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“I need to use the bathroom again!” she yelled back.
I glanced around the dark room, forgetting where I’d put my jeans, and looked down at myself, shirtless and in boxers. Well, if I was going to be staying here and helping her get around, I wasn’t going to be getting dressed in the middle of the night every time she needed something, I thought to myself and got up.
I opened the door and saw she had once again tried to get out of bed on her own. I chuckled to myself and walked over, wrapping my arm once again around her waist, helping her to the washroom. Once she was finished and I opened the door, I noticed her eyes fall to my chest then to my abs, and I saw a slight blush fall across her cheeks.
“Like what you see, perhaps?” I questioned.
“Don’t flatter yourself. Next time get dressed,” she grumbled.
“Come on, cranky. Let’s get you back to bed.”
“I’m not going back to bed. It’s time to get up.”
I helped her back to the bed and got her clothes out and left her to get dressed, while I myself got dressed. Then we sat together at the kitchen table. I’d made her coffee and toast and stood looking out the back window as I drank down my coffee.
“Well, I just saw Melinda open the back door. I guess I’ll get you settled on the couch with everything you need and head on over.”
* * *
I opened the back door to the bakery and stepped inside, happy to feel the warmth hit me. The bright lights of the kitchen hurt my eyes and it took a minute to allow them to adjust. Melinda stood behind one of the counters, already mixing something in a bowl, while a large floor mixer ran. She’d only been in here for fifteen minutes and she’d already accomplished so much, I thought. I looked around. It had been many years since I’d stepped foot in a kitchen, and from what I could remember, I wasn’t very good at it.
“Good morning!” Melinda sang as she continued to mix some ingredients together in the bowl in front of her.
“Morning.”
“So, I already got things started. I figured the easiest way to go about this would be for me to do the baking and you can do the packaging.”
“No need. Brooke gave me her guide. I went over things. I can at least help with the chocolate chip cookies. They were pretty straight forward.”
Melinda smiled. “Okay, well, we need a bunch of those, so I guess you can start the other mixer. Did she give you her recipe?”
I nodded, pulling the book out from my back pocket and flipping to the page that contained the recipe.
“Okay, well, all ingredients are on the shelf over there. Let me know if you run out of something, or if it gets low, so I can put it on our order sheet.”
“Got it!” I said, pulling down a bag of flour.
As I began dumping things into the mixer, I noticed Melinda watching my every move. I did my best to ignore it, but when I could feel her stare burning into me, I turned and looked at her. “What?”
“Um…nothing,” she said, turning back to her bowl.
“No, what is it?”
“Well, it's just you’re supposed to start by beating the butter, sugar, and eggs together, then you add in dry ingredients.”
“Well, I’ve always done it this way, and it’s always come together for me,” I said, continuing to dump copious amounts of ingredients into the bowl of the large floor mixer.
“Okay. As I said, it’s nothing,” Melinda said, turning back to her bowl, beginning to work a little faster.
As I’d gotten all the ingredients in, I took the bag of flour and began pouring. Soon I was surrounded by a cloud of white dust, and as the air cleared, I once again saw Melinda watching me as she piped cookie after cookie on the sheet in front of her. I smiled at her and flipped the switch on the mixer, which only made that cloud of flour worse and made the white powdery stuff fly out of the bowl, coating almost everything around it.
I coughed then smiled as I watched as the ingredients somewhat came together. When I stopped the mixer, I noticed large chunks of butter that hadn’t mixed in well. Then I grabbed the bag of chocolate chips and began to pour, turning the mixer on again.
Once I had the cookie dough ready, I wheeled the large bowl over to the counter and grabbed one of the large baking sheets Melinda had prepared and began spooning out the dough and dropping them onto the pan. Melinda had already pulled croissants, macarons, and the cocoa cuddles from the oven, along with some cinnamon donuts.
She looked down at the tray, a look of horror on her face. “Tristan, these all need to be uniform size. They can’t go like that.” She grabbed one of the dough balls and ripped it apart in her hand, a funny look lining her face as she took a closer look at the dough.
“What?”
