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Dante
Author: Aiden Bates

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Dante

 

 

I folded the sweet-smelling dough over itself once, twice, again, and then shaped it into an oval and set it aside with a dozen others that looked exactly the same. I still had a few loaves to shape, and then after that, I had to get started rolling out tomorrow’s bagels.

I paused and rubbed the back of my hand across my forehead. It was always hot in the bakery, even this early in the morning, when the air outside was still cool from the summer night. It was just before six in the morning, and Stella’s would open in about thirty minutes.

I was the only one in the building—at least until Mary arrived any minute now to brew the coffee and prepare the displays for our morning regulars. But as the sole baker on the premises, I always arrived at four—sometimes even earlier—to prepare all the bread and pastries for the day.

The immense timer in the center of the oven beeped, and I slid the freshly baked sourdoughs from the oven and deposited them on the cooling rack. Sweat beaded on my forehead from simply standing so close to the beast of an oven. Couldn’t help but love her, though, even if she was fickle with temperature, and I had a hell of a lot of scars from reaching inside—enough that they’d ruined a few of my tattoos.

I’d owned Stella’s for six years now, but I’d been baking professionally in this building for fourteen years, ever since I finished my baking apprenticeship at twenty years old. And Stella’s was my baby. I was proud of my bread and pastry, which I’d lovingly cribbed from my grandmother’s recipes that she’d baked for me growing up. She’d raised me just as much as Dad had, especially since my mom took off after I was born. My grandmother had worked in the bakery for nearly two decades before her death, and when I bought the business from my former boss when he retired, I had decided to rename the bakery after her.

Stella’s was a cornerstone of the Junee community, too. It’d grown from a tiny operation to a bustling business, and if I had to guess, I’d say about half of Junee came in at least once a week for a treat and some coffee. Dad had helped me out financially when I wanted to buy the business, but by my fourth year in business, I’d paid him back double. Running the business gave me a sense of accomplishment and responsibility—not that being vice president of the Liberty Crew didn’t. I’d been born into the club: Liberty Crew was my family, and Stella’s helped keep our coffers flush.

Once the bread was out and cooling, I finished shaping the next batch of loaves, moved them to the proofing cabinet, and then checked on my muffins, which were finishing up in the smaller pastry oven. At this point in my career, I had my baking schedule down to a science. The muffins were perfectly done, which rounded out the pastry for the day.

But these muffins weren’t going out on display with the croissants, cookies, and scones.

“Morning!” Mary chirped as she hurried into the bakery. “Sorry I’m late!”

I glanced at the clock. Mary was barely two minutes later than her scheduled shift. It was nice to finally have some reliable help around here, even if it was only a couple hours a week—and a family member, as well. My younger cousin. Grandma would be proud.

Mary started the coffee brewing up front, her voice carrying easily from the small, rustic front counter into the bright open kitchen. “Did you get the issue with the register fixed?”

“No,” I said sourly. “I’m going to have to go into the books for the past week or so and try to dig up the discrepancy. It should be fine for today, though.”

“Okay,” Mary said in a tone that suggested she very much did not believe that it would be fine. “You won’t get mad at me if the count’s all off at close tonight, right?”

“No, Mary, I won’t get mad,” I said. She stuck her head into the kitchen just enough to grin at me, and I couldn’t help but smile back.

I loved working at the bakery, loved having something all my own to shape that I could use to support my family, and I loved being a good boss. But God, the actual business side—the numbers, and the financials, and the paperwork, and the bureaucracy? I was getting really sick of it. Last night, the money in the register hadn’t matched up with the sales we’d done, and I’d gotten so fed up running through transactions trying to find the error that eventually I’d just given up.

I was starting to resent the business part of the business, and caught myself reminiscing about the days when all I did here was bake. Because that’s half the reason I’d bought the bakery in the first place—so I could bake what I wanted, when I wanted and brighten peoples’ days with it.

With the coffee well on its way to being done, Mary darted into the back to pull on a plain white apron to match mine and tied her long box braids into a bun at the top of her head. She paused and whistled at the sight of four dozen muffins cooling on the rack beneath the pastry oven. “Hey, Dante, what are all these muffins for? Special order?”

“I’ve got a meeting with the Hell’s Ankhor president later today,” I said. “Figured I’d try to smooth some feathers. There’s no meeting that some blueberry muffins won’t make better.”

Baxter, Ryder, and Trip had caused a hell of a lot of trouble for Hell’s Ankhor. The club had helped fix up Ballast and paid for the damages, but Liberty hadn’t paid our dues fully yet. Even if it was in a roundabout way, our guys had almost gotten two of theirs killed—it was going to take more than money to set things right between us. As vice president, I’d do my best to get us back on good terms. Even though Liberty Crew was established before Hell’s Ankhor, we were a smaller club, and our turf was technically on their territory.

“True,” Mary said. “Was the cake a hit?”

The cake. I’d spent a hell of a lot of time on that cake, carefully sculpting it into the shape of a cowboy hat, and covering it with fondant—which I hated working with—and carefully decorated it with the kid’s new tag. Which happened to be The Kid. Very appropriate.

The Kid had caught my eye the moment I saw him outside the Liberty clubhouse with the rest of the Hell’s Ankhor inner circle, and I hadn’t been able to keep my eyes off him. He could’ve been plucked directly from my fantasies, everything about him pieced together just for me. His platinum blond hair had been a little mussed from the ride over, falling into his big brown eyes, and he’d stood with his narrow shoulders curled forward like he could make himself even smaller.

He’d seemed shy that day, a little cagey, standing halfway behind Priest like the Hell’s Ankhor vice president was a shield. I’d immediately wanted to pull him into my arms. He’d looked like he’d fit perfectly.

But he’d made it very clear at his patching-in party that he wanted nothing to do with me—if not with words, certainly with his actions. I’d been excited to bring the cake over and maybe talk to him a little, introduce myself properly. No expectations, just friendliness as I helped smooth over the tension between our clubs—and if I was lucky, maybe we’d hit it off. But when I’d approached him, he’d literally cringed away from me, stumbling backward like I was a rabid dog approaching.

So Heath was not an option. The last thing I wanted to do was make him uncomfortable. Anyway, he was just a hot guy—I could find those anywhere. I had no trouble getting laid, and I didn’t have time to waste chasing after some guy from another club who obviously had no interest in me. I’d simply have to push the kid from my mind and focus on work.

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