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Lambert has come to realize that there is only one problem with running his own bakery. It’s not the early-morning hours; he doesn’t mind those, honestly, it’s sort of nice to be awake in the quiet gloaming before dawn. And it’s not the work, since he wouldn’t have opened a bakery if he didn’t like making cakes and pies and pastries of all sorts. He finds it almost meditative, insofar as meditating can involve muttering curses under his breath as he gets the frosting to look just right on a fancy cake, or mixes up yet another batch of cookie dough. (He makes damn good cookies, if he does say so himself.)
No, the problem with running the bakery is the people.
He’d somehow forgotten that in order to have a successful business, he needs customers. And customers, he is quickly coming to believe, are in point of fact demonic tormentors, carefully designed to bring him to the edge of frothing rage at least once a day. Once an hour on the bad days.
They want a wedding cake...by tomorrow. Or a birthday cake that feeds forty, covered in hand-made fondant flowers. By tomorrow. Or eighty dozen cookies in the shape of dogs, all iced to look exactly like their dalmatian, down to the spot placement. By tomorrow.
And cursing out the customers, Lambert knows, is bad for business, so he has to grit his teeth and politely tell the fuckers that they can have a wedding cake, sure, but it won’t look like the fancy one their cousin had that their cousin was smart enough to order three months ahead of time, and they can have a birthday cake that feeds forty with fondant flowers on the corners but they’re gonna have to settle for an icing birthday greeting on the top, and sure he can make that many cookies but they are not gonna look exactly like dalmatians.
And then he has to stand there while they insult him, and not start screaming obscenities right back.
None of which, he should note, has anything to do with baking.
So he sticks a Help Wanted sign in the window and then, because the universe hates him, he has to deal with a whole string of absolute dipshits who think working in a bakery will be ‘such fun’ and ‘absolutely charming’ and ‘such a tasty opportunity’ and none of them can reliably make change for a five-crown coin. He’s about ready to give up and go join Eskel on his gods-be-damned goat farm when, a week after he put the sign up, a tall, lanky man with one brilliant green eye, an eyepatch on the other side covering what looks like an impressive scar, a neatly-trimmed beard, and an absolutely dangerous crooked smile leans against the counter and looks Lambert over and says, “So. I can’t bake a damn thing but I’m good with people and I know how to work a cash register.”
...Points for honesty, assuming he really is good with people and cash registers, Lambert thinks, and replies, “Want a trial shift? Now until closing, twelve crowns an hour, pay you at the end of the day; if I hire you after that it’s twenty crowns an hour and benefits.”
Dangerous-Smile’s eyebrows go up. “Never heard of a bakery offering benefits before.”
“Yeah, well, I’m a fucking asshole and the customers are worse, anyone who can put up with all of that fucking well deserves benefits,” Lambert grumbles. Dangerous-Smile laughs.
It’s a really nice laugh, deep and rich, and Lambert scowls harder.
“Sure, a trial run sounds good,” Dangerous-Smile says, and Lambert lets him behind the counter, shows him where everything is, and then sees one of his most hated customers at the door and retreats at high speed into the back. He’s not fleeing, really he isn’t. He’s making a tactical decision to see how his new tentative employee manages a challenging situation.
His new employee proceeds to charm the absolute life out of the woman Lambert thinks of as That Nitpicky Bitch, and she leaves having bought half again her usual order and not insulted Lambert’s baking more than twice, which is exponentially better than Lambert has ever managed.
Lambert starts assembling the ingredients for the next cake on his docket, keeping half his attention on Dangerous-Smile out front, just in case he decides to raid the cash register and fuck off, or something like that. Instead, Dangerous-Smile flirts, jokes, teases, and charms a steady stream of customers in a way Lambert quite frankly wouldn’t be able to manage with a thousand years of practice.
It’s ten minutes until closing when the bell rings and someone barks, “Cake!”
Lambert, were he out front, would probably reply, “Fucking ask politely!”
Dangerous-Smile says smoothly, “Chocolate, vanilla, or carrot? I’m afraid we’re out of anything fancier.”
“I need a strawberry cake for tonight,” whoever-it-is demands.
“Well, we’re fresh out of that, but I tell you what, there’s a grocery store right on the corner, I bet if you bought a vanilla cake and a box of strawberries that’d work pretty well,” Dangerous-Smile offers. And somehow, Lambert is listening and he still doesn’t quite understand how, he wheedles the customer into doing exactly that.
Lambert comes out once the customer has gone and says, “You’re fucking hired. Tuesday to Saturday, six to two-thirty.”
“Wonderful,” Dangerous-Smile says, grinning at him. “Do I get a nametag and everything?”
“Uh,” Lambert says, feeling very stupid. “Sure. What name d’you want on it?”
“Aiden,” says Dangerous-Smile. “And should I keep thinking of you as ‘hot redheaded baker’ or do you have a name?”
Lambert gawps at him for a moment before he can find words. “Lambert,” he croaks at last.
“Good to meet you,” Aiden says, and Lambert jerks a nod and starts cleaning up. Aiden joins in at once, moving around Lambert like they’ve already done this a hundred times. They get the counters wiped down and the trash cans emptied and all the slightly-stale pastries boxed in much less time than Lambert is used to.
“Do these...go in the dumpster?” Aiden checks, gesturing at the stack of boxes.
“Nah, I take ‘em down to the food bank,” Lambert says. “Take some if you want.”
Aiden makes a slightly exaggerated face of dismay. “I’m gluten intolerant - not celiac, and having wheat dust in the air won’t bother me, but I can’t eat...well, any of this.”
Lambert stares at him. “You want to work in a bakery where you can’t eat anything.”
Aiden shrugs. “Apparently the pay’s good.”
Which reminds Lambert to dig sixty crowns out of the bag he’s going to run down to the bank and hand them to Aiden. Aiden blinks at the little heap of bills and coins. “...You said twelve an hour for today; that’s thirty-six crowns by my math.”
“Call it a bonus for dealing with That Nitpicky Bitch and the fucking idiot right at closing,” Lambert grumbles. Lambert got to spend three full hours baking instead of dealing with people - that’s more than worth full pay.
Aiden tilts his head to one side and gives Lambert an absolutely unreadable look. “Huh,” he says at last. Lambert has no idea what that means. “Alright. Thanks. Six tomorrow, then?”
Lambert nods. He starts at four, but if Aiden can’t bake, there’s no point in him showing up before the shop opens.
“Until then,” Aiden says, with another of those dangerously lovely smiles.
Lambert tries really hard not to think about that smile while he finishes cleaning the kitchen and loads the boxes into his car and locks up. Someone who can run the front while Lambert does the baking is worth their weight in gold as far as Lambert’s concerned, and he’s not gonna ruin that by getting a godsdamned stupid crush.
*
“I have good news and bad news,” Aiden announces. His little brother looks up from puzzling over a calculus book that’s gotta be heavier than he is. “The good news is, I’ve got a job.”
Gaetan lights up. “No shit?”
“No shit,” Aiden says, flopping down in the other chair and grinning. “Twenty an hour with benefits, no less.”
“Damn,” Gaetan says, and then frowns. “What sort of a job? Is that the bad news - fuck, Aiden, what’ve you found?”
“No, no, it’s fine - it’s a bakery,” Aiden assures him hastily.
“What sort of bakery pays that well?” Gaetan demands, eyes narrowing in suspicion.
“One with a really short-tempered baker who doesn’t want to deal with customers,” Aiden says, shaking his head a little in remembered amusement. “It’s Wolfe Bakery, down on Tenth.”
“Oh!” Gaetan says, looking rather startled. “My - um. My friend, Letho, he says they make the best macarons he’s had outside of Toussaint.”
“Huh. Guess I’ll have to snag some of those if there are leftovers at the end of the day,” Aiden says thoughtfully. He didn’t see any today - honestly there wasn’t much left over at all, really, and the macarons were already sold out by the time he started his trial run.
“Alright,” Gaetan says slowly. “So it’s a perfectly legitimate job with good pay, somewhere you can get to on foot, and it uses skills you already have. What’s the godsdamned catch?”
Aiden puts his hands over his face. “So you know how my type is...well…”
“Absolute assholes with hearts of gold?”
“Yeah. That. The baker is so godsdamned hot, Gae, and he says outright that he’s an asshole but then he overpaid me for today and packed up all the leftovers to take to the food bank.”
“Ah,” Gaetan says, and he’s smirking when Aiden peeks through his fingers. “So the bad news is that you’re already half gone for your new boss.”
“Yes,” Aiden says miserably. “Also everything he makes smells fucking amazing and I can’t eat any of it, but that’s a different problem.”
Gaetan, the little bastard, just laughs at him.
Aiden makes a rude gesture at his brother and goes to get changed and go for a run; maybe he can distract himself from how hot the baker - Lambert, his name is Lambert, not ‘Obscenely Hot Man With Flour On His Nose Oh Gods Being That Cute Should Be Illegal’ - with a properly exhausting afternoon of parkour.
It’s not likely, but stranger things have happened.
Parkour...really doesn’t help. Mostly because Lambert continues to be pretty much the platonic ideal of Aiden’s type. He’s grumpy and irritable and swears every third word and has rude nicknames for all the regular customers who have angered him...and he goes out of his way to be kind to children and dogs and harried mothers, makes sure Aiden gets his break every day even if it’s absurdly busy, and throws out the first person to insult Aiden even though the bastard was going to buy a wedding cake that would’ve cost the better part of eight hundred crowns.
Which. Aiden’s put up with a lot of shit over the years, working any job he can find to scrape together the money to keep a roof over his and Gaetan’s heads and food on their table, and he’s used to being told to suck it up and deal, the customer is worth more than he is. He would’ve done that for this job without a second thought, honestly - for twenty crowns an hour and benefits, which he discovered upon being presented with a contract include fucking dental? Yeah, he’ll deal with customers being absolute shitheads for that.
But when this particular shithead started in on him - insulting his intelligence, his appearance, and his missing eye - Lambert appeared from the kitchen like some sort of extremely flour-covered avenging angel and declared, very profanely, that the shithead could leave on his own feet or he could be tossed out, but regardless, he wasn’t welcome back, and he sure as hell wouldn’t be getting a cake made, now or ever.
And then he told Aiden that if anyone else ever pulled anything like that, they’d be banned, too, no matter how much they’re planning on spending.
So that’s really not helping with the ‘don’t fall in love with the absurdly hot baker’ plan at all.
*
Lambert slumps down onto the couch and grunts a little as Lil Bleater hops up onto his stomach and lies down. “Eskel, your damned goat thinks she’s a cat.”
“No, she thinks she’s a goat, which means she’s supposed to be as inconvenient as possible,” Eskel says cheerfully from the kitchen, where some very good smells suggest he’s gotten creative with dinner again. Eskel is as good a cook as Lambert is a baker; dinner at his place is always a treat.
“Well she’s sure as fuck doing that,” Lambert says. Thank fuck she’s a pygmy goat, and small even for the breed. Thirty pounds is still a lot of goat to have lying on top of him.
“Well done her,” Eskel says, and comes out of the kitchen to rub Lil Bleater’s ears. True to her name, she bleats happily. “Not that I’m complaining, but is there a reason you’re three hours early for family dinner?”
Lambert sighs, and scrubs his hands over his face. “Because I need advice and I don’t want anyone else to give me shit about it.” Vesemir would listen, and would probably have something useful to say, too, but Lambert has real trouble not doing exactly the opposite of whatever Vesemir tells him to. He’s working on it, but...Lambert and authority figures are a bad combination. And Geralt would listen, but Geralt would not have anything even vaguely resembling useful advice. As best Lambert’s ever been able to tell, Geralt ended up with two long-term lovers mostly by accident. But Eskel actually courted Coën, quite respectfully and entirely on purpose, and also he always thinks things through and then gives good, solid, sensible advice. Lambert’s not always willing to hear it, but that’s a different problem.
“Well, alright then,” Eskel says. “Need a beer?”
“Yes, please.” Eskel always has the weirdest beers, small batches from itty bitty breweries Lambert has never heard of, and even if they’re terrible they’re always at least interesting.
“Spicy, oyster, or sour mango?” Eskel checks, heading back into the kitchen. Lambert tries to sit up; Lil Bleater gives him a disdainful look and refuses to move.
“...Sour mango, and also, where do you even find these?”
“Farmer’s market,” Eskel says, and comes back with a pair of opened bottles, sitting down in the big squashy armchair he favors and patting his lap. Lil Bleater immediately abandons Lambert, bounding into Eskel’s lap and settling down gleefully. Lambert shakes his head as he sits up. A lap goat is just...bizarre, but that’s Eskel all over. Quiet and calm and good-natured and deeply, deeply weird.
The mango beer is surprisingly good, actually. Lambert takes a long drink and then puts it down on the low table and rubs his face again. “So I think I’m being a creep.”
“I find that hard to believe, but go on.”
“So this guy I hired to run the front counter.”
“Aiden, right? You said he was, and I quote, ‘The most absurdly charming motherfucker ever.’”
“He is,” Lambert says despairingly, tugging at his own hair. “He made That Nitpicky Bitch laugh yesterday, and he talked this fucking horrid old man into buying a cookie bouquet for his wife, and he’s started putting photos of my cakes on the internet - I forget which site - and even with someone else on the payroll I’ve made half again as much this month as I did last month. And he’s got the most fucking beautiful smile I’ve ever seen, and I’ve spent the last fucking week researching gluten-free flour because I want him to be able to eat my fucking cookies. And that’s not a fucking euphemism so stop smirking.”
“I’m not smirking,” Eskel lies unconvincingly. “What sort of flour will you be buying, then?”
“Coconut and cassava,” Lambert mumbles. “Tigernut’s too expensive unless I can find a wholesaler. And I’ve already got almond flour for my macarons so I just need to increase my standing order.”
Eskel chuckles softly. “So you’ve got it bad.”
“He’s just - fuck, Eskel, he’s smart and he’s sweet and he’s putting his little brother through college and I haven’t had to deal with asshole customers in a month and I just…” Lambert sighs.
“You’ve got it bad,” Eskel repeats.
“He works for me,” Lambert hisses. “If I say anything at all then I’m a creep, and I may be an asshole but I’m not that sort of asshole.”
Eskel hums and takes a sip of his own beer - the oyster flavor, apparently, and Lambert wrinkles his nose in mild disgust - and pets Lil Bleater thoughtfully for a while. “Yeah, alright,” he says at last. “I think - I think making gluten-free stuff isn’t a terrible idea, since you can sell it, too, but you’d better wait for him to make the first move if he wants to. That said, you should invite him and his brother to family dinner next month. I know we’d all like to meet anyone who can put up with our little brother for eight hours a day.”
“He’s out front and I’m in the back,” Lambert says, but that’s not entirely true. Aiden is out front when there are customers, but there are long lulls between the breakfast rush and the lunch crowd, and he’ll come back into the kitchen and lean against the wall out of the way and watch Lambert work, and they’ll just...talk. About their families, about their lives, about the books Lambert has read and the shows Aiden has watched and the godsawful terrible performance the local hockey team is putting on. It’s...nice. Aiden is easy to talk to, and awfully funny, and doesn’t seem to mind the fact that Lambert swears like a sailor.
“Mhm,” Eskel says. Lambert makes a rude gesture at him. Eskel grins. “I think you’re right, you have to let him make the first move. But gluten-free cookies aren’t a bad gesture, really.”
“Gonna have to scrub down a whole table and buy new baking sheets,” Lambert grumbles, but his heart’s not in the complaint. “And new spoons.”
“Come help me prep dinner and tell me about Aiden,” Eskel says, and Lambert obediently brings his beer in and starts chopping vegetables for salad - no one lets him actually cook anything, but he can do prep work easily enough - and lets himself just talk.
Eskel, bless the man, listens and hums occasionally and doesn’t tease even when Lambert realizes rather belatedly that he’s spent ten minutes ranting about Aiden’s hair, which is unfairly pretty. There’s a reason Eskel is Lambert’s favorite brother.
*
“Why are you staring at a bakery box like it’s gonna bite you?” Gaetan asks, swinging his bag down off his shoulder and raising an eyebrow at Aiden. “Did you bring home a squirrel or something?”
“No,” Aiden says, and nudges the box open. Inside are a half-dozen beautiful macarons and a little stack of chocolate chip cookies. “Right before I left today, Lambert shoved that at me and said they’re all gluten-free and I should test them to see if they’re good enough to sell, and also we should come to dinner with his family next week.”
“Huh,” Gaetan says, and gets them both glasses of milk before he sits down. “Well, I’m reasonably sure he’s not gonna poison you on purpose.”
“I don’t think poison would be his weapon of choice, no,” Aiden agrees. “Broadsword is more likely.”
“Well then,” Gaetan says, and picks up a macaron. “Come on, Aidy-cat. Worst that could happen is it turns out he’s not nearly as good a baker as you’ve been telling everyone he is.”
Aiden sticks his tongue out at his brother and takes a chocolate chip cookie.
It’s delicious.
Gaetan makes a little moaning sound and stares at the half a macaron still in his hand. “Gods be good. This is fucking amazing. That’s it, you gotta start flirting properly, because you need to marry this man.”
“I don’t even know if he’d be interested,” Aiden says weakly.
“Bro,” Gaetan says, staring at him incredulously. “Aidy-cat. Aiden. He made you cookies and I’m pretty sure you said he invited us to family dinner. How much more of a sign do you need?”
“Gae,” Aiden says softly. “This is the best job I’ve ever had.” Lambert raised his pay last week, to thirty crowns an hour - showed him the budgeting spreadsheet that proved Aiden was bringing in more than enough to cover such a raise, too. The profit increase after Aiden joined the bakery is quite remarkable. “I don’t want to fuck this up.”
Gaetan sobers and nods. “Yeah, alright, I get that. But - you’re more than half in love with him already. Don’t...don’t give up before you even try, just because you think it’ll inevitably come crashing down around your ears.” He sounds a lot bitterer than he should. Aiden raises an eyebrow.
“Something you want to tell me, Gae?”
Gaetan grimaces. “Letho’s being fucking stupid,” he says, and eats the other half of his macaron almost viciously. “I think he thinks I don’t understand about having to make shitty choices when you’re in shitty situations. I am this close to braining him with a textbook and sitting on him until he gets his fucking wits together and realizes I didn’t exactly grow up with a silver spoon in my mouth either.” He wrinkles his nose and picks up another macaron. “Unfortunately, I don’t think I actually could pin him, the mountain-sized asshole.”
Aiden winces. “Please don’t make me come bail you out for assault charges.”
“Don’t get caught, got it,” Gaetan says, and Aiden sighs and rubs his forehead. “Don’t worry, I’ll deal with it. He’s weak for puppy eyes. The important question is, are we going to family dinner with the Wolfe pack?”
“I guess it can’t hurt,” Aiden says, taking another cookie. They’re really amazingly good.
Which is how, six days later, he ends up standing on the front step of a very nice ranch house about half an hour’s drive out of the city, with Gaetan looking nervous behind him, while Lambert fumbles with his keys. The door springs open before he can find the right one, and a tiny blonde-haired person yells, “Uncle Lambert!” and tackles the baker around the knees.
Lambert oofs and staggers backwards, landing on his ass with the small person perched triumphantly atop him.
“Ciri!” someone inside the house calls. “What is the rule on tackling people?”
“...Only on the grass,” the small person says, drooping a little in dismay. “Sorry, Uncle Lambert.”
“‘S alright, cub,” Lambert says, clambering back to his feet and scooping the small person up. “No harm done. But if you’d gone for one of my friends, they wouldn’t have been expecting it, and they might’ve got hurt, yeah?”
“I’ll be more careful,” the small person promises. Lambert grins down at her. Aiden’s heart turns over. Oh gods, Lambert with small children is too fucking adorable.
“Right, so, this’s Ciri, she’s a fucking menace,” Lambert says. “Ciri, these are Aiden and Gaetan.”
Ciri peers at them curiously. “Is Aiden your boyfriend, Uncle Lambert?”
Lambert’s ears go as red as his hair. “He works with me,” he says, which Aiden notices isn’t a no. Gaetan notices it, too, if the way he elbows Aiden is any evidence.
Aiden has heard Lambert telling stories about all of his family, but meeting them in the flesh is rather intimidating. In the living room there’s Geralt, as blond as his daughter and very quiet, with his boyfriend Jaskier - brunet, incredibly chatty, and wearing some of the loudest clothes Aiden has ever seen - and his girlfriend Yennefer - also brunette, stunningly pretty, wearing all black and looking like she ought to be at a fancy cocktail party, though apparently that’s just how she dresses every day. In the kitchen there’s Eskel, built like a brick shithouse and apparently delighted to see them, and his lean, dark, extremely polite lifemate Coën, and a pygmy goat named Lil Bleater who apparently accompanies Eskel nearly everywhere. And out on the back porch, minding the grill, is the most terrifying one of all: Lambert’s adoptive father Vesemir, grizzled and stern, who looks Aiden and Gaetan over with an unreadable expression before nodding and saying, “Good to meet you both. Lambert says you’re going for an engineering degree, Gaetan?”
“Yessir,” Gaetan says, tucking himself a little further behind Aiden. Aiden can’t blame him; Vesemir is fucking intimidating.
“What sort?”
“Environmental, sir.”
“Huh,” Vesemir says. “Well. Let me know if you ever want an introduction to Guxart Stygga.”
Gaetan makes a sort of strangled noise. “Guxart Stygga? Of Stygga Consulting?” Gaetan has talked about Stygga Consulting before - it’s one of the finest environmental engineering firms in the country, and he dreams of getting an internship there.
“Yep,” Vesemir says, and turns back to the grill.
Lambert ushers them back inside, and Gaetan waits until the door is closed and then hisses, “How the hell does your father know Guxart Stygga?”
“They grew up together,” Lambert says, shrugging.
“Oh,” Gaetan says, and goes off all starry-eyed to play with the goat and Ciri. Aiden leans against the wall and watches the chaos. Lambert stays next to him, seemingly perfectly content to be so.
Dinner is delicious and loud and cheerful. Coën and Lambert get into an argument about - so far as Aiden can decipher - whether or not mango in beer is a good idea, though both of them seem perfectly happy to be arguing and indeed switch sides twice that Aiden can track; Ciri recounts what seems to be her entire last month’s doings to Vesemir, who listens gravely; Jaskier makes up a song about goats and sings it to Lil Bleater, who bleats along with the choruses; Eskel and Geralt, sitting beside each other, hand each other things before the other can even start to ask; and Yennefer gets Gaetan talking about his classes.
For just a moment, Aiden feels desperately out of place, and then Eskel catches his eye and says, “So, I hear you’ve turned That Nitpicky Bitch into an actual polite member of society.”
“She’s mostly just lonely,” Aiden says, and launches into the tale of how he convinced that particular customer to stop insulting Lambert every time she stopped in; it involved very subtle bribery and a lot of fast talking, but he’s quite proud of the results. And that story segues quite naturally into other stories of the customers who have come into Wolfe Bakery, from frantic parents who have forgotten birthday cakes, to a genuinely sweet couple hoping to order cupcakes for their wedding (a sensible four months ahead of time, no less), to a little girl who was very clear about wanting a dragon on her birthday cake, not a unicorn. Somehow that turns into discussing a very silly television show about quasi-medieval warriors on magical horses, which Geralt apparently also watches.
“Geralt,” Lambert says, “is deeply weird about horses.”
“You can say that again,” Jaskier sighs.
“Could be worse, could be goats,” Geralt says, grinning. Eskel whacks his brother with a napkin. Vesemir sighs.
Aiden and Gaetan exchange a glance of baffled delight. Lambert’s family are sort of adorable, honestly. Not nearly as profane as Aiden would have expected, either.
Lambert brings them home again at the end of the night, dropping them off on the curb in front of the run-down old building which was all Aiden used to be able to afford. These days he could probably afford better, but he’s saving every copperbit he can out of long habit, and this place isn’t actually bad, it’s just a bit old.
“See you Tuesday?” Lambert asks, looking oddly hopeful and hesitant.
Aiden takes a deep breath. Lambert made him cookies that he could actually eat. Lambert brought him home to family dinner. Lambert is short-tempered and grumpy and hides his sweetness under layers and layers of inventive profanity, and Aiden is definitely more than half in love with him.
“See you Tuesday,” he says, and leans over to brush a kiss against Lambert’s cheek.
*
“Eskel,” Lambert says, flopping back onto his bed and throwing an arm over his face. On the other end of the phone, Eskel hums a question. He’s probably out feeding the goats, by the insistent bleating that Lambert can also hear. “Eskel, he fucking kissed me.”
“That’s a good thing, right?” Eskel says. “No, Bitsy, down.”
“He kissed me,” Lambert hisses. “What do I do?”
“Make him more cookies?” Eskel suggests. “Trout! Stop that!”
“Remind me why you let Geralt name any of your goats?”
“He won a bet,” Eskel says. Lambert can almost hear the shrug. “But seriously - cookies seem to have worked this time.”
“More cookies,” Lambert says. “Or fuck it, I could go all out and make a cake - I think he likes chocolate.”
“Everyone likes chocolate except Coën.”
“That is because your lifemate is really fucking weird, and yes, I will make that bizarre honey-almond thing he prefers for next family dinner.”
“Thanks,” Eskel says. “Think you can make it gluten-free?”
“...I think I’m gonna try,” Lambert sighs, because there’s a decent chance Aiden might come to family dinner next month too, and he should be able to eat dessert.
Which is why, when Aiden shows up at five minutes to six on Tuesday morning, Lambert is locked in battle with the stupid honey-almond cake, trying to figure out how to use almond flour without throwing off the entire flavor balance of the fucking thing.
“...Did the cake personally offend you?” Aiden asks, sounding very amused.
“Yes,” Lambert grumbles. “This is the fourth fucking try.”
“I see,” Aiden says, and then leans in and kisses Lambert’s cheek again. Lambert freezes, staring at Aiden wide-eyed, afraid to do anything in case it’s the wrong thing.
“Is that...alright?” Aiden says after a moment, looking sort of worried.
“Very alright,” Lambert rasps. “I - um - very alright.”
“Lovely,” Aiden says, lighting up, and goes sauntering out to open the shop, grinning like the cat who’s stolen the cream.
Lambert blinks down at the fourth attempt at the honey-almond cake, and then hollers out into the front of the shop, “Hey! What’s your favorite cake flavor?”
“Black Forest!” Aiden calls back.
“...Huh,” Lambert says, and starts plotting. Once he gets this honey-almond thing right…
Two nights later, on a night he knows Aiden is out at the movies, because he and Geralt are going to see the new movie version of their joint favorite ridiculous television show, he calls Gaetan. Gaetan sounds distinctly wary when he picks up.
“What do you want?”
“To know when Aiden’s birthday is,” Lambert admits.
There’s a long silence on the other end of the line. Finally Gaetan says, “Look. I like you. I will tell you when Aiden’s birthday is. But if you break his heart, believe me, it will not go well for you.”
“I don’t intend to,” Lambert says. “I...don’t want to pressure him, or anything.”
“Maybe be a little more obvious,” Gaetan says slowly. “On which note, his birthday is in fifteen days.”
“Shit, that’s - I gotta buy more almond flour,” Lambert says, sitting bolt upright and scrambling for a pencil. “And cherries. And -”
Gaetan chuckles. “Alright, you’ll do,” he says. “And for the record, I never said any of that.” He hangs up before Lambert can reply. Lambert stares at the phone for a minute before going back to his shopping list. He only has fifteen days to perfect a gluten-free Black Forest cake, but by the gods, he’s going to do it. It’s gonna be the best godsdamned thing Aiden has ever eaten.
And maybe that will be obvious enough.
*
Aiden’s birthday falls on a Wednesday that year, and he plans to maybe get takeout from the good Metinnan place around the corner, the one that’s a little too pricey for everyday, and make Gaetan watch an episode of Heralds with him.
Lambert is oddly fidgety when Aiden arrives, and already liberally dusted with flour. Aiden kisses his cheek the way he has been for the last few weeks, and is rewarded with a wide-eyed look of delight. The day goes pretty normally from there - for a minor wonder, there aren’t any particularly unpleasant customers, and Aiden decides it’s a birthday gift from the gods and he’ll take it gratefully.
And then two o’clock rolls around, and he closes up the shop and helps Lambert tidy the front - Lambert cleans his own kitchen, well enough that every surface gleams by the end of every afternoon - and then Lambert says, “Wait here,” and vanishes into the kitchen.
He re-emerges with a cake box and shoves it at Aiden, ears bright red. “Happy birthday.”
“How the hell,” Aiden says, and then abandons that line of questioning - he probably put his birthdate down on a form or something - in favor of opening the box.
The cake within smells amazing: chocolate and cherries, rich and decadent. “It’s gluten-free,” Lambert says awkwardly. “Tastes just like the regular kind, though. I tested it.”
“Is this why you’ve looked like you haven’t gotten any sleep for the last two weeks?” Aiden says slowly. Lambert has been even grouchier than normal for a while now, and the slowly growing bags under his eyes have been worrying Aiden a little.
“Yes,” Lambert admits, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “Couldn’t work on it while you were here.”
“Idiot,” Aiden says fondly, and puts the cake down. His heart hurts. The cookies - the cookies were a nice gesture, a very sweet one, but a birthday cake, in his favorite flavor, modified so he can eat it without worrying - when he didn’t expect anything for his birthday - “Lambert,” he says softly, “I’m going to kiss you now.”
Lambert nods, eyes wide, and Aiden cups his hands around Lambert’s face and leans forward.
Their first proper kiss tastes like sour cherries and almond flour.
*
Lambert finishes wiping down the last table and goes wandering over to lean on the doorframe and watch Aiden box up the last of the leftovers. There aren’t many - never are, these days. Wolfe Bakery is known as the finest gluten-free bakery in the city - in several cities, in fact, they regularly get people coming in from out of town just to order cakes from them - but the food bank will appreciate them all the same.
“Got something for you,” Lambert says when Aiden turns to smile at him.
“Oh? What’s the occasion?”
“...Your birthday,” Lambert says dryly. “And also our one-year anniversary.”
“I thought my birthday present was the party at Eskel’s place that I’m not supposed to know about.”
“Gaetan,” Lambert sighs.
“Gaetan,” Aiden confirms.
“Anyway, that’s...that’s your present from everyone else,” Lambert says, and tugs the folded papers out of his pocket. “This is from me.”
Aiden unfolds the papers carefully and scans them once, twice, a third time, then looks up at Lambert with an expression of utter shock. “This is - fuck, Lam, you made me part-owner?”
Lambert shrugs. “We’re only doing this well because of you.” They’ve had to hire a delivery driver - Gaetan’s Letho, in fact, who really enjoys bringing cakes to children’s parties especially - and another part-time front counter person, and are thinking about bringing in another baker, if they can find someone who meets Lambert’s stringent criteria. And that’s all because of Aiden, who has been running Wolfe Bakery’s social media presence and charming reporters and delighting customers, leaving Lambert to do what he’s actually good at and not offend anyone.
“Lam,” Aiden says, sounding rather choked up, and drops the papers on the counter, flinging himself into Lambert’s arms.
Lambert kisses him, there in the doorway between their respective domains.
Starting a bakery might have been the second best choice he’s ever made.
The first, though...the first is right here in his arms.