Winning the Baker's Heart

Chapter 15

Rey watched Kyle sleep for a long while. He'd been awake since a little after two, but he didn't want to wake Kyle up by moving too much.

He was surprised he'd stayed over. After everything, he hadn't been sure he'd want to have anything to do with Kyle. Not after Founder's Day. His emotions had been so all over the place that he hadn't wanted to face them. What man would lead someone on then go back to his ex?

Kyle hadn't led him on exactly. He'd kissed him that one time. There hadn't been any further discussion of it. Rey wanted to know what it all meant, but he hadn't had the courage to ask. He hadn't wanted to get his hopes up. But a part of him had wanted to know what was going on.

Growing up, he'd only ever seen his parents kiss, and then his dad would kiss his mother additional as she called herself. Only when he'd gotten into high school had he seen people kissing who weren't married. They claimed it was love, and he'd believed them. He'd seen those in love kiss before so he thought that was the truth.

He hadn't even kissed his first girlfriend senior year of high school. He had liked her, but he'd known it wasn't love. They had broken up shortly after graduation. The same went for his second girlfriend. They'd broken up a few short months after they'd started dating.

Rey had liked them both, but he'd known they weren't right for him. They were still his friends after amicably separating. The girl from high school was pre-law at the University of Arkansas, and the other had gone to Frace to study some more. She updated everyone of her status when she could.

He had known that there was someone out there for him. He hadn't known how he knew or where the person was, but he'd known he could wait. He'd done a good job waiting for the last year and a half.

Then Kyle kissed him in a drunken state. It took Rey overthinking it and nearly losing his sanity to understand it, but when he did, it was like alarm bells went off. He liked Kyle and had since the day he'd hired him. It wasn't until he had kissed him that Rey realized it may be more than a friend.

Rey pushed at the strawberry blond hair that fell haphazardly in Kyle's face. He didn't move even with the lightest of touches. Kyle's hair was greying at his temples even though he was only in his mid-thirties. Stress made people age earlier.

He stroked his head gently then kissed his forehead. He didn't want to wake him so he got up. There was plenty of work to do downstairs. He could even frost his cake and get that out of the way before they needed to start on breakfast pastries.

He found his clothes hanging by the window. He changed quickly and went downstairs. It was still early so Thomas wouldn't be arriving yet. It gave him some alone time so he could think about what he wanted.

Grabbing the order book, Rey looked over what the customer wanted. It was a chocolate cake with cookies and cream filling. The exterior was to be decorated with fondant and a floral theme of some sort. Rey hadn't figured out what he was going to do yet, but the customer liked tulips, lilies, and roses.

He turned music on softly as he sat down at the table. He made a well of chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream then dumped the filling inside, smoothing it over and blending the buttercream into the filling lightly. When he stacked the second cake on top to make the base tier, he covered the whole thing in chocolate buttercream, making sure to do the same with the smaller top tier.

Luckily the only difference in the layers was the buttercream. The cake was a three-tier with the top and bottom layers covered in chocolate buttercream, and the middle was butterscotch flavored. He'd had to make the butterscotch while he was assembling the top and bottom tiers. While the middle tier was firming in the fridge, he put the fondant on the other two.