Chapter Eleven

“He’s not going to fire you now, not if he just made plans to meet you in person,” Margaret says, picking at her nail polish and swinging her legs. She’s sitting on the counter, taking a short break now that Matt trusts the new barista enough to leave him alone at the counter for a few minutes at a time. It’s only four, nearly an hour left until Nicholas shows up for the samples, and Matt hasn’t been able to work all morning for how much he’s been pacing around the kitchen. He’s relieved that he had the foresight to prep the samples in advance; all he had to do was pop them in the oven and let them bake. If he had had to bake from scratch today, Nicholas would probably fire him on the spot.

That’s still a possibility, though, and Matt grimaces at the thought. “Maybe he wanted to fire me in person,” he grumbles, ignoring the way Margaret rolls her eyes and throws her hands up exasperatedly. “I don’t know, let me down easy or something.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to just text you and then block your number or something?” she asks, and Matt levels an unimpressed look in her direction. “I’m just saying, if I were the owner of a big fancy event planning company, I wouldn’t waste my time playing nice with every single employee I wanted to cut loose. Besides, he’s an asshole, right? It’s not like him to suddenly be all buddy-buddy with you, he probably just wants something out of it.”

“I guess,” Matt concedes, but he’s still not quite convinced. He just has to wait and see what happens when Nicholas arrives, he supposes. Besides, he has plenty to keep him busy until then. All his worried pacing has left him behind on the bakes for the day, and Margaret had mentioned something about running low on cheese danishes when she had come back to the kitchen for her break.

He can bake with his eyes closed, most days, but something about the nervous anticipation leaves a pit in his stomach that he can’t quite ignore. He doesn’t have many bad days anymore. He used to have them more often, days where he had to close up shop or send Margaret home early because his hands were shaking too badly to measure out flour, because there were moments when he would hold a piece of dough up to the light and hear his mother’s voice in the back of his head, telling him that when he can see the light through it without it ripping, it’s ready. Six years is a long time to get over a loss, even one as big as that, but it still trips him up sometimes.

It’s happening now, and he can feel it. The unsteadiness of his hands was always the dead giveaway. He can’t close up shop now, though, not today. He’ll just have to work through it and hope that he doesn’t crack under the stress before Nicholas leaves.

***

The front shop is nearly empty when Matt steps out at a quarter to five, dusting his hands off on his apron before hanging it up on the wall rack by the door. Margaret is alone at the counter, and he figures the other barista must have already gone home for the day. That’s fine with him. The less people around, the better, especially if things are going to go badly once Nicholas shows up.

He’s putting the last of the sample pastries in the box when the bell above the door chimes and James walks through, looking about as troubled as Matthew feels. In any other case, Matthew would have been thrilled to see him, but he’s on edge enough as it is already, and he doesn’t have time to chat with James when Nicholas could show up at any moment. He’s still a bit out of it, too, melancholy and anxious thanks to having to stave off memories of his mother all afternoon. He’s far from his best, and he really doesn’t want James to see that side of him just a day after they first officially met.

James has different plans though, apparently, and he makes a beeline for Matt as soon as he sees him. His expression is determined, eyes set and eyebrows furrowed, hands fiddling with the hem of his tailored suit jacket. Matthew opens his mouth to say something, to tell him that he’s a bit busy or that he’s glad James came but he’ll have to talk to him in a little bit, or maybe just to say that James looks really nice today because he does, he looks stunning, but James speaks first.

“I’m a bit early, I think,” he says, hesitant and nervous-sounding, and Matt stops. He thinks he must have heard it wrong, first. He hadn’t been expecting James, had he? He had asked him to come back, sure, but the only person he had actually had an appointment with today is...

Oh.

Oh.

Everything clicks into place in a split second, and Matthew goes from nervous to irritated to shocked and a bit angry in the time it takes for James to reach the counter. It must show on his face, because James hesitates as he reaches the counter, looking a bit like he would rather curl up underneath a bed than be anywhere near the bakery right now. Matt can relate.

“It was you?” he asks, putting as much venom into is voice as he can manage. James flinches a bit at that, looking down at the counter before looking back up at Matthew.

“I meant to tell you,” he says, voice small. “I did, I—”

“What’s your actual name?” Matt asks, because he has to get that out of the way before he can tackle anything else.

“Nicholas. James is my middle name, but no one calls me Nicholas unless we’re doing business.” It sounds like the truth, at least enough to tamp down the anger bubbling in Matt’s chest at having been lied to, even by omission, by a person he thought he could genuinely like, had he not disliked his alter ego so severely.

“You know,” Matt says, as he hands over the box of samples. “I thought you were coming here to fire me.”

“Why would I fire you?” asks James, his face scrunching up into a bemused expression. “You’ve been great for the past month. Your cakes are some of the best I’ve ever had.”

That manages to startle a laugh out of Matt, surprising both him and James. He gathers his composure quickly, though, not wanting to seem desperate or unprofessional. Down at the other end of the bar, Margaret shoots him a look, confused and curious, but Matt waves her off with a hand hidden behind the counter. She can press him for details all she wants later; for now, Matt is trying to keep his composure from cracking before James leaves the bakery.

“Why don’t we sit down?” James says, and Matt’s chest twists, sharp and aching. He wants to, God does he want to, but just the fact that this is happening is enough to prove to Matt that he never should have tried to come out of his shell in the first place. If he had never taken that step out of the kitchen, had never sat down with James and talked to him about his sister and his job, if he had never let himself get close enough to James that the realization of who he was hurt this much, then it never would have been a problem. He would have met James as Nicholas, given him whatever he ordered for his next event, and gone back into the kitchen without ever saying more than a few words to him.

On the other hand, would he have been able to move past it, if James had told him the truth from the start? He would have wanted to, of course. He would have tried to.

Still, something in him screams at him to stay closed off, to wall himself in and treat James like he would treat Nicholas, even if they’re the same person, after all, and that part of him is louder than the small bit of him that is still hung up on how beautiful James’ eyes look beneath the fringe of his hair.

“I should get back to the kitchen,” he chokes out, nodding sharply. James’ face falls for a second, almost imperceptible, quick enough that Matt wonders if he imagined it once he schools his expression back into blank professionalism.

“Right,” James says, picking up the sample box and turning on his heel, and when he leaves Matt feels like he’s ripped a bit of Matt’s chest out and taken it with him.