Brandon didn’t move while Alex moved around the bakery, getting the ovens turned on and warming, and checking his list of what needed to be done. With ten days to go until Christmas, things would start getting hectic soon with orders and deliveries. For his first Christmas owning his own shop, it was intense.
A lightbulb came on in his head at the same time the bakery started to fill with the smell of coffee.
“You’re Brandon.”
“I thought we established that,” Brandon said drily.
“You….” He didn’t want to be indelicate. “You used to work here. With your dad.”
“Yeah. A long time ago now, but yeah.”
Alex shook his head. “You can help.”
Brandon’s dark eyebrows went all the way up.
“Sorry, I’m blunt before I have coffee. Sometimes even after.” Alex went back to the counter to make two mugs. “I need help,” he said again. “To get all this done.”
Brandon looked over at the order list on the wall. It was a long list.
Last year, Alex knew, Carol had reopened the bakery for six weeks in November and December to fulfil their traditional orders throughout the Christmas season. Her friends had rallied and they’d managed to fumble through, but it seemed that this year people had returned to the bakery in droves to place their orders from all over Kent. Just like they used to, when it was owned by David.
“You’re doing all of this on your own?” Brandon asked.
“Yeah. I don’t have an assistant yet.”
“Huh.”
“Milk and sugar?”
“Please.”
Alex went over with the mug and handed it to him. “You owe me,” he said, gently teasing. “For breaking into my bakery.”
From this close he could better see Brandon’s dark brown eyes and stupidly long eyelashes. He was very handsome. Even when he was scowling.
Brandon sipped his coffee, then closed his eyes as his features relaxed. Alex knew the feeling. This was the good stuff, that he’d brought back with him from France and now ordered specially from a friend who still lived there.
“Okay,” Brandon said.
“Great. Let’s get started.”
Alex had a routine in the mornings, one he wasn’t used to sharing. But Brandon knew his way around the bakery and that helped immensely. So, apparently, was the fact that Alex was still using the recipes that David had left behind.
“I used to do the cake decorating,” Brandon offered, apropos of nothing. He was still sipping at his coffee like it was all he had grounding him to reality.
“Oh, God. I have so many damn Christmas cakes to do.”
“I can help with that.”
“Okay. Great.”
That meant Alex was free to get started on the bread, and he flicked the radio on, as was his habit, before getting to work.
Most of the bread he made was kept in the fridges for [proving overnight. There were still a few things that needed to be done in the morning, so he got the mixers started with the recipes he’d carefully weighed out before he left last night.
He had a rhythm of working here now, almost like a delicate dance, where things got done in a certain order. Christmas had thrown a spanner in the works of that routine, but the basics remained. Bread first, then cakes, then pastry, so the croissants and pain au chocolats would be warm out of the oven for the first customers of the day. He had five hours until the shop would open, which was usually plenty of time to get it all done.
Having a second pair of hands to help would make that back-breaking rush a lot easier.
Brandon seemed fairly self-sufficient, too. He’d found the Christmas cakes from the pantry where they’d been maturing for the past three months (while also being regularly soaked in a heady mix of rum and brandy), pulled out the huge bulk order of marzipan and fondant from under the counter, and figured out the list on the wall that detailed each order and who it belonged to.
Alex glanced over every now and then, watching him work steadily topping the cakes with circles of first marzipan, then fondant icing. He worked cleanly, wearing one of the aprons that must have belonged to his dad. Alex wondered if that was stirring up any difficult emotions. He wouldn’t ask.
“What made you buy this place?” Brandon asked after they’d been working in silence for almost an hour.
Alex laughed. “I’ve asked myself that multiple times over the past six months.”
“No, really.”
He took a deep breath, flipped a ball of sourdough onto its baking tray, and brushed the flour off his hands.
“I’ve been working in Paris for the past four years,” he said, nudging the basket to one side with his elbow and picking up the next ball of dough. “In a small but very expensive patisserie in Montmartre. It was amazing, but it was time to come home.”
Brandon said “Huh.” And kept working with his fondant.
“You don’t often hear of places like this coming up for sale. Sure, there’s some cities where new, artisanal, hipster bakeries are really thriving in their communities, but it’s still a gamble.”
“Profit margins are small in bakeries.”
“Yeah,” Alex said. “It’s hard to launch a new business without some kind of financial backing. I had some savings, but not enough to take a huge risk. Being able to step into an established business with a community already around it made my business case more palatable for the bank.”
“Is that why you haven’t changed anything?”
“I’ve changed some things,” Alex protested lightly.
Brandon made a disbelieving sort of noise. “You didn’t even change the name over the door.”
Walker & Sons Bakers, since 1892.
Affectionately known in the local area as just “Walker’s”.
“What’s the point in taking over an established business if you then change everything that people love about it?” Alex asked. “I actually spent a lot of time talking to your mum before I signed the paperwork.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“She’s a good person. She’s looked after me a lot.”
“Huh.”
“When they closed down in January, pretty much everything in here was just left as it was. Your mum turned the ovens off, disconnected the power, and walked out. So when I first looked around there was still your dad’s recipe books, all the books with his orders over the years, everything that I needed to pick it up and keep going where your family left off.”
Alex picked up his scalpel and drew a deep slash through the top of each ball of dough. He glanced at the clock on the wall—right on schedule.
“I didn’t keep everything the same.”
Brandon turned and smirked at Alex over his shoulder. “Really?”
“Shut up. Did you make organic sourdough every morning during your childhood? Focaccia?”
“We used to do a really good cheese and Marmite tear-and-share bread.”
That made Alex laugh. “I kept that, actually.”
“Good.”
“I make a lot of pastries now too.”
“Dad hated making pastry.”
“I don’t blame him, it’s fiddly as fuck. But I make a couple of trays every day… little fruit tarts or eclairs or choux buns. Whatever I feel like.”