I knock over an entire rack of cooling trays with a clang that makes Tess jump, and my soul leaves my body.
“Tess, I’m so sorry, I was…” I stammer, face flaming. “I was watching you shape the ficelle, and I wasn’t looking…”
She steadies the rack with one hand, calm and competent like she’s holding the world upright. She doesn’t even look furious. She looks amused. Almost.
“It’s fine,” she says. “Just… watch where you’re going, ok?”
The flush that crawls up my neck at that is worth the clatter.
Because she said it like she knows.
Like she knows I’m watching her.
And she’s not pretending she doesn’t notice.
I am in trouble.
In the best possible way.
Everything else in my life, the deals, the parties, the endless sterile meetings, feels like a black-and-white movie.
This is high-definition. Full-color. Sensory overload.
Heat from ovens. Ache in my shoulders. Flour dust on my forearms. The smell of caramelizing sugar. Gwen’s punk playlist is in the background. The hiss of the espresso machine.
And Tess.
God, Tess.
I am completely, irrevocably sunk.
I have spent my entire adult life being analyzed, managed, and handled. People tell me what I want to hear. People smooth the world for me.
Tess doesn’t.
She holds me to her own ridiculously high standard, and when I meet it, or even get close, the small grudging nod she gives me feels better than closing a nine-figure deal.
I text my friends in stolen moments by the lockers, because I apparently have become a person who texts about pastries.
ZANE: Dude. Saw the pics. “Billionaire Baker” is still trending. You’re a menace. Party in Monaco this weekend, wheels up Friday?
Zane and I have been friends for a long time. He’s the kind of friend who knows where the bodies are buried and still shows up with coffee. We met years ago, after my company sponsored his professional ice hockey team. One of those PR deals that was supposed to last a season and somehow turned into a decade-long friendship. Zane has been a pro player for as long as I’ve known him. Not the flashy, look-at-me kind. The disciplined kind. Early mornings. Brutal practices. Ice packs and tape and a body that’s paid the price for loving the game as hard as he does.
Hockey isn’t just his job. It’s his religion. And somehow, despite that, and despite me, he’s still here.
ME: Can’t. Making kouign amanns.
ZANE: …Kouign-what-now? Has she waterboarded you with sourdough starter? Blink twice if you need an extraction.
ME: It’s a caramelized Breton pastry. It’s… amazing. I have to go, oven’s hot. Have a good game!
I silence my phone, grin like an idiot, and go back to work.
During the afternoon lull, while I’m scrubbing the massive proofing boxes, a job I now claim as mine because I have apparently developed standards and also a weird sense of pride about plastic tubs, Gwen corners Tess in the walk-in.
I’m not trying to eavesdrop.
I’m just in a small bakery where sound carries, and Gwen is not a subtle person.
