5. Ta-da
TA-DA
“No wonder your arms are big as shi—” I cut myself off, glancing at the innocent child directly across the counter, and drag a hand over my face.
From the amused and unimpressed look she gives me, she’s definitely heard worse in her short four years.
“No one needs the gym when they do this every afternoon.”
Who knew baking was such a workout? All I’ve done is roll out some dough, and my arms feel like two limp noodles. Pouring coffee tomorrow without full motor function will be a hazard for everyone involved.
Owen chuckles and heads for the industrial fridge.
He looks a little ridiculous with hair and beard nets covering half his face, but somehow, he still manages to be sinfully attractive.
I’m not convinced I’m pulling the look off half as well.
Staying here—hell, just being within a fifty-foot radius of this man—has been an exercise in self-restraint. One I fear I might not be passing.
He returns a moment later and drops a cling-wrapped package onto the counter. It lands with a decisive thwack, like whatever’s inside has some serious weight to it.
“What’s that?” I ask, leaning over to get a better look.
Not that I get far. I had to stand on my tiptoes earlier to get enough pressure behind the rolling pin.
My stomach barely clears the counter. Owen said if I’m going to keep helping, he’ll need to invest in a second step stool.
I think he was mostly joking. However, it’s not a terrible idea.
“Beurrage,” he grunts.
“Excuse me, what?”
“Beurrage.” He repeats the word again, like hearing it a second time will help me better understand its meaning.
“Oh, perfect. That really clears things up.”
“Butter, mixed with a little flour, chilled into a firm block.” He peels back the cling film and lifts the slab onto a sheet of parchment he’d laid out earlier, then covers it with another. I watch on, fascinated. Apparently, we’re making Danish pastries. I remain unconvinced.
Across the counter, Annabelle is hard at work, a bag of icing clutched in her tiny hands as she decorates a tray of sugar cookies.
Her tongue pokes out between her teeth, curls tucked neatly into her own little hair net, a purple apron tied tight over her shirt.
She’s taking the task very seriously and doing a far better job than I’d ever be able to accomplish.
Once a week, she sets up shop at a table in the corner of the cafe.
A quarter a pop, and the cookies always sell out within thirty minutes.
Quite the little entrepreneur is our sweet Annabelle.
Owen doesn’t have the heart to tell her they cost three times the amount to make.
Regardless, the task keeps her busy while he works through his never-ending to-do list. A list I wouldn’t mind adding myself to.
A sudden, sharp bang sounds mere inches from me, and I jump about a foot. Annabelle doesn’t even flinch as Owen brings the rolling pin down on the slab of butter again and again, beating the poor thing into submission.
“What are you doing?” I gasp, hands flying up to cover my ears. My heart beats faster than the situation probably warrants, but the abrasiveness of it all sets a familiar panic aflutter in my chest.
Owen looks up, a deep crease forming between his brows. “What’s the matter, Finley?” He sets the rolling pin aside and starts toward me.
I shake my head quickly. “I’m good. Surprised me, that’s all.”
He nods and picks his weapon back up, waiting for my go-ahead before continuing his butter brutalization until it’s nothing more than a thin sheet.
“Détrempe.” He points to the dough still rolled flat in front of me, then to the butter. “Beurrage.” He lifts the butter with the parchment, flipping it neatly onto the dough. “Paton,” he announces with the same conviction as a magician would ta-da.
“Ah,” I exhale, like I understood literally any of that. “Fold in the cheese, got it.”
He frowns, glancing down. “There’s no cheese in this recipe.”
“No, you just fold in the—” I gesture helplessly. “Surely you know Moira Rose.”
“Never met her.”
I blink back at him. “Schitt’s Creek—Jesus. How old even are you?”
“At least one hundred fifty,” Annabelle pipes up. From the tone in her voice, she’s either a master of sarcasm or genuinely believes her uncle is the oldest human alive.
I lean over to give her a floury high five.
“I’m not even forty.” He wrinkles his nose, adding a reluctant, “Until April,” under his breath. Somehow, I’m able to contain my laughter behind my hand.
Well, almost. I never claimed to be perfect.
“Alright, that’s enough from you two.” The firm, commanding tone sends an unexpected shiver up my spine. I shake it off before it gets the better of me.
Owen does several quick, complicated movements, which result in the butter being carefully tucked inside the dough. He wraps it snugly back in cling film and returns the bundle to the fridge.
“Where’d you learn to do all this?” I ask, watching as he pulls tubs of white powder from a cabinet and lines them up on the stainless-steel counter.
I have approximately a million questions about his life, mostly how he ended up running an alarmingly pink cafe.
But until now, there hasn’t been a good moment to ask.
“Delilah, mostly. A few YouTube tutorials. About a hundred episodes of The Great British Baking Show.” He shrugs, like that isn’t the most endearing thing I’ve heard in my entire life.
Owen collects a tatty notebook from a drawer by the fridge, flipping through the pages until he finds what he’s looking for and hands it to me.
It’s some sort of instruction manual, although the handwriting is barely legible, the pages stained with what I’m choosing to believe is dried milk.
I squint at the words, trying to puzzle out what I’m looking at, and how the same man who creates those gorgeous chalkboard signs also writes like a first-day kindergartener.
“That’s our chocolate chip muffin recipe.” He nudges the pile of ingredients toward me, followed by a large mixing bowl. “Should make two dozen. If you do it right.”
“Your faith in me is overwhelming.” I roll my eyes and flip through a few more pages, all covered in the same messy scrawl. The little book looks like it hasn’t been touched in years. “You keep all the recipes in here?”
He taps a finger against his temple. “I keep them in here. Delilah insisted I write them down for safekeeping. It helps ease her mind while she’s away.”
I nod, getting to work. It takes a few minutes to decode which scribble corresponds with which Roman letter. However, once I crack it, the recipe is easy enough to follow. Before long, everything’s mixed, and I’m portioning batter into the muffin tins Owen already greased for me.
“Twenty-four, exactly,” I point out, perhaps a little smugly.
He hums his approval as I slide each tray into the oven.
“Did you always want to own a bakery?” I ask, heading to the sink to wash up.
The warm, rich smell from the ovens is already making my stomach growl so loudly I’m surprised Owen can hear me over it.
“Not exactly. Although I didn’t really have a plan before this.
Delilah went off to culinary school after graduation, and I stayed.
Trained as a mechanic for a bit. It wasn’t my calling, so I picked up random handyman jobs here and there.
They paid the bills but didn’t exactly inspire me out of bed each morning. ”
I can sympathize. Back in Vancouver, I worked a dead-end job at a grocery store. Nothing’s worse than an eight a.m. alarm reminding you of the long day ahead, stacking shelves, and being yelled at over the price of canned corn.
“I’d almost resigned myself to moving to the city when she came home with a culinary arts degree and this big dream of opening a bakery in town. There used to be one here when we were kids—same spot. However, it had been closed for years. The place was falling apart, but it still had good bones.”
He glances around the kitchen like he can picture the way it used to look.
“Our parents thought she was crazy, using all her savings to cover the down payment. Every time we walked past, she’d stop and stare through the window like she could see everything it could be. It was hard not to believe in her dream.”
He smiles, softer than before, and it does something deeply inconvenient to my ability to breathe. I could get addicted to a smile like that. Heck, I might already be.
“I helped her fix the place up. Then, when she needed a part-time employee, I said, look no further. Pretty sure I was more of a hindrance during those first few years. Forgetting key ingredients. Burning things left and right. I wasn’t born with the same baking gene she was.”
“Hence the book?” I wave the tatty thing in his direction, surprised it doesn’t disintegrate completely.
“Hence the book,” he confirms, with a chuckle.
“I eventually caught on. Turns out, the secret is passion. I didn’t have it at first, but watching Delilah come alive, flour coating her hair and fingers…
” His voice wavers slightly, and it takes him a second to navigate the sudden surge of emotion.
“It kind of snowballed from there. Next thing I knew, we were full-blown business partners, and twelve years had passed. Now I can’t imagine my life having gone any other way. ”
His eyes are bright, but there’s something melancholy lingering underneath.
“You miss her,” I say quietly, so I don’t upset Annabelle. She’s still at the counter, fully committed to achieving equal sprinkle distribution.