Kissing In Cars

1

The smell of fresh cupcakes hits my nose as I open up the oven door. I have three trays of cupcakes inside, all of them a perfect golden brown colour on top. I slide my oven mitts on and pull each tray out carefully making sure not to hit the tops of the cupcakes on the top rack of the oven, which I have done before plenty of times. 

I set all three trays carefully on the countertop beside me to let the cupcakes cool down. Usually, I have a someone who primarily does this, my friend and professional baker, Dena, but she's off work today due to a family thing, so I stepped back into the kitchen today. It feels nice to be in the kitchen, after all this is what I started my business for, but lately these days I find myself covering more of the paperwork than anything else. I still find time to come into the kitchen especially when I launch a new product.

I opened my bakery almost exactly four years ago day. At first business was slow but over the past couple of years I developed a good clientele. I learned what was working in terms of baked goods and took a couple of non-sellers off the menu, hired a couple of front-of-house workers and bakers, and now I'm proud to say that I'm the most popular bakery in town.

Like I said, usually I am doing paperwork and researching new fun things to add to the menu, or even making posts for social media, but today I had a baker call in sick and my front-of-house worker left five minutes ago, so I'm running the whole show. Its not too hard seeing as how we're closing in less than ten minutes and all my baked goods are now out of the oven which means I can go to the front and start shutting things down.

I start my pre-closing ritual, starting with emptying the coffee carafes. Both of them are nearly empty already anyways, with maybe about a cup left of coffee in each. I rinse them under hot water careful to not let it splash onto my skin. I leave them upside down in one sink to dry out a little then wet a rag in the other sink and start washing down the counters. I was packing up bundles of cookies today so there's cookie crumbs all over the counters, but I really only having myself to blame for this.

I hear the sound of the bell on the bakery door chime as someone opens it and walks in. We're two minutes until closing which means all the staff except for myself has left. Usually nobody walks in at this time, so its either someone who forgot to pick something up or somebody who likes to live life on the edge a little by coming in so close to closing. 

I look up and immediately I'm in shock. Standing in front of me is someone I never expected to see again, especially not in my bakery of all places. My ex-boyfriend stands in front of me, sharing an equally shocked look.

Tony Perry.