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.
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 myproposition. 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.
