Page 41 of The Alpha and the Baker

Castiel

Misery May Love Company, but Joy Does Too

A strange sound roused me, and I woke up begrudgingly. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize it was Felicia’s alarm.

“What time is it?” I groaned, rolling over and slapping at the alarm clock that I couldn’t see. Mostly because I hadn’t opened my eyes.

“Oh, sorry about that. Forgot to turn off my backup alarm,” Felicia’s voice drifted from the bathroom. “I’m running a bit behind schedule.”

For all my vowing I’d look out for Felicia’s well-being, not only had I kept her up quite late, but I’d also worn her out physically. Not that I was apologetic about any of that. In fact, I was pretty sure my pride had expanded three times its regular size with how hard she’d come for me.

My cock stirred in interest, confused at the early hour, but I dismissed it. It wasn’t the time. As much as I would love a morning romp with the woman I was dating, her early morning hours weren’t free.

“You can head out if you want.” Felicia said from the doorway as she hopped into her uniform pants. I tried to ignore the alluring jiggle of her thighs as she did so and failed spectacularly.

Goddamn, she was sexy.

“Sorry to kiss and run, but I’ve got a lot of prep to get through, and I didn’t really plan for last night.” Another grin from her, and I couldn’t help but share it.

I hadn’t planned it, either, but I was beyond glad that it had happened. “I could help you,” I offered as she hopped out of sight.

Felicia’s head popped out of her bathroom, long hair still wet from the shower, and she looked adorably perplexed. “You want to help? Like in the kitchen?”

“Yeah, why not? I might not be a baking whiz like you, but I can follow instructions. I can wash dishes and haul any heavy packs of ingredients you might have.” All my muscle had come in handy when I’d helped her with her flour delivery.

The smile that grew across her face was downright angelic. I didn’t think I’d ever seen anyone look so happy at the prospect of my company in the kitchen. It was certainly flattering.

“You got yourself a deal! I’ll go heat up a couple of breakfast sandwiches if you want the bathroom real fast. I’m guessing you’ll want two or three?”

“Two will be fine.” I grinned at her. “I imagine that I’ll probably be sneaking little bites of delicious things all morning.”

“I have a name, you know,” Felicia said with a cheeky grin as she hurried out her bedroom. “I’ll even let you lick the spoon if you’re good.”

That was a convincing argument if I ever heard one.

Although my wolf wanted to go back to bed, I got up and went to the bathroom to refresh myself.

I was slightly nervous that I’d be out of my depth in Felicia’s kitchen, but I was looking forward to it.

I knew the space was important to her, and the fact that she was so happy to share it with me filled my chest with all sorts of warm and fuzzy things.

Hopefully, I wouldn’t fuck anything up.

I shoved that thought out of my mind. If there was one thing I’d learned in the past few days, it was that dwelling on my anxiety did me no good. In fact, it tended to rob me of what joy there was to be had.

I hurried down once I was refreshed and saw Felicia hauling various things and setting them down on different counters. I watched for a moment, then noticed she had laminated papers hanging above those sections. Ingredient lists.

“Oh, that’s clever.”

“What’s that?” she asked, huffing slightly as she set down the biggest Crisco container I’d ever seen.

“Oh, nothing,” I answered quickly, not wanting to distract her. I was supposed to be a help, not a hindrance. “You got something heavy you want me to lift?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.” There was that beaming smile again.

Even if I wasn’t a shifter, I liked to think that it would power me up enough that I could carry anything in her shop if she only wished it.

“I’ve got three batches of sourdough, about eight different types of bagel batches and a big ol’ focaccia that’s gonna make at least three loaves all in the retarder. ”

I paused mid-step. “I’m sorry, what?”

She frowned at me, then burst out laughing. “Right. I’ve been in the business too long because I forgot what that sounded like. So, to retard means to slow something down, so when it’s used in music, or in baking, or even in firefighting, you’re just saying slow it down.

“Unfortunately, a bunch of jerkwipes decided to hijack it and use it as a slur against people, which sucks, but I assure you, my retarder just uses a cooler to slow down the natural process of yeast, ya know? It controls that natural fermentation process to make proofing even smoother and more predictable.”

“Ah, that makes sense. But what does your dough have to prove? Has it committed a crime?”

I tried to keep my face as deadpan as possible when I asked, and it worked like a charm. Felicia gave me another quizzical look before connecting her comment about proofing to my question.

“Oh my god, you’re terrible . ”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to batter you with my puns.”

“Oh no! No, no, no! ” she said with mock drama, emphatically waving her arms. “It is far too early for baking puns. Especially ones that sound like they came from the back of a Highlights magazine!”

“I take offense to that. I assure you, I make all my terrible puns from scratch.”

I batted my eyes at her, directly mimicking the same move she used on me.

She reached into a bag of flour. Felicia moved surprisingly fast for a human, and the next thing I knew, I had a flour print of her hand on my face.

“Did you just Simba me?” I asked, trying to hold back incredulous laughter, only to have it come out in short, staccato huffs.

“No,” she responded primly. “If I had, I would have just streaked some across your forehead with my thumb. No, I went all Uruk - hai on you with a whole-ass handprint. Welcome to the bakery, Lurtz! ”

Funny, intelligent, a thicc ass, and she knew Lord of the Rings well enough to name the character created specifically in The Fellowship of the Rings movies for Aragon to kill directly?

She really was the perfect woman.

“Come here, you!” I said, lunging toward her and the flour. “A Lurtz needs his Ugluk! ”

“No, no! I’m not the hobbit you’re looking for!” she said before darting to the side, dropping to her knees, and skittering under one of the counters. Wow, she really moved fast. “You’re not welcome here in the Shire!”

Then she lobbed a frozen stick of butter at me.

I dodged, but only barely, because I was laughing so hard. I was supposed to be helping Felicia, and I had thought that would mean a lot of hard work and being out of my depth, but so far I was having a blast. I’d never had so much fun after waking up at four-thirty in the morning.

“You’re gonna regret that.” I leaped over the counter and chased after her.

Felicia’s bakery wasn’t big, so I had to nerf myself a bit to give her more time to scramble away. I could have caught her a couple of times, but where was the fun in that? As both a wolf and a man, I liked to chase just as much as she enjoyed being pursued.

Eventually, I did catch her. I wrapped my arms around her waist, and I jerked her flush to my front. The moment we made contact, all that levity drained away, leaving both of us a bit breathless and very much distracted.

“We’re supposed to be getting ingredients out,” she murmured.

“We are.” I was tempted to say “fuck it” and crash my lips to hers, but I couldn’t mess with Felicia’s business. It was her livelihood. I straightened and made my way over to her dough retarder like a good little helper.

The dough was heavy . Not anywhere near my limit, but now I understood why Felicia had such lovely biceps.

Felicia settled into her rhythm. I helped whenever she asked, usually just carrying something from one section to another.

It was eye-opening. Baking was a very involved thing, a sort of exact science, and it fascinated me to see Felicia move through dozens of steps and techniques as easy as breathing.

The work didn’t drop off even after she opened. We were still pulling things out of the ovens, off the cooling rack, and icing, filling, and glazing. It was so involved, and with every passing moment, I was more impressed with her.

She did all this every single morning, and only got a couple days off a year. I certainly couldn’t do it. Being an alpha wasn’t easy by any stretch, but I would never want to trade places.

“You know,” I said in a quiet moment after a group of three older women came in for breakfast bagels and coffee.

It was sweet watching them out of the corner of my eye as I wiped down the glass display case.

It tended to attract fingerprints like a magnet, even with less than ten customers in an hour.

Magic, I supposed. In the olden days, humans might have blamed it on fairies.

If only they knew that the fae were basically full-sized, magically endowed lawyers who had control over pretty much every city in the western world with their iron-clad contracts.

I chuckled at myself at that little pun. The fairies were allergic to that metal. I heard that the effects had ebbed off in recent centuries due to exposure, but I couldn’t help but wonder how much of that was fairy propaganda trying to obfuscate their greatest weakness. Iron - clad indeed.

“Do I know what?” Felicia asked, drawing me out of my own mind. Jeez, I’d forgotten I’d even said anything.

“Oh, I was just thinking?—”

“A dangerous habit,” she cut in, and I immediately knew my next line.