Chapter Text
The thing they don’t tell you about achieving your lifelong dream is that the happiness of it all lasts for only about two seconds. You get two mere seconds of celebrating the success of that achievement before reality comes crashing down.
Opening a quaint bakery in a small, middle-of-nowhere town had been Louis’ dream since he was 6 years old. He’d go to sleep dreaming about it and fantasize about it during the day as he’d stand on a stool and help his Mama pour measured cups of flour into a bowl then watch her whisk up a batter that would produce the sweetest, fluffiest cakes. His mother baked all kinds of cakes as well as pies during the holidays. The only times she was ever in a good mood – the only times her and Louis got along swimmingly – was when she was in the kitchen baking.
Her and Louis worked together in perfect synchronicity and as Louis got older, he began to do more than simply measure the ingredients. He’d tweak Florence’s age-old recipes in a way that would initially frustrate her but ultimately earn him her respect.
By the age of 17, he was solely in charge of making one of the thanksgiving pies in the de Pointe du Lac household. He’d switch it up every year, choosing between his favorites: pecan, apple crumble or cherry pie.
While he’d always known that baking was the career he wanted to pursue in life, there were other things he was discovering about himself as a young teenager. For example, how he was severely, incurably gay and how his religion obsessed, catholic mother would collapse on the floor and die if she ever found out.
So, when the time came for college, Louis knew he had no choice but to move as far away from home as possible for a chance to live an authentic life. He applied to a culinary school in Paris where he studied pastry arts for three years. He then did a baking apprenticeship at a family owned pâtisserie for 3 months before he was hired as a junior pastry chef at L’Oiseau Blanc, a two-Michelin-star restaurant that specialized in making elaborate desserts each night such as their signature tahitian vanilla and smoked-tobacco ice cream.
Working in such a fast-paced environment was stressful but the pay was generous. After a little over two years at the restaurant, Louis was beginning to make a name for himself in the culinary world and had all but given up on his childhood dream of opening his own bakery. It was not until he broke up with his first real boyfriend that he found it again, nestled within the pages of an old, dusty diary alongside scrappy cutouts from cooking magazines.
He quit his job, emptied his savings, and bought a one way ticket to a small town in England. There, he purchased a medium-sized shop downtown and turned it into the Sweet Dreams Bakery and Coffee Shop.
He decorated the place as he’d pictured it in his fantasies; pastel blue walls, pink and white furniture, and a bell above the door that rang each time it opened.
Sadly, the joy of starting his own business was short lived and as the bills piled up, he forgot why he’d ever thought this was a good idea in the first place.
“Can I please leave early today?” Sybelle asked. “I have a recital on Monday and I need to practice.”
“You always have a recital,” Louis grumbled.
He was leaning over the counter, poring over his ledger. He preferred keeping a physical record of all his finances, even though it only made his expenses seem more glaringly obvious and urgent.
“I only do four recitals a year. The last one was three months ago in July,” Sybelle countered.
She was preparing an order on the espresso machine behind Louis.
Louis turned to her and groaned. “I hate it when you use facts to win an argument.”
“Can’t help it if I’m smarter than you,” she shrugged.
She handed the cup of coffee and a cinnamon roll to the customer then rang up the order on the cash register.
“I can’t afford to lose you today, Syb. Not when I got all this shit to deal with,” Louis waved the moleskin notebook in her face.
“You do realise staring at those numbers won’t make them disappear, right?”
“I’m not staring, I’m analyzing,” Louis said. “Also, that’s not the only reason I need you to stay. I gotta leave early too. I have plans later.”
Sybelle’s eyes narrowed with interest, her heavy eyeliner creasing at the edges. “You? Plans? What sort of plans?”
“The kind that’s none of your business.”
“Oh, I see. Do your plans involve locking yourself in the kitchen and testing out new recipes like you do every weekend?” She inflicted a faux-pitying tone into her question in an effort to goad Louis into revealing the exact nature of said plans. It worked.
Louis pursed his lips. “If you must know, I have a date tonight.”
“I don’t believe you,” Sybelle goaded some more.
“Believe what you want, It makes absolutely no difference to me,” Louis shrugged.
“Who’s the guy? Where’d you two meet?”
“I’ve already told you more than you need to know.”
“In that case, why not close the shop early so we can both go home. I don’t see any customers queuing round the back.”
It was way past rush hour and while there were a few occupied tables, the shop was mostly empty.
“Closing early is not an option,” Louis sighed, “We need every penny we can get or else we’ll both be out of a job soon.”
Sybelle crossed her arms, her head tilting to the side. Her long, dark hair was tied back into a tight bun. She seemed to finally understand the gravity of the situation. “Is it really that bad? Let me have a look at it. I’m miles better at maths than you, anyway.”
There was a reason why she ran the cash register and not Louis.
Louis shook his head. “My shop’s finances aren’t any of your responsibility. You’re a child. I can’t put that kinda pressure on you.”
“I am not a child. I am sixteen years old and I’m offended you think a few numbers would somehow break my psyche.”
“There’s nothing you can say to get me to change my mind,” Louis doubled down.
“If you won’t let me have a look then can I at least ask my dad? He is an accountant after all. Numbers are like his entire personality.”
Louis’ cheeks flamed at the mention of Armand. He kept his eyes steadfastly on the notebook so Sybelle wouldn’t see him blush.
“No, I…uh…I wouldn’t want to bother him.”
“Are you kidding? He’d be thrilled. He’s basically a walking calculator,” Sybelle insisted.
“Are you talking about me again? I heard the words walking calculator.” Armand walked in, catching the tail end of that conversation.
Louis’ back straightened so fast at the sound of that silky voice, he nearly got dizzy.
“Armand? How–how are you here?”
What he’d meant to ask was, “Why are you here so early?”
Usually, Armand dropped by at around 6pm on his way home from work. He’d wait for Sybelle to finish closing up and then they’d leave together.
“I was talking about you, Baba, but only good things, of course,” Sybelle replied, all faux-innocence. “Louis is in a crisis and he’s in desperate need of your services.”
“I wouldn’t call it desperate and no I’m not,” Louis quickly denied.
“What’s the crisis?” Armand asked.
“I believe his exact words were “the bakery is going under and we’ll both lose our jobs”,” Sybelle answered.
“First of all, I did not say it like that. Secondly, I didn’t mean it. I was being dramatic,” he lied, anxiously fiddling with a kitchen cloth.
Armand frowned, clearly not believing him. He’d never been a very good liar to begin with.
“If you need me to take a look at the shop’s finances, I’d be more than happy to.”
“Told you,” Sybelle said, before moving on to assist an incoming customer.
“I don’t think that’s… I mean I wouldn’t even be able to pay you,” Louis said.
“I would never charge you, Louis. I’ll of course do it for free.”
Louis didn’t know how to respond. He wasn’t very good at asking for help or accepting it.
“How about you think about it and let me know, yeah?”
Armand pulled out his wallet and placed a business card on the counter.
Louis’ thumb brushed against the thick cardstock and the sans-serif gold lettering – Armand Mahmoud, Senior Accountant, Equity Private Bank – before he tucked it into his apron.
“Can I make you anything? The usual?” He asked, swiftly changing topics.
Armand nodded. “Please.”
Louis washed his hands and went about making him a grilled reuben sandwich using freshly baked sourdough bread.
Armand sat down on a bar stool. “How’s everything been today?” he asked.
“Louis has a date tonight,” Sybelle announced, setting a chai latte in front of him.
Louis stilled, knife in hand. “Of all the ways you could’ve answered–”
“–You have a date?” Armand asked, giving him a look he didn’t know how to interpret.
“I’m still not entirely convinced it’s real,” Sybelle remarked.
“It is real and it happens to be with a very attractive man I met at the library.”
“I didn’t know you went to the library,” Armand said, sounding mildly surprised and interested.
“I’m sure there’s many things you don’t know about me,” Louis evaded his piercing gaze, focusing instead on placing the sandwich in the panini press.
“Does the imaginary man have a name?” Sybelle asked.
“I think it was Archie? Or Arthur? I’m not exactly sure but I can ask him to pick me up here later if you’d like to confirm his very real existence?”
“Tempting but no thanks. I have Beethoven waiting for me at home. Speaking of…”
“Yes, you can leave early,” Louis acquiesced. “I’ll manage closing by myself.”
He wrapped Armand’s sandwich and put it in a brown bag for him to take home.
Armand took out his wallet again to pay and Louis’ hand shot out to stop him. They’d done this song and dance many times before.
“For the umpteenth time, your money is no good here,” Louis said.
“For the hundredth time, I refuse to be a scrounger. That is not the example I want to set for my child,” Armand returned.
He took out a £100 note and put it in the tipping jar.
“You do know most of that will go to Sybelle anyways, right?” Louis asked, trying and failing to hide his amused smile.
“In that case, I’ll have to come up with a different way to repay you.”
Something about the way he said that – his tone dropping an octave and bordering on flirtatious – sent a volcano of heat down Louis’ stomach.
Armand’s gaze seemed to turn heated too but only for a split second and then it was gone, leaving Louis wondering whether it was all in his head.
“Let me know what you decide about the finances,” he added in a perfectly normal and cordial tone.
Louis cleared his throat and said, “Sure thing.”
Sybelle ended her shift a short while after and followed Armand out of the store.
“Good luck on your date!” She called behind her shoulder.
Her hair was now untied and cascading down her back in dark waves. She had clear dark brown skin and brown eyes like her father. The first time Louis saw them together, he’d assumed they were one of those siblings with a large age difference.
“Good luck on your recital!” He called back.
He spent the final hour cleaning up and serving the few customers that came in. All the while, he dreaded the upcoming date with the man whose name he couldn’t be bothered to remember.
***
“If you wait too long, you’ll miss your shot,” Sybelle said from her position on the passenger seat.
Armand gripped the steering wheel tighter with both hands. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Sybelle sighed, looking up from her phone. “Do we really have to go through this every bloody time? Why do grownups have to be such babies? You like him. He likes you. I don’t see what the problem is.”
“You don’t know that he likes me.”
“Yes, I do,” Sybelle’s tone was flat and matter of fact.
“How could you possibly know that?”
“Because I have perfect eyesight.”
Armand shook his head. “Just because he’s nice to me doesn’t mean he fancies me. It’s quite literally his job to be nice.”
He wished he could be as confident as she was in the probability that Louis was interested, but from where he stood that probability sat at a less than zero chance.
“That’s not true or else he’d treat every customer the same way. No one else is getting offered their sandwiches for free.”
“Well that’s obviously because of you, Symph,” he pinched her cheek before she quickly shooed him off. “If you weren’t working there, he wouldn’t give me the time of day.”
Sybelle groaned in annoyance. “Whatever the case, the fact remains that you’ll never know for sure until you ask him out and you need to do it soon before someone else locks him down.”
Armand frowned. He couldn’t deny the logic in what she was saying. It seemed simple enough when she laid it all out but it didn’t feel as simple when he thought about it.
“I mean what’s the worst that could happen, Baba? Other than him saying no?”
The thought of Louis saying no was horrendous enough but it was not the worst thing that could happen, not even close.
Armand sighed and looked between his wing and rearview mirror as he made the turn onto their street.
“No Symph, the worst that could happen is I could make things very awkward between you and your boss. I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable at your job, especially since you seem to love working there so much.”
Sybelle didn’t respond immediately. She was distractedly typing on her phone. Armand wanted to lean over and see who it was she was messaging but he reminded himself to respect her privacy and kept his eyes on the road.
Once she was done texting, Sybelle dropped her phone on her lap and said, “No offense Baba, but Lou and I’s friendship does not revolve around you. We’ll be fine no matter what you decide to do.”
Armand’s chest swelled at that. It filled him with so much joy to see them get along so well. Sybelle had always been choosy about who she opened up to. When they’d first moved to this town from London, she’d only been eleven years old. She didn’t have any friends and she rarely ever left the house.
Now, she had a small circle of friends from school, a best friend, Rose, and she had Louis, a gay, twenty-something, bakery shop owner who just so happened to have the sparkliest brown eyes and the most adorable, crinkly smile Armand had ever seen.
“Oh and by the way, Rose will be coming over later to keep me company while I play the piano,” Sybelle announced as they pulled into the driveway.
One of the perks of living in a small town was that there was hardly ever any traffic so they made it home in under ten minutes.
One of the downsides, however, was that the majority of Armand’s neighbours were much older and he didn’t have any friends really besides the parents who formed the PTA at Sybelle’s school.
“You and Rose spend an awful lot of time together. Is there anything you think I should know?” Armand asked as they made their way inside.
Rose was a mixed race kid who lived in their neighbourhood and also went to Sybelle’s school. She came over to their place often and when she didn’t, it was usually because Sybelle was over at hers. It hadn’t occurred to Armand, until this exact moment, that there could be more than friendship going on there.
“Why do you even ask?” Sybelle asked back, fumbling with her keys to open the front door.
She only ever answered a question with another question when she was stalling or had something to hide. She’d been that way since she could talk, responding to her mother’s, Did my little symphony steal from the sugar bowl again? with What sugar?
“It’s a simple question. Are you and Rose an item? Yes or no?”
“Ew dad, no one says “item” anymore.”
“Sybelle Symphony Solderini-Mahmoud. Answer the question,” Armand followed her down the hall, hot on her heels.
They took off their shoes, slipped into their slippers and made their way towards the kitchen.
“If I answer, do you promise not to be annoying about it?”
So that’s a yes, Armand thought.
“How long has this been going on? And when were you planning on telling me? Or was I supposed to read your mind and find out for myself?”
“It’s still new, Baba. It’s only been a couple of weeks.”
“A couple of weeks is not new,” Armand paused in his stride, his face turning serious. “Are you two being safe? Do we need to have another sex talk?”
Not that the first sex talk had gone so great. Sybelle had been thirteen and a half, and, in the middle of Armand regurgitating all the talking points he’d gathered from several gentle parenting handbooks, she’d buried her face in a pillow and screamed, “Oh my god, I don’t even like boys!”
In hindsight, it had been an oversight on Armand’s part to assume she was straight.
The “talk” turned into him reassuring her that he loved and accepted her no matter who she was attracted to and that he too sometimes found himself curious about people of the same gender.
A year later, Sybelle came home with a pamphlet from school and informed him that she was a lesbian and that he was bisexual.
“This is exactly what I meant when I said not to be annoying about it,” Sybelle muttered. She opened the fridge, searching for a snack. That’s when Armand remembered he’d forgotten to stop by the supermarket. It’s what he should’ve done after work, instead of passing by the bakery to ogle at Louis like a creep.
“It’s not annoying to want my daughter to be protected and her boundaries respected. If you’ve started having sex then I need to know that it’s completely consensual, and that you’re taking all the necessary precautions.”
He handed Sybelle the brown bag with the sandwich Louis had made him.
“Thanks,” Sybelle said, opening the bag. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I guess I was still processing it myself. I just… couldn’t believe it was real. I still don’t. But yes, we’re being careful, and neither of us is doing anything we don’t want to. I actually booked an appointment with the school nurse for a check-up next week.”
“Great,” Armand exhaled. “Keep me informed on how that goes.”
His mouth watered as he watched Sybelle unwrap the sandwich. He’d been looking forward to eating it the entire ride home.
She graciously offered him one half of it and he immediately sank his teeth into it. The sandwich was as delicious and as flavorful as he’d expected.
“Look what else your boyfriend packed for you,” Sybelle said, retrieving two carrot cake muffins from the bag, Armand’s favorite.
“Not my boyfriend,” Armand mumbled with his mouth full.
But his traitorous heart still fluttered in his chest at that word.
“Funnily enough, he doesn’t offer free pastries to any other customer. But I’m sure this means nothing either,” Sybelle remarked sarcastically.
Armand ignored her. He didn’t bother mentioning that Louis gave her free pastries all the time to bring home too, or that any fondness Louis showed him probably stemmed from the affection he had for her.
In short, this wasn’t exactly concrete proof of romantic feelings being involved.
Still, Armand would be lying if he said he didn’t secretly enjoy knowing that this special treatment was reserved only for him and his family.