Page 3 of Ethan

The most efficient shower ever, then I was dressed and in my car headed toward Cook Street Village, where my coffee shop was located. I walked into the dark silent space and flicked on the lights in the kitchen section. After I'd exchanged my light jacket for an apron, I hauled open the door of the fridge. Inside, I had croissant dough at various stages of laminating. Making croissants was a three-day process. One I had perfected while in Paris, France during my two-year pastry chef schooling. I had headed straight there after graduating from high school.

My dream of owning my own coffee shop with fresh baked goods came to fruition nine years later when my grandma, my dad's mom, passed away. She had left me a significant amount of money with instructions to follow my dreams with it. I had jumped at the opportunity.

I plopped the dough down on the pastry counter and rolled it out into a very precise rectangle. I would be making two kinds of croissants. The classic crescents that I would be using to make breakfast sandwiches and rectangular ones I liked to wrap around sticks of chocolate.

I was just finishing cutting and rolling the dough to put in the oven when my baked goods assistant, Claire, arrived. She was charged with making banana loaf, zucchini loaf, three kinds of muffins, an assortment of cookies, and cake pops. I still had some Danishes, cream horns, and chocolate éclairs to make. There was a reason we started at four in the morning.

"Have a good meeting last night with your friends?" Claire asked as she began dumping ingredients into one of the three mixers we had. We'd soon have them all going.

"My date on Saturday night took nude pictures." I grinned as I put my croissants into one of the ovens. "I passed them around to the guys. Of course, Owen refrained from looking at them."

Claire laughed. "I'm not surprised. The man has sense, whereas you have no shame."

I joined her in laughing. "Guilty."

"I don't want to see them."

I snorted. "Wasn't going to show them to you."

I had spent some time flipping through the photos last night before bed. Seeing my body like that, freshly fucked and hanging onto the enduring euphoria of amazing sex had precipitated a stream of images containing the games Carlos and I had played in bed. He'd spent the time to discover some of what I liked. A rarity among the men I usually slept with.

Squirming and panting in bed on my own last night, I'd stroked myself to crippling release. I should have slept sounder than I had.

Claire flicked on the first mixer, snapping my mind back, prepared for the whirring sound to impede our conversation. We had to switch to talking loudly.

"Do we have that new employee starting today?" Claire shouted.

"Yup. She goes by Susie."

"Trans?"

"I think so. I didn't ask, obviously. Pronouns are she/her."

"Does she have experience on the espresso machine?"

"Two years."

"Thank God. It must be a nightmare to train people on that thing."

She was right. We didn't have that kind of time to dedicate to a new hire. I needed someone who could jump right in with the front-of-house staff and pick up the slack. I usually scheduled a team of three out front working the till and filling drink and food orders, including a manager.

The new hires had to fit in—instantly.

As with all coffee shops, we had rushes at certain times of the day. The before-work crowd and the lunch crowd mainly. Then the students studying, businesspeople having meetings, seniors' coffee groups, and moms and dads with strollers kept the shop buzzing all day.

Most days we closed at 6 pm. The exceptions: the first Thursday of each month, the coffee shop hosted an underage drag show, both audience and participants. It gave the kids such a boost to dress up and lip sync to their favourite music along with a variety of the city's drag queens, kings, and things. On the last Wednesday night of the month, we had an open mic night where writers could read their poetry or an excerpt from one of their books. Both nights were very popular, and I was thrilled to offer the community some special nights to gather.

I'd been taught to give back.

Three hours later, my baking tasks complete, I headed to the front to start slipping today's finished baked offerings into the glass-front display. I perused the seating area. I'd tried to make it as cozy as possible while providing a variety of seating options. There were three sets of two leather armchairs, two long wooden tables with stools that seated six people, stools along a counter in front of the window, and eight tables and chairs for two that could be combined for more to join.

The first of my employees wandered into the space.

"Good morning." Eric yawned and flicked on the panini grill.

"Morning. You have a good weekend?"

Eric shrugged. "The usual. Gaming with my roommates."

---