Chapter 3 - Mix
It was preposterous! That medical quack said he was in picture perfect health! Perhaps Sheldon was manifesting some hysterics, or it was all psychological symptoms from over-work.
The man shook his head wearily. Maybe the doctor was right. Why else would his footsteps take him here again a week later? It was a run-of-the-mill bakery with a ditzy, chaos-filled owner.
An owner who was currently boxing a cake for a customer.
Penny gave her tall, neurotic stranger a beaming smile before turning back to address the customer.
"Thanks for your order. Hope to see you again!" she chirped.
Penny set out a small piece of a duplicate cake on the counter.
Sheldon was pleased to see she had followed his instructions, and had replicated the chocolate confection perfectly.
Baking differed from cooking. Anyone could deviate from a recipe for cooking, an added ingredient here and there, but a missed step or substituted ingredient could leave a baker with a brick instead of a moist cake.
Shyly, the blonde slid the lemon cake recipe in his direction along with his perfectly prepared cup of tea.
Briskly they headed back in the kitchen where he instructed her on the perfect ratio of sweetness to sour.
"You don't use safety goggles when squeezing lemons?!" he squawked leaping a foot away from the bowl.
Penny stifled a groan. Yup, he was still a walking basket-case.
Again, thanks to his impeccable instruction, and her patience in not punching him in the throat, the unlikely duo had another delicious creation in front of them.
"I've discovered your problem," he hypothesized as he took the initiative to make a whipped cream from scratch in one of her purple ceramic bowls. The woman perked up eager to hear his theory.
"You're in such a hurry to present your cakes that you rush through the proper baking procedures. They end up tasting, well, let's just say that I think Meemaw's pigs wouldn't even touch them."
Penny scowled, but had to admit the man was right. She tended to get so overzealous in her baking that she ended up with a pile of inedible mush in her haste to serve them.
"For example," he continued, "Egg whites need to be beaten into stiff peaks. Stop beating them too soon and you end up with a liquid mess. With the correct amount of time…"
With a shriek Penny gasped as the neat freak upended the bowl over his head.
Not one drop of the whipped confection touched a single brown hair of his.
Awestruck, she could only nod in agreement as her companion turned the bowl right side up and placed a dollop of his creation onto her slice of lemon cake.
And darn the robot-man, it tasted delicious as usual.
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Sheldon soon found himself with another routine in his scheduled week as the months followed.
After his daytime affairs were complete, the tall, young man would make his way into the bakery, staying as long as it took to instruct her on a specific dessert. Each delicacy ranged from baked to no-bake, simple to decadent. In doing so she began to attract more and more customers during regular hours. So much so that he had to wait until after hours to teach her, much to his surprise. Soon the blonde had made enough profit to even hire full time help.
And each time, they parted without a word of their identities to the other.
It was a Friday, and Sheldon entered her quaint domain, no longer quiet but a busy bustle of activity.
It was logical, he bargained with himself, to continue visiting her no-name establishment. The green-eyed baker knew well of his quirks and memorized how he prepared his tea. Her health codes were all up to date. His spot was reserved, and as the owner, she took it upon herself to serve him personally, always giving him that same jubilant smile.
Those he worked with never greeted him like that, he thought with a touch of bitterness.
Unknowingly his companion distracted him from morose thoughts as she served him a slice of carrot cake, and the instructions so he could began analyzing and commenting on its flaws in preparation for tonight. After he finished his work, of course.
No Cornhusker, judging by her mid-west accent and colloquialisms, was going to get in the way of his life's ambitions!
She gave him a nod, and whisked herself away to serve another waiting customer.
A gaggle of girls twittered behind him gossiping if he and the owner were an item.
"He's always staying late after hours with her."
"But what about that bouncer she flirts with?"
Sheldon glanced up.
Yes, that neanderthal was there, Kurt something. All muscle and no brain, much like the jocks and bullies in his youth who picked on him and stole his baked treats in their grubby hands. The "gorilla" would, of course, be exactly her type if the fluttering eyelashes and hand resting on Kurt's muscular bicep were any indication of preference.
Sheldon shifted uncomfortably. He was tempted to gauge her heartbeat. His cardiologist had offered that as a sure sign of attraction and elevated hormones. Not him of course. He was Homo Novus and as such above these trivial matters.
The girls drew his attention back to their chatter. "Oh you know she's just getting him to buy her cakes."
The one that Sheldon dubbed the intelligent one snorted, "A guy with that kind of muscled body doesn't eat cakes. She better make it clear where things stand with him."
The teenager's words must have been fate (or hokum as he tried to convince his mother) as the owner was taking out the trash, and the gorilla followed.
Sheldon was out of his chair like a shot.
"Whoa! Did he hear us?" the trio wondered amongst themselves.
The lanky man approached the (germ filled!) alley warily. Already he could hear raised voices.
"Babe, come to the club this weekend. A little music, some drinks and dancing, followed by some fun."
Sheldon snorted at the blatant mention of coitus.
"Listen Kurt, that sounds like a great night, but I can't go today. I have to close up the shop."
Running a business wasn't exactly a 9 to 5 job. Though she could afford enough to hire on staff during the day, she still had to balance the books, take inventory of the stock, and revise the menu after hours. The bakery had definitely put a damper on her social life.
The brute's eyes narrowed. He wasn't used to getting turned down by girls. This chick should be grateful that he had put in the effort to visit her shop for the past couple of weeks. With other girls, sometimes all it took was a flash of his biceps to get them in his arms.
Penny clenched her hands together struggling not to go Junior Rodeo on him. Months with her baking mentor surely helped with reigning in her temper.
"But I bought all of those cakes from you!" he tried justifying.
Her eyes flashed with emerald fire. "All right, I admit I flirted with you to buy some of my cakes. I'm sorry I led you on, but a few cakes don't give you the right to ask me to jump into bed with you!"
Kurt turned white with rage, and he loomed forward towards the petite baker in fury.
Sheldon against all sense of preservation, his dreams, and his future progeny stepped out into the alley heroically placing himself between the beauty and the beast.
"Like she said, she has to close the shop today and thus cannot fulfill your request of her." The blonde baker's unexpected rescuer slid a bright pink phone in front of the towering man's eyesight. A full calendar cleared the bouncer's vision of anger for a moment.
"However, if you desire female company," Sheldon wet his lips nervously, "I'm sure she could arrange a girl's night out for her many alcohol imbibing girl friends?"
He gave a searching glance to the woman, who nodded slowly.
Penny's friends had called her recently, begging for a night out with them, but she was elbow deep in mixing custards with her whack-a-doodle, so she bailed on the invitation. She could surely make up for that faux-pas with them and Kurt by putting them together. The girls would not say no to a dumb beefcake now and then.
Kurt studied Penny's phone warily. Every day in her calendar was full of bakery tasks, nights and weekends included.
"If you weren't working at the bakery, you'd be free to visit the club, right?"
The two both nodded.
"She's much too busy with the shop. If she wasn't working, she'd have a lot more spare time for you," Sheldon insisted.
The larger man nodded slowly, his primitive brain waves struggling to make all of the appropriate connections.
"You're her…"
"…business partner," Penny interjected. "He helps me with the bakery."
"The bakery is the only reason why you see him?" Kurt queried.
"Yup."
Sheldon flinched as the girl popped the last "p" in her answer. Infuriating woman! She knew how much he hated that.
The bouncer gave them both a strange look, but turned and trudged (loped, Sheldon thought) down the alley leaving the two alone.
Sheldon found himself with an armful of the green-eyed girl before he could shout "Danger!"
"Thank you," she breathed against his chest, and released him before his twitches could overwhelm him.
Okay, Penny thought, I may have crossed a line, but come on! Her stranger came in like a freakin' knight-in-shining armor to save her! It was like when Rhett rescued Scarlet in Gone with the Wind, or when the Dread Pirate Roberts had dueled for Princess Buttercup. Heck, it was even like that one time she was playing Age of Conan and a player named Sheldor something had come up out of the blue to keep her from being mauled by a rampaging troll.
This was ten times better than fiction.
Free of her embrace, he could finally breathe. The blonde had smelt of vanilla and something entirely unique his sensitive olfactory nerves could not define. His heart was beating a mile a minute. "I'm glad you were not hurt by that subspecies of the genus Homo Sapien. I hope you'll be more careful in the future," he lectured. With a quick brush of long fingers against his Green Lantern tee looking for invisible dust, he glanced at his feet mumbling, "I have become accustomed to visiting here."
You, I have become accustomed to visiting you, a strange inner voice inside him demanded to say.
Penny filled with a warm happiness she had never felt before could only grin in amazement. Her whack-a-doodle was so adorable when he wasn't being a pain-in-the-neck.
Hang on…
"Wait, you picked my pocket!"
Sheldon scoffed, "If you call pockets on those things you're wearing pants, then yes I did."
Penny growled. Any red blooded male with eyes and a pulse would have appreciated her short shorts, thank you very much! She guessed she had to make an exception for her whack-a-doodle as per usual.
"You hacked into my phone?!"
"Your birthday isn't an appropriate code!"
Penny forced herself to calm down. How could she want to kiss someone and slug them at the same time?
"Come on, let's go inside," she sighed, shaking her head wearily at her conflicting thoughts.
To her confusion, after they entered her shop, her savior insisted on personally buying slices of the cake of the day for the three giggling girls nearest to his reserved table.
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As they closed up for the night, Sheldon cleared his throat nervously, "In all of the pandemonium, I forgot to mention that my work requires that I attend a conference in Germany next week."
Penny's mouth dropped open in surprise. Just what did her mysterious partner do for a living anyway? She thought he was some boring science geek, but his baking skills were out of this world.
Sheldon frowned. Why was he acting like a shy child in front of her? He was a grown man, on his own since he was twelve years old! He had tarried too long already with this little bakery. He had his own dreams to fulfill. One that was slightly on hiatus, but this disorganized baker had reinvigorated his passion for baking again.
If he could use her talents at Gateau Affairs…
No, he stopped that errant thought in its tracks before he could complete it. She had her own bakery. She was already living her dream and probably wouldn't give it up for anything. Sheldon couldn't be selfish. He had to resume his own goals.
The owner of "Dreams" smiled fondly as they parted ways.
"Have a safe flight."
"Statistically you're more likely to have an accident in your car, than be involved in an airplane crash," her tall rescuer rattled out. "You should really get that engine check light looked at." A brief pause then, "I'll see you when I return."
Her face transformed into a smile so bright it could have lit up the entire state alone.
Well, if the action of contracting the Zygomaticus major and minor muscles and the luminosity of ones' teeth could be harnessed into electrical energy to power the California grid, but anyway, the man digressed.
Sheldon had started initially teaching her out of insanity, yet now he wanted to continue just to see that megawatt smile again.
If he was any other man Penny would have jumped his bones ages ago, but because it was him, she restrained herself. He probably wouldn't know what to do with himself. Heck, she probably wouldn't know what to do with him; he was so alien in nature, but she looked forward to getting to know him.
They parted ways like they did every night. The man and woman both thought that after a week's delay, they could resume their pattern of laughing, scolding, and most importantly, baking in each other's company.
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A week later and Sheldon found his way back in the area, a box of German chocolate in his hands as an early morning offering to the blonde. He had learned the hard way not to approach her before the clock struck eleven, but he couldn't wait until the evening hour to see her presence. He chose to visit her at the store's opening, to check on the bakery's progress obviously, not because of the woman running it. The green-eyed baker would love this confection in her cakes if he could stop her from consuming the sweet beforehand.
He picked up his pace to keep the chocolate from melting in California's balmy heat. He rounded the corner expecting to see the cheery establishment.
Only to be greeted by the burnt out remains of her bakery instead.
Yes, a cliffhanger. The whipped cream experiment was from the TVB drama Gateau Affairs and Gordon Ramsay did the same on Master Chef Junior.
Please review,
Grignard