chapter 1

Tick...Tick...Tick...Tick…

Granted, Maya would take the easy paycheck of doing nothing over being stressed beyond belief working in fast food, but /man/ working in a bakery could be extremely slow. It’s not as if they particularly had rush hours or in general a heavy customer count.

Wiping a tired tear from her eye, Maya decided it’d probably be best to close up early. She dragged herself away from the counter and began to place chairs on top of the tables. Why they even had a seating area was beyond her.

To her surprise, the jingle of the doorbell caught Maya’s attention. Who was coming in to have a cake at half 7 in the evening? It was probably someone from the bank coming to complain about negative numbers and quite frankly, she wasn’t in the mood.

“Look, I know why you’re here and as I’ve already explained a thousand times to you guys; I’ll pay by the end of the week. Now if you don’t mind--”

Maya looked up only to see a young woman standing by the entrance, probably around her own age if she had to guess. She certainly wasn’t anyone from the bank as she was wearing a short, red sundress with white polka dots on it. She was wearing a similar shade of lipstick to match as well as small ballet flats.

Most strikingly though was that she was chubby. Not in a rude sense whatsoever, in the most complimentary way possible. Their small town was a bit snobbish at the best of times and liked to keep up with appearances, being all about diet culture. In hindsight, maybe her parents setting up a bakery here wasn’t the smartest business move in the world. Either way it would be quite rare to see anyone even slightly overweight unless they were a tourist, which it didn’t seem like she was.

She seemed a little bit confused, though more so worried she was intruding. “Oh. Um, I’m sorry. I saw the lights were on and thought you were still open but if you’re not then I can just...Yeah.”

Maya was fully taken aback by her she forgot she needed to respond for a moment. “Oh! Shit--I mean-Gah!”

She dropped the chair she was currently holding with a loud clang and gesturing the customer over to the counter, “Sorry, I am so sorry. I’m just not overly used to serving this late. Or, at all actually.” Maya joked nervously, before forcing herself to take a deep breath and relax. “...What can I get for you?”

The chubby woman giggled in response, “It’s okay. I know it’s a bit weird to want anything this late, but I just have such a sweet tooth.”

This girl was after Maya’s heart and she had only been here two minutes. It was hard to stay focused when she could feel her heart pounding in her chest.

“Ah...Well, um. If it’s sweet that you’re after then I’d recommend trying our triple chocolate Oreo cake with caramel filling? Or if chocolate isn't your thing then maybe our fresh strawberry cake with strawberry buttercream? There’s also just the standard sponge cake, angel food cake, carrot cake, red velvet cake...”

Maya trailed off as the customer continued to giggle. It was a soft, sweet giggle (much like herself really) that made the tiny double chin she sported and her chubby arms jiggle in turn.

Was she laughing at...Her? A red hue started to form on Maya’s cheeks out of embarrassment, as well as the fact she was somewhat subtly watching the jiggling motion.

“Sorry--” She blurted in between giggles, “It’s just. I’ve just moved in across the street and just my luck that there’s a bakery that has all I could ever ask for in it. There certainly goes the diet plan.”

Maya laughed along with her joke about dieting, though it made her palms sweaty. This beautiful, chubby woman was going to diet? And she could potentially prevent that?

“I’ll tell you what,” Maya cleared her throat, “For a housewarming gift you can have whatever you want, two for one, for a fixed price.”

The other woman let out a quiet gasp, “Oh! Oh, no...That’s really, really kind of you but...Ohhhh…” She chewed on her bottom lip, “The strawberry cake and red velvet cake do sound perfect…”

“A fan of red, I take it?” Maya winked as she moved to prepare her order, “Sit down if you’d like. If you’ve just moved in I doubt you’ve got much set up.”

With a thanks, the woman took a seat at one of the remaining tables that hadn’t been stacked up yet. It was definitely now closing time, but Maya simply couldn’t waste an opportunity like this. She put more effort than she usually would into making sure both slices of cake look to die for on their respective plates, before coming to join her.

“There we areeeee~! One fresh strawberry cake and one red velvet cake for one very red customer.”

She nervously shifted her weight from one food to the other whilst the customer tried a forkful of each, the suspense of her chewing making Maya want to crumple to the floor.

“...Mmm! Wow,” she beamed. “These are just...Wow! Perfect.”

Maya let out a sigh of relief, followed by a smile of her own, “Well if you need anything else I’ll just be cleaning up, okay?”

She purposely took care of chores revolving the seating area so that she could occasionally glance at the lady in red. She ate with such delicate care, making sure to savour every bite, yet could eat huge forkfuls at a time.

By the time Maya was wiping down the counter, the woman came over with her now empty plates. “Thank you so much, you have a talent in this business.” She beamed and Maya noticed there was a small amount of frosting in the corner of her mouth. It wasn’t much, but to Maya it just made her even more irresistible.

She took the plates with a nod, being too afraid to say anything in case she blurted out something too inappropriate. It wasn’t until the door rang once more that Maya dropped to the ground now she could relax, curling up into a small ball.

“Damn it, Maya. You didn’t even ask for her name. Real smooth.”