Birthday Cookies - A little bit of fluff to start your weekend. Enjoy.
Dean gripped the piping bag and began decorating the dozen cookies already cooled on the rack beside him. Friday mornings were usually pretty busy at the bakery he owned with his business partner, Charlie, but he’d come in early just to get these done.
They were for Dean’s crush. At least that’s how Charlie referred to the handsome college professor. He’d been coming in since the end of August. Dean had been gone on him that very first day. He’d bought a large coffee, flavored with hazelnut cream and a plain croissant. His order hadn’t wavered in the last three months. Every single weekday, he’d stop. At first, Dean wouldn’t speak to him beyond the simple ‘good morning’ and ‘have a good day’. But after a few weeks, he’d try to converse with the man…Castiel Novak…he learned that from swiping his debit card. They spent a few minutes every day talking about the weather, the price of coffee beans, or traffic. Just mundane things, but Dean could listen to the deep timbre of Castiel’s…or Cas, as he secretly called him…voice read the phone book and he’d be happy.
Cas haunted his dreams…and his daydreams. Finally, unable to get the man out of his mind, he approached Charlie to use her mad computer skills to find out more about the professor in the dowdy trenchcoat. She teased him unendingly, but in the end, she found out that Cas was a professor of entomology at Duke University. Dean wasn’t surprised he worked at Duke, Durham was a college town and most of his clientele were either students or faculty. She showed Dean his bio and damn, the dude was smart. A PhD for crying out loud.
From there, Charlie found his profile on Facebook. The professor’s page was set to private, so other than his picture, his place of employment and his birthday, they couldn’t see anything else. Charlie pressed Dean to ‘friend’ the guy, but Dean thought that would put him in the cyber-stalking category.
At least, Dean knew his birthday and that was why he was here early to finish decorating the cookies. They were decorated with buzzing bees and a few had the letter ‘C’ with a tiny bee dangling off the bottom of it. When he was finished, he smiled at his work. He carefully boxed them and set them aside before getting on to his regular baking.
Once Charlie and their part-time help got there, the morning flew by. Dean had two wedding cakes he was finishing up for tomorrow’s delivery and customers lined up for breads and desserts for the weekend. Dean couldn’t keep his eyes off the clock on the wall of the kitchen. At five to nine, he went to the bathroom, ran fingers through his hair and removed his icing smeared apron.
At the front, he relieved Kevin from the register and sent him to the back to wash up the morning’s dishes. Precisely at nine, Cas walked in the door, the bell tinkling to announce his arrival. Dean grinned and Cas returned it with a warm smile.
“Good morning, Dean.” The first time he’d called Dean by his name, it startled him. Then he remembered he had his name embroidered on his apron. The same apron he’d ditched in the back today because he wanted to be clean and neat.
“Happy Birthday, Professor Novak.” Cas tilted his head to the side and nervously brushed his hands over his trenchcoat. “Thank you. How did you…”
“A little bee told me,” Dean said, inwardly groaning at his cheesiness. “Here.” He all but shoved the box across the counter. The other man blinked a few times and then carefully lifted the lid. The tiny smile made Dean’s heart beat a bit faster.
“These are truly beautiful. And you made these for me?” The rich, gravelly baritone felt like a caress on Dean’s skin and he bit his lower lip before answering.
“Yeah…I mean, yes.” The man was a professor and Dean didn’t want to sound like an uneducated boob. Even if he only had a GED.
“Thank you, Dean,” Dean noticed the pink tint to the professor’s face and realized the man was blushing. He closed the box and ran his fingertips over the Geeks Love Pie logo. “I realize you are busy now, but would you consider having a cup of coffee with me later this afternoon?”
Dean stared into those beautiful blue eyes and his mouth refused to engage with his brain. Charlie came up beside him, grinning. “He would love to have coffee with you. We close at two.”
Not taking his eyes away from Dean’s, Cas picked up the box and backed up a step, inadvertently bumping into one of the bakery’s regulars, an elderly man named Frank. “Excuse me…so sorry.”
“Damn, young’uns. About time y’all stopped all this pussy-footin’ around.” He slapped a five on the counter in front of Charlie. “You called it. Won fair and square.”
Confused, Dean pulled his eyes away from Cas’ to look at his partner. “You bet with Frank?”
“Yeah, Frank here said it would take you guys until Christmas to figure it out. I took mid-November.” She reached up to snatch the bill off the counter and shoved it into her apron.
Cas was staring back and forth like he was at a tennis match, clutching the box to his chest like battle armor. “Great, thanks a hell of a lot, Charlie. Now, you went and scared the crap out of him. He probably thinks I’m certifiable now,” Dean muttered.
Cas opened his mouth to speak, but Frank butted in. “You are certifiable, but he’s nuts about you. Always making goo-goo eyes when he thinks you aren’t looking. Enough to make me want to barf, I tell you. You gonna get me my coffee or am I going to have to start going to MacDonald’s?”
Charlie stifled a laugh and handed Frank his cup. “On the house today, Frank.”
“My last class is over at two-thirty. Can I just meet you here?” Cas asked, finally able to get a word in.
“Sure. That would be awesome, Cas.” Dean knew his face was just as red as Cas’, but he didn’t really care. He had a date.
“Ten dollars on a wedding by June,” Frank called out over his shoulder as he walked away.
“You’re on,” Charlie said, laughing at the shocked faces of her partner and his new boyfriend.
