Sugar

of dough and smiles :)

There was flour on the pastry chef’s nose and Karry wanted to die. How could somebody look so serious and cute all at once? Especially while icing petals onto a cupcake’s frosting? How could somebody concentrate like that with flour on their nose? Wasn’t it itchy? What if he sneezed?

“Order up,” the head waiter, Zhihong (who had yet to get an English name), said pointedly. Karry snapped out of his confused daydream and took the plates in his hands and fixed a 100-watt smile on his face.

“Hey there guys,” he greeted his customers. “How are we doing today? I’ve got one caramel cheesecake here – oh, is that for you? There you go miss, no trouble at all. And a red velvet cupcake here, sir. Can I get you any drinks refills? Mmhmm. Mmhmm. One latte and one jasmine tea, coming right up. You need anything else, just let me know.” He beamed and swept away to the drinks section of the open-plan café, where you could watch the cooks preparing everything while you waited. Part café, part bakery, all spectacle.

He whistled quietly as he got their drinks together on a tray, adjusted his dress shirt and penguin waistcoat uniform, and chattered to his customers while he served them. A big smile and tight shirt went a long way for tips and Karry was absolutely shameless about it. He had running shoes to save up for, after all.

As he turned away from them to greet his newest table, he could have sworn somebody was watching him. It wasn’t an unusual feeling – he was a waiter, after all, and honest enough to know he got checked out by customers pretty frequently. But this felt different from usual. He looked casually around as he walked to the kitchen, trying to pinpoint who it was. Then he saw from the corner of his eye, the pastry chef with flour on his nose turned abruptly away and refused to meet his eye. Huh. He figured the guy must have seen him flirting pretty hard with his customers and hoped it wouldn’t get reported to Zhihong. He was just doing his job, but didn’t want to seem like he was over the line.

Though later in the afternoon, when they had no customers, he had to laugh to himself. One of his tables, a group of five giggly university student girls, had left a generous tip and a napkin with five numbers on it. He wasn’t going to tell anybody about it, but another one of the waiters looked over his shoulder and started laughing.

“Oi, Casanova,” Jackson sniggered. “Get back to work already.”

“Shut up, Jackson.”

“Never. Hey, everyone! Guess who just got a load of numbers as a tip!”

“Jackson, you asshole.”

Roy looked up from the batter he was stirring at the noise. The other cooks and waiters turned around as well. Roy repressed the usual sigh of longing when he saw it was Karry in the centre of attention as usual. Christ. He knew it was good for business to hire attractive and charming people, but there has to be a limit somewhere, if only for the sake of poor sods like himself who were hopelessly distracted by them.

“How many numbers?” One of the other cooks called with a laugh.

“Five,” Karry replied with an embarrassed shrug.

He is so out of your league, Roy. He looked back to his work, checked the consistency of the batter and added a pinch more flour to thicken it. He tried to ignore the round of cheers and wolf-whistles, but it made his chest hurt.

“You gonna call any of them?” A waiter asked through the noise.

“No,” Karry replied, trying to be casual. Roy stopped stirring despite himself, straining his ears.

“What?” Jackson laughed. “Are you kidding me, Karry? Five gorgeous young women and you’re not even a little interested in any of them?”