City of Smoke // Brian 'Otis' Zvonecek ✔️

07 || BAKERY

Despite barely being able to bake boxed brownies let alone anything fancy, something Rory often found herself doing was helping out her dad in his bakery.

Whether it be up front dealing with customers and boxing up orders, or out the back, nervously adding the finishing touches to some pastries and praying she didn't ruin them. Or even just wiping down tables and cleaning the coffee machine. Wherever she was needed, Rory was always willing to help out.

And now that she knew that a certain someone, someone who she couldn't get off her mind lately, often frequented her dad's bakery, she found herself helping out at lot more than she normally did.

"Can you take this to table two for me, please." Scott said as he handed Rory a tray of coffee and scones, finding himself in a fluster over all the things he had yet to get done.

"Yep." Rory nodded, carefully taking the tray and just barely gripping the edges of it before her dad let go and shuffled away into the back again, in a panic about his cannoli shells.

Thank God Rory had good balance when it came to waitressing otherwise the poor couple at table two would be getting half empty drinks and soggy scones as the coffee had almost sloshed over the edge of the cups.

Weaving her way past a few customers waiting on the aforementioned cannolis, Rory managed to reach table two without spilling a single drop of the coffee on the tray. The benefits of steady hands. Honestly, she could be a surgeon if she wanted to.

"Give me a shout if you need anything else." She said with a polite smile as she set the last plate on the table before the young couple, who nodded a thanks her direction as she tucked the tray under her arm.

The melodic jingle of the bakery door opening could barely be heard over the overlapping sounds of hushed conversations, the loud hiss of the coffee machine and the thick Scottish accent of Rory's dad coming from the back.

His accent got thicker the more stressed he was, which given how unintelligible his words were right now, he was pretty stressed. The usual waitress had called in sick this morning, leaving Scott incredibly short handed, but luckily for him he had a absolute miracle of a daughter who'd literally saved the day.

"Be with you in a sec." Rory called over her shoulder towards whomever just walked in. She was too busy cleaning up a table of a group who'd just left so she couldn't exactly see who had just entered the sweet smelling bakery.

"Take your time." Replied an all too familiar voice. A voice that had Rory stop what she was doing for a brief second, the empty cup in her hand suspended in the air as she felt a slight tingle in her chest and a warmth creep up onto her cheeks.

Thank God she'd decided to dress nicely today and make an effort with her make-up.

Subtly clearing her throat, Rory continued to clean up the table in a slightly quicker pace than she'd started. Only not too quickly as she didn't want to a) come across too eager or b) drop a mug in her haste to finally see the one person she hadn't stopped thinking about all day and end up making a fool of herself.

Setting the last mug onto her tray which she held against her hip, Rory pulled a cloth from her apron pocket and gave the table a quick wipe before turning around, and praying to God that she didn't have any flour or icing on her face from earlier.

"Fancy seeing you here." Rory said a touch playfully and with a smile as her eyes found the cute, smiling face of Otis who stood just off to the side of the door.

"What can I say? I had a craving for pastries." Otis replied in a similar tone, the flirting between the two of them not exactly subtle to anyone around them. But luckily for them no one seemed to be paying attention.