resumé earlier.”
He smiles again. “You didn’t do a very good job of interviewing me.”
“I don’t remember interviewing you at all, actually.”
“And yet, here I am.”
“Yeah. Here you are,” I say, more softly than I mean to.
I can’t help but grin back at him. He’s completely charmed me into a day-job, and I never even interviewed him. No wonder Amelia insisted she do the hiring three years ago.
For a moment, time stops being time. Seconds stop being seconds, minutes stop being minutes. It’s just him and me and the space that’s holding us and nothing else.
I might have been breathing during this pause in the universe’s regular programming and then again, I might not have. All I could think as I stood there staring at him was that his eyes were too impossibly dark, almost black. He was a stranger who wandered into my bakery at eight in the morning, who’s standing here now mere inches from me smelling positively edible, and it’s been a really long time since anyone with lips like that has kissed me.
The bells that signal a customer coming into the bakery jangle out beyond the swinging doors of the kitchen, breaking the magic bubble that has grown to surround us.
I step back and break eye contact, moving to go around Alexios.
He puts a hand out and I bump into it. His fingers rest against my abdomen, but he makes no move to pull them away.
“Do you want me to go out there and take care of it?” he asks.
I shake my head. “No. You don’t know the register. Just keep working on the next cake.”
His hand falls away and I continue out to the store, my heart going way too fast.
Mental note: Take chill pill ASAP before you make a complete fool of yourself.
I thought I’d have time to get back to the cakes after that customer came in, but I was wrong. I was busy for two hours straight, managing my morning rush filled with customers desperate for coffee and muffins.
Maybe it’s just my imagination, but it seems like I got more requests for croissants that day than I have in a year. At first I suspected they were plants sent by Alexios, but then I realized how ridiculous that was; he had no idea he’d be working here today. Besides, I can tell he’s not the devious type. He has a story, sure, but he’s not a bad guy. It made his illusionary bad-boy image even more intriguing.
When I finally get a break near eleven, I go back into the kitchen. Two of the three cakes are finished and boxed up in the cooler, and Alexios is sitting on a stool at a prep table forming fondant flowers for the baptism order on wooden picks stuck into a Styrofoam block.
“Wow, you’ve been busy,” I say, coming out of the walk-in.
“Just a little. No big deal. You have a great morning crowd.” He pinches the petal of a flower into place. It’s amazing how realistic they look already and he hasn’t even painted details on them yet.
“Yep.” Pride leaks into my voice. “Seven days a week if you can believe it.”
“Sure, I can. I ate one of your heart cookies, remember?” He looks up and grins.
I know he didn’t mean to be especially charming, but that smile just throws me off a cliff into a sea of desire. He’s young, he’s hot, he’s talented, and he likes my cookies.
He sticks the flower he was working on into the Styrofoam and stands up.
My eyes follow him across the room as he navigates around the table between us and comes towards me. My heart beat quickens and my face gets warm along with a few other of my body parts.
What’s he going to do? Is he coming over here to be near me? Will he kiss me?
When he’s just inches away, he stops,
smiles at me, and leans in, at the last moment reaching around me to grab a Tupperware box off the shelf at my back.
I’m frozen in place, my head and eyes the only things that can move.
He straightens up and looks down at me. “Needed some of this green fondant for the leaves.” He tilts the box back and forth a little, rattling the ball of fondant inside.
“Yeah,” I say, my voice hoarse.
He frowns. “You feeling okay?”
I nod, not trusting myself to speak anymore. I just croaked like a frog.
He puts his free hand on my forehead. His skin is cool and should be a relief against my rising temperature, but instead it sets a fire raging inside me.
“You feel warm,” he says.
“I think it’s you,” I say in a near whisper.
His hand slides away from my face, and he looks at me confused.
“That’s hot,” I try to explain. “Not me. You’re the hot one not me.” I close my eyes, shamed to my toes. Did I really just say that?
“That came out wrong. What I meant was that I don’t have a fever. You have a hot hand. Or a cold hand.” I shake my head and open my eyes again. “Could you just ignore me, please? I’m making zero sense right now.”
He puts the box down on the table behind him and takes my upper arms in his hands. “I think you’re coming down with the same flu as your manager.”
I shake my head. “No, I’m fine. Just overworked. I’ll be okay. I need to finish the last cake.”
“It’s in the oven.” He turns me around and pushes me back until my butt hits the edge of the prep table. “Why don’t you sit here for a minute until I finish the flowers and then I’ll make you some tea.”
“Sit?” I ask, looking around.
He lifts me up and sets me on the table, pushing himself forward in the process so he’s standing in between my spread-open legs. We’re facing each other, now at the same height.
I think his original intention was to just leave me sitting there, but then something happens.
I wasn’t totally pushed back on the table, and he moved forward more than he meant to, and we touched. And when I say we I mean his man parts touched my lady parts, and the yearning exploded inside me.