Work Text:
Nolan squinted at the obnoxiously bright neon sign, unable to determine what the fancy letters were supposed to spell. After a few moments, he decided that the pastries on display looked good enough that the sign didn't matter, so he walked in.
"Welcome to opening day at Hayes Bakes!" A tall man with a narrow face beamed from behind the counter. "What's your name?"
"Why do you want to know?" Nolan frowned.
The man pointed to his name tag, which used the same fancy font as the sign. "You know my name, so it's only fair."
"Actually, no," Nolan informed him. "I have no idea where one letter ends and the other begins. It's impossible to read."
"Oh," the man frowned, clearly unhappy.
"My name's Nolan!" He didn't know what made him want to cheer up this total stranger, but the resulting smile made him feel better.
"I'm Kevin Hayes." The man - Kevin - reached over the counter to shake Nolan's hand. "So, what can I get for you?"
Nolan leaned down to look at the various pastries. Fortunately, the labels were in a perfectly legible font; unfortunately, Nolan had no idea how to pronounce most of them. "Are these..."
"Italian, baby!" Kevin proclaimed with more verbal force than Nolan considered necessary. "Family recipes passed down from generation to generation."
"I see." Nolan's eyes reached the end of the display, where he finally noticed something recognizable. "Cannolis!"
"No need for the 's' - the name's already plural. How many would you like?"
"A dozen, please." Nolan straightened up and watched Kevin package up his order.
"Now, with the special 'opening day' and 'first customer' discounts, you get twelve of these beauties for the price of six!" Kevin tapped for a few moments until the final price appeared on the cash register screen. "I take cash or credit."
Nolan took out his credit card and tapped to pay. "These won't go bad on a five-minute walk, will they?"
"Nah, and they'll stay fresh for however long your drive is."
"I don't have a drive." Nolan couldn't resist laughing softly at Kevin's confusion. "I live two blocks away."
"Sweet! I live upstairs." Kevin handed Nolan the bag. "Enjoy! Come back soon!"
"Thanks." Nolan left, hoping his face wouldn't do anything weird when he got home.
Nolan's hopes were in vain.
"You're blushing," TK informed Nolan. "Was the baker a hot guy?"
"Not really." Nolan put the box on the table. "Really annoying with how peppy he was, as a matter of fact."
TK opened the box and burst out laughing. "If he wasn't hot, then why'd you buy your least favorite pastry ever?!"
"Because you insisted on dessert for your half-birthday and I know they're your favorite."
"Yes, but you also know that I'm very picky about them because they're my favorite!" TK took a deep breath, then picked one up and took a bite. His eyes widened as he shoved the rest of the pastry into his mouth and ate it very quickly. "Best cannoli ever! You have to have one!"
"No."
TK pushed the box closer to Nolan. "Please? For your best friend's half-birthday, not to mention your roommate's half-birthday?"
"You fill both roles."
"Which means I have two reasons to nag you into doing what I want you to do!"
Nolan groaned and took a cannoli. He finished it in about five bites. "I honestly can't tell a difference between this and any other cannoli."
"Well, you'll just have to go back to the bakery and find something you actually like!" At Nolan's glare, TK explained, "I'm very familiar with the way you look when you think someone's cute. And I saw that look when you came in just now."
"He's not that cute!" Nolan insisted. "He just looked miserable when I pointed out something negative and I wanted to cheer him up!"
"Sure, Nolan."
After a week of TK nagging, Nolan went back to the bakery. Knowing that its name was 'Hayes Bakes' didn't make the sign any easier to read. However, when he went inside, he noticed something different about Kevin: "You changed the font on your name tag."
"Everyone who came in struggled to read it," Kevin said. "It'd be way too expensive to order a new sign for outside, but I just printed the name tag at home, same as the labels for the pastries. Speaking of which... tell me about the cannoli?"
"Best cannoli ever," Nolan quoted TK.
Kevin's face brightened, making Nolan feel justified in not sharing his own opinion. "What can I get you this time?"
Nolan scanned the pastries and decided on a name that looked easy to say. "Biscotti?"
"An excellent choice!" Kevin walked over to them. "How many?"
"A dozen, please."
Kevin nodded and began packaging them. "Got someone special to share with?"
"For a certain definition of 'special,' I guess. He's a nuisance, but he pays his part of the rent and knows me too well."
"I see." Kevin's eyes seemed to dim for a moment as he moved to the cash register. "With the 'local resident' discount, you get twelve for the price of nine!"
"So unless I move, I'll never pay full price?" Nolan asked as he paid.
"Yep!" Kevin handed Nolan the box. "Enjoy!"
"Thanks." Nolan returned home, deliberately not wondering why Kevin had asked about someone special.
Both Nolan and TK loved the biscotti. In fact, TK loved the biscotti so much that he declared pastries from the bakery "our new weekly tradition." Since Nolan couldn't control his blushing whenever he talked about Kevin, TK insisted that Nolan do the shopping for this new weekly tradition.
"Nolan!" Kevin practically sang upon his arrival the next week.
"Hi," Nolan said in a much more normal tone.
Kevin laughed. "Why so grumpy, baby cat?"
Nolan arched an eyebrow. "Baby cat?"
"You keep trying to act tough, but you're soft at heart," Kevin explained.
"If you say so." Nolan began scanning the pastries. "We loved the biscotti so much that I've been ordered to buy something from you every week."
"Nice!" Kevin pointed to an item in the middle of the display. "Try the baci di dama - maybe you'll get some literally."
"Huh?"
"The name means 'lady's kisses,' so..."
Nolan shook his head furiously. "No, no, no. Definitely no ladies for me."
"Oh!" Kevin sounded surprised, but also happy. "Same here in the literal sense, but the cookies are good anyway. A dozen for the price of nine?"
"I haven't moved, so yes." Nolan watched Kevin do the packaging. "So, do you have someone special to bake for?"
"You're my only repeat customer so far, so..." Kevin shrugged and gave Nolan the box. "Enjoy!"
The tradition continued. Every week, Nolan went to the bakery and put up with Kevin's unwavering enthusiasm for Italian pastries Nolan had never heard of, but always enjoyed eating with TK despite the incessant teasing. Nolan didn't bother wasting energy in trying to control his blushing, but he continued to insist that he didn't like Kevin very much, especially not in the way TK implied.
Things changed unexpectedly after a few months, when a big work project kept Nolan at the office later than usual several days in a row. TK offered to go to the bakery to keep the tradition alive, so Nolan explained the 'local resident' discount and did his best not to wonder what Kevin would think when TK showed up instead of him.
Nolan wasn't sure what to expect when he finally made it home, but it definitely wasn't TK laughing very loudly. "What's gotten into you?"
"There isn't a 'local resident' discount!" TK cackled.
"Yes, there is," Nolan argued. "I've never calculated the exact amount I should be paying, but my mental math is good enough that I know I'm getting a discount."
"Yeah, but it's apparently a 'Nolan the baby cat' discount."
Nolan blinked. "I don't know what to ask first."
"Sit down, try the zeppole, and I'll explain," TK said as he finally stopped laughing. He waited for Nolan to follow his instructions before speaking agian: "So I got there at your usual time, and Kevin looked up all happy until he realized I wasn't you, then he frowned - just for a moment, but I saw it."
"Probably annoyed at having to crane his neck to see you."
"Don't interrupt!" TK glared. "I told him I lived two blocks away and was wondering what he recommended. He gave me a few suggestions, most of which we've already tried, so I went with the zeppole. He rang me up and didn't say anything about a discount. Before I paid, I asked if I could take a picture of the display for my best friend Nolan to make him jealous at work. His jaw almost dropped, but he said yes, so I made sure that I got a good shot of the price of the zeppole. He didn't ring me up again to give me a discount - he just gave me the box and told me to say 'hi, baby cat,' which I just did."
Nolan groaned. "Please don't call me that."
"I haven't decided that part yet, but..." TK took out his phone and showed Nolan the picture of the pastries display. "Right in the middle is the zeppole price. Now, if we do some math..." He began writing on the top of the box. "This is full price, and this is the price of nine. If we look at my credit card app..." He tapped away at his phone, then showed the most recent transaction to Nolan. "I paid full price."
"Oh."
"Yeah," TK smirked. "He likes you, you like him, so next week we're going together and I'm making sure you go for it!"
"No."
"Yes."
It would have been easy enough for Nolan to go to the bakery at a different time the following week to keep TK from joining him, but he knew that TK would be very vocal in his disappointment if that happened, so he stuck to his normal time. TK spent the walk over talking through a ranking of the various pastries they'd eaten, only to stop mid-sentence when they walked through the door so he could shout, "Kevin, the genius baker!"
"Hi, TK!" Kevin waved. "And hi, Nolan! I missed you last week."
"Work was awful," Nolan sighed. "I missed you, too."
"So... what can I get you two?"
TK's grin changed from 'very happy' to 'plotting something,' which made Nolan nervous. "Well, I'd love to buy a dozen cannolis -"
"No need for the 's' - the name's already plural," Kevin and Nolan said in unison. Kevin's smile widened just a bit.
"Right, sorry," TK said. "Anyway, the problem is that Nolan doesn't like cannoli at all." Nolan turmed to glare at him, but TK simply continued to speak: "I'm going to give you two time to talk and decide on what we should get this week. For the record, Nolan and I are best friends, roommates, and gay, but not boyfriends." He walked out, leaving Nolan and Kevin alone.
Kevin's jaw dropped. "Why would you buy a dozen cannoli if you didn't like them?! Were the labels impossible to read and you didn't bother telling me or something?"
"No, I could read the labels. I just didn't know how to pronounce most of them except cannoli."
"Have..." Kevin's face fell. "Have you been lying to me about everything I've made for you?"
"No!" Nolan insisted. "I deliberately didn't tell you what I thought about cannoli. TK really did say that they were the best cannoli ever, so I just repeated that."
Kevin blinked quickly, as trying to keep from crying. "What about everything else?"
"I didn't have to lie about anything else. Everything's been delicious." Nolan tentatively walked up to the counter and reached out to rest his hand on Kevin's arm. "I've never lied about what I like from the bakery. It's taken me awhile to undersand my feelings for the baker, with help from a very smug TK."
"Really?"
"Yes, really. I like you a lot."
"I like you a lot, too, baby cat - did TK mention he didn't get a discount?"
"Yep. Showed me a picture of the price, then did the math on the top of the box."
Kevin laughed. "Fair enough." He bent down and selected a pastry from the display. "Try this sfogliatella?"
Nolan allowed Kevin to feed him the pastry, which was somewhat difficult over the counter but worth it for Kevin's big smile. "Wow!" Nolan declared
"Glad to hear it," Kevin grinned. "I'm going to call them sfogliatelle allo gattino."
Nolan frowned suspiciously. "What does that mean?"
"Sfogliatelle baby cat-style."
"No."
Kevin sighed dramatically. "Fine. I won't give them a fancy name. I'll just tell people they were inspired by my... boyfriend, if you want?"
"I do want." Nolan gave him a quick kiss. "And I don't care about the discount."
Tisaniere Sat 10 Apr 2021 07:47PM UTC
Comment Actions
eafay70 Sat 10 Apr 2021 08:08PM UTC
Comment Actions
mariothellama Sun 11 Apr 2021 02:53PM UTC
Comment Actions
eafay70 Mon 12 Apr 2021 01:32AM UTC
Comment Actions
suburbanmotel Tue 13 Apr 2021 02:57PM UTC
Comment Actions
eafay70 Tue 13 Apr 2021 03:17PM UTC
Comment Actions
derpyjeffcarter Thu 15 Apr 2021 06:29AM UTC
Comment Actions
eafay70 Thu 15 Apr 2021 10:30AM UTC
Comment Actions