Chapter Thirteen

Karen breezes into the bakery early the next day, ordering coffee from Margaret and leaning over the counter to make conversation. Matt hears her voice from the kitchen and comes out to say hello. He hasn’t seen Karen in a while, not since James started placing orders in her stead. She seems happy to see him, giving him a bright smile and a once-over despite the fact that he’s covered in flour and icing.

“Are you free?” she asks after they get their pleasantries out of the way, and Margaret raises her eyebrows at him.

“I...” he starts, looking back at the kitchen door. His assistant is in today, and she’s been doing well enough that he feels okay leaving her alone for a bit. Still, he has the nagging feeling that this has something to do with James, and after the day before he’s a bit wary of surprises. He’d really rather not be cornered again, even if it’s by James’ sister this time and not James himself. “Yeah,” he says eventually, glancing at the clock and giving Margaret an unimpressed look when she gives him a discreet thumbs-up. “I could spare an hour or so.”

“Good,” Margaret replies. “We’re going out for lunch.”

Matt starts. “We are?” he asks, but she’s out the door before he can catch up, and he has no choice but to follow her.

***

She takes him to a restaurant a couple blocks away, sitting him down at a table and ordering drinks as soon as the waiter comes by. It’s a fancy place, the kind that Matt almost never eats at but that he wouldn’t be surprised to find out Karen and James frequent. Or not, perhaps; he had known James was upper-class from the moment he saw the man. The expensive-looking suits gave it away, but James had seemed surprisingly down-to-earth when they had actually talked. He had said that he had built the company from scratch with Karen, hinting at not really coming from much. It was refreshing, really, to meet someone that had made it big and stayed humble despite it all. Matt wouldn’t say he had made it big, but he can relate, he supposes.

“So,” says Karen once they’re settled in, steepling her fingers in front of her nose. Matt raises an eyebrow at her. “James came to see you.”

Ah. There it is. Matt grimaces, ducking his head in an attempt to make it less obvious. “You know about it, I’m sure,” he says, trying not to sound too accusing. It hadn’t been Karen’s fault, of course, but Matt could hardly blame James when he wasn’t around to hear it for himself.

“Mm,” Karen hums, staring at him from over the tips of her fingers. “I was the one who told him to tell you, actually.”

“Why didn’t he just say it at the beginning?” Matt asks, hoping Karen has more of a concrete answer. He’s been turning the question over in his head since the night before, trying to figure out why James wouldn’t have just introduced himself as Matt’s boss in the first place, especially if he knew who Matt was from the beginning. Not to mention, Margaret had told him that James was all but a regular at the bakery. Had he really never made an attempt to introduce himself to Matt on any of the days he had come in?             

Karen gives him a sympathetic look, expression softening slightly. “James isn't the best at meeting new people,” she says. “I think he just didn’t want to mess anything up between you two.”

“What could he have messed up?”

Karen sighs. “I think I mentioned it when we first started working together, but he’s a little intense about his work.”

That startles a laugh out of Matt, and he bites back the sound as quickly as he can. Intense is the understatement of the century; if Matt had a dollar for every time he had gotten riled up because of how demanding James was, he’d have enough money to open another bakery. Karen just nods in agreement, an amused smile playing around the corners of her lips.

“You saw it yourself, then. The thing is, James knows that people don’t like him. He’s the best at what he does, so they tolerate him as much as they need to while he gets the job done, but no one really sticks around after that.”

“Why would that make him lie about who he is, though?”

Karen taps her fingers against the table, breaking eye contact to look up and thank the waiter when he brings their drinks before looking back at Matt. “Did he lie, though?”

Matt stops to think about it. “By omission, yeah,” he says, and Karen shakes her head, eyes wide and sad.

“Maybe he just didn’t want you to think of him as your boss,” she says, taking a sip of her drink. “Maybe he just wanted a friend.”

***

Karen’s words are still ringing in Matt’s ears that night, after Margaret had gone home and the bakery was closed up for the day. It’s peaceful at night, the customers gone and the evening light filtering through the windows in the front of the shop. Margaret had offered to stay and help, but Matt had sent her home, wanting a bit of solitude to think over everything Karen had said earlier.

He’s rolling out dough for another loaf of bread when his phone chimes, lighting up in its place at the other end of the counter. At this hour, Matt would assume that it was James texting him about another order, but James hasn’t contacted him once since they spoke the night before. It’s probably just Margaret, he rationalizes, checking in on him to make sure he hasn’t collapsed of exhaustion or grief or something equally as ridiculous. He ignores it and keeps rolling out the dough. He’s just covered it with plastic wrap and set it away to rise when his phone lights up again, chiming twice in quick succession.

Matthew, the top notification reads, under James’ contact name in bold black letters, and Matt’s heart drops into his stomach. Setting the phone aside, he pointedly avoids reading the other two messages, opting instead for wiping down the countertop and setting all the dishes neatly in the dishwasher. Work keeps his mind off the rolling anxiety in his stomach, if only barely. There’s a rhythm to it that tends to calm him down whenever he starts thinking about his mother, and it helps to quiet the thoughts of James now, as well. Outside of the shop, the muffled sounds of the evening traffic blanket Matthew, holding the oppressive silence of the night back and giving him white noise to drown out the loudest of his thoughts.

He can’t ignore it forever, though, and another chime from his phone has him dusting off his hands and reaching to check the messages before he can stop himself. His stomach twists a bit, the anxious kind of anticipation, leaving him buzzing and oddly distant at the same time. The newest message is from Margaret, a short I’ll be in early tomorrow, don’t worry yourself too much. Matt smiles despite himself, because Margaret has always known what to say to set him at ease. She’s like the little sister he never had, picking him up and dusting him off whenever he gets too down to do it himself. Thanks, he sends back, short and sweet.

The other three are from James, and Matt has to take a breath to brace himself before he starts reading. The unease in his chest crescendos to a full-on tidal wave of anxiety. He doesn’t even know why he’s so nervous, since he had been the one to cut things off between them. Somehow, though, talking to Karen today had set off something in him that didn’t seem to want to let go of James, despite it all. You don’t know what you have until you lose it, his mother used to say, a phrase that rings true every time Matt finds himself missing her. He’s found something else to apply it to now, though. He’s not sure if it’s James, the endearingly down-to-earth friend he just made or Nicholas, his boss who keeps nearly the same schedule that Matt does and texts him well into the night that he misses, but he supposes it doesn’t really matter. Nicholas kept him company on the nights that he was too weighed down with memories to bake, while James gave him friendship and good conversation and something that seemed to just click from the first moment they began talking. He misses them both, he misses James’ entire self, and the part that has him most tied up in knots is that he can’t quite seem to pinpoint when he stopped caring about the name and started caring about the person, instead.

The first text from James reads Matthew, the one he had seen before. Below that, Karen told me she came to see you today. I told her not to, sorry about that. Then, Kind of disappointed she got to take you out for lunch before I did.

The last message makes Matt’s stomach do a funny sort of flip when he reads it. That could count as flirting, he supposes, but then again, James is notoriously hard to read. Add in the lack of facial cues that come with a text message, and Matt doesn’t even want to consider the risk of texting back. Still, James seems in a good enough mood despite the way Matt had all but sent him out the day before. In the back of his head, Karen’s words from the restaurant echo back at him. Maybe he just wanted a friend.

Friends. Matt can do friends, even if it’s with someone he has a somewhat complicated business history with. Matt can message James back, ask him how his day went and if he’ll be coming into the shop tomorrow. Matt can sit down at a table with James and joke about work and do his best not to get lost in James’ piercing blue eyes, just like he had the first day they talked. Matt can...

Matt can sit in the middle of his kitchen for five minutes, staring at his phone and scrambling for something to say. It takes him longer than he would like before he can think of a reply, holding in a breath as he types out, Stop by the bakery tomorrow, and we’ll see about lunch. He flushes as soon as the message delivers, reading it and re-reading it to try and figure out if it sounded a touch suggestive, if James would take it as anything other than an innocent invitation.

The reply is nearly instantaneous. Only if you promise me fresh-baked bread stares up at him in small, rounded letters on the phone screen, and it takes Matt a second to realize that the stretch he’s feeling in his cheeks is because he’s grinning from ear to ear. If Margaret could see him now, she wouldn’t let him live it down for a year. Before he can reply, his phone chimes in his hand, and It might have to be a late lunch, work is killer. Or an early dinner, I’m not picky pops up on the screen, pushing the earlier messages further up.

I’m here whenever you come in, Matt sends back, willing down the pounding of his heart and the flush on his cheeks.

It’s a date, replies James.