Baker Thief

by Claudie Arseneault

  Em laughed but didn’t bother to deny it. “It’s Clémence’s, and it has ols notes on exocores.”

  Adèle traversed the room and sat across from the cats, unwilling to disturb them. “Don’t you want to rest first?”

  “I do. In fact, I need to get out of the city.” She brushed the top of the book with her fingers before playing with the corner of the page, refusing to meet Adèle’s gaze as she did. “Do you think Uncle Fred would lend us his cottage by the Lac? Would you come, or does Koyani need you?”

  “I’ll ask her. She’d be down half her team.” Between Élise’s betrayal and Yuri’s wound, now might not be the best time for a vacation. Adèle would love to spend her days by the Lac Saint-Damase, however, reading in the shades of trees with the water lapping nearby, or fishing in the perfect stillness of dawn. And yet… that would mean leaving Claude before they’d had a chance to talk properly. “Maybe we should plan it for next week, or the one after? It would give us all time to prepare, and Yuri might be in better shape.”

  “Sounds great.” Em finally lifted her gaze from her tone. Amusement shone in her eyes and a wry smile curved her lips. “You should tell our good baker and his twin that they are welcome to this retreat.”

  Adèle’s face grew hot and red, and she wondered if Em had read her mind. She tried to answer, but her words came out as a jumbled, excited squeak which made Em laugh again. Adèle waited for her sister’s mirth to die down before finally whispering “Thank you.”

  “This is entirely self-serving. Imagine how much better this vacation will be with fresh croissants and warm bread every morning.”

  Adèle pushed at her sister’s shoulder with a chuckle. “You’re inviting him to rest, not to work for you.” She knew he would do both, however. Baking had been his way of relaxing yesterday, and she wouldn’t be surprised to learn it was helping him recover from the ordeal. “I’ll go to invite him, then. Try not to overdo the science.”

  She stood while Em stuck out her tongue at her, and left in search of Claude, her heart aflutter with visions of a long vacation with him, away from conspiracies and politics. Would Claude teach her some of the basics of breadmaking? Come fish on the Lac in her uncle’s old boat? Perhaps they’d just sit on the porch and talk, or find a private corner to cuddle, kiss, or more. Her dreamy thoughts distracted her so much she almost bumped directly into Claude as he exited Livia’s room.

  “Adèle!” he exclaimed, and grinned. “I was about to go look for you.”

  “I—me too.”

  “I have an invitation for you,” he continued, and his excited enthusiasm gave way to the shy smile she had always loved. “For dinner. Tonight. I-I think we should talk? About the whole…” He gestured at both of them vaguely. “That thing.”

  Adèle’s soft flutters at imagining their potential vacation earlier turned into an almost painful twist. Part of her wanted to run away from this discussion, to avoid putting words on what they might feel, and on what it meant for them. Was she ready for that? What if either of them panicked or otherwise ruined it? Couldn’t they continue leaning onto one another for support without explaining more? She told herself they had gone through worse and, more importantly, that Claude needed this. What good would their relationship be if she already refused him the right to clarity and boundaries? Adèle pushed back at her doubts and nodded.

  “It would be a pleasure,” she said. “I also have an invitation, but it might be best to wait until we’ve talked.”

  He perked up, his eyes shining. “Now I’m intrigued. You couldn’t help but keep me on the edge of my seat until tonight, could you?”

  “It’ll make two of us,” she countered, and her anxiety seeped into her voice more thoroughly than she had wanted.

  Claude’s expression softened. “It’ll be good, some time alone from the flurry of events. Just the two of us at my place, with a nice meal and all the evening ahead of us.”

  “But no candles or flowers, huh?”

  He laughed and his mirth was a calming balm on Adèle’s stress. Perhaps he was used to these discussions, much like she had gotten skilled at explaining to potential lovers she might never feel sexually attracted to them. “I like candles. No idea why everyone believes they’re so romantic, but they’re good ambiance and they smell great when you snuff them out. You’re hereby in charge of bringing them. Grab wine for yourself, too, if you want any. I don’t drink.”

  “Understood.”

  “And Adèle?” He hesitated, his body tensing as his doubts spread clearly on his expression. “Please take some time to think about what you want, or any questions you could have. It might make it easier and I… I really want this to work.”

  He reached for his elbow, as if to hold himself smaller, and she intercepted his hand. They stood in the corridor, silent for a moment, near enough to feel each other’s warmth—almost as close as in the laboratory, when Claire had teased her with charges of seduction. Her blood had pounded so hard then, the rush of adrenaline from their rescue and the horror of the tanks compounding her desire, fraying her control. Adèle was calmer now, and she pulled Claude closer slowly, dropping a soft kiss on his lips. It didn’t last, but Claude’s smile had returned as she drew back.

  “Me too. We’ll figure it out.” As she said it, she found her confidence more solid than ever before. She stepped back, releasing Claude. “See you tonight, then! I have to talk with Koyani.”

  At Claude’s request, she promised to greet Koyani and thank her for the help at the Pont, then she reluctantly left his side. Part of her wished to linger around for the entire day and contribute to their dinner, but she suspected Claude needed the space to better define his wants and questions. After a meeting with her capitaine, she decided to return home too, and spend the day on her own and follow his sound advice. How strange, to enter her flat, where it had all started. She sat on her bed, where she’d first heard Claire sneaking into her office, and smiled at the memory. Her home no longer felt unsafe, and she had since connected with the city’s gas lines. Her future in Val-de-mer had never looked as promising as it did now.

  -32-

  LA FORME DU NOUS

  They managed to eat the entire main course without a word on their relationship. Claude had slowly baked a salmon wrapped in the leftover flaky pastry from this morning’s croissant, stuffing it with fresh cheese and herbs. Adèle had devoured it with great delight, promising it was better than almost anything she could prepare, and they’d spent most of dinner chatting about their favourite food and her questionable cooking skills. It had been fun and left them both in good spirits by the time he brought his mini chocolate muffins out of the oven, but the unresolved questions about their relationship hung over them through it all.

  Over the course of the afternoon, Claude had tried to untangle what he wanted from this relationship with Adèle. He hadn’t expected anything like this to happen to him—not after years of living comfortably on his own, building his business from scratch and enjoying the occasional outing at night, with Zita or alone. The closest thing he’d entertained in the recent years was with Fiona, a quick-witted dancer in the Quartier des Sorbiers, and it had been very strictly sexual in nature. They would spend nights together, enjoying the flirting and the physical intimacy, and eventually it had fizzled out, both of them slowly moving on.

  It had been good while it lasted, but his feelings for Adèle were completely different, and could never take the same shape as his brief time with Fiona. He recognized the way she looked at him, eyes shining, her blush easy and her laugh light, and he remembered how she had asked him out. Adèle was not aromantic, and he hadn’t yet learned how to deal with that. He needed to know what she expected of him, and this. He needed boundaries that would prevent him from feeling trapped, as he had with Zita, or from convincing himself he was stringing her along and lying. He wasn’t. Neither had he been to Zita, while he was trying to understand who he was and what relationships meant to him, but those thoughts were not
easy to dispel.

  With a sigh, Claude set the plate of muffins in the centre of the table. “This is bait,” he declared, “and we don’t get to enjoy it until we’ve had our talk. Let’s… get it done before they grow cold?”

  Surprise flashed across Adèle’s expression, but she put down her glass of wine and nodded, looking serious. “You’re right. I… thought about this a lot today. You don’t want romance, do you?”

  “What even is romance?” Claude countered, before slinking back into his chair. He hadn’t meant to drop the question like that—it was too big, too impossible to answer—but it had plagued him for so much of his life. “We won’t get anywhere if we go too large. I don’t fall in love, and when I tried to follow relationships the way others did… It was stifling and wrong. I know that much. But I have one certainty nestled in my soul, as strong and true as any others, and it’s that you mean the world to me. Being with you feels right, and I want that to stay. Whatever that means…”

  He was being confusing. He could tell by the hesitation in Adèle’s eyes and how she’d folded her hands over the table. She didn’t get it, but how could he explain the way his heart expanded when she walked nearby, or how she just fit, like she had always belonged to his life. But there was kindness in her pose too, and no hurt at all.

  “I want the whatever that means.” She leaned forward, and Claude was once more caught by the striking beauty of her brown eyes, of her long nose and smattering of freckles running over it, her narrow visage and her determined smile. “I love you. There’s no going around that. I… crush on people a lot, ages before I experience any sexual attraction. That latter… doesn’t happen often, actually, but since I enjoy the occasional sexual encounter I don’t usually wait for it.” She coughed, intensely red by the candlelight. “So that can be part of our equation every now and then if you want it.”

  “Oh yes.” The words escaped on their own—that was the easy bit for him, the one that had always been obvious.

  Adèle laughed at the speed with which he answered, then sipped at her wine. “So we’re a non-romantic pair with occasional sex. Is pair okay? I don’t think polyamory is for me.”

  “A pair is good.” Setting the boundaries of one relationship was proving complicated enough for him, and who would they add to this anyway? Maybe one day someone else would come up, just as Adèle had dropped on him unexpectedly, but they could talk about it again if it happened. Claude had his doubts. “I don’t want to only be a pair. You know how couples sometimes can’t seem to exist without one another? That freaks me out. I want to go out and do stuff on my own, and I want to know you have your own friends and activities. I need my own discrete life or I’ll drown in the one we’d share.”

  “No moving in together, then.”

  Claude’s heart squeezed in horror at the idea, and he grabbed the table. “No.”

  “Great!” Adèle said. “My flat is finally growing on me, despite your best efforts. I didn’t relish the thought of moving again so soon.”

  “I am not a living-together person. I love my bakery, and my weird hours, and having a space that belongs to no one else but me—well, me and the fifty exocores in my basement. Sleepovers are fine, though.”

  “What about something longer, but still temporary?”

  Adèle had hesitated before asking her question, and Claude felt stones drop at the bottom of his stomach. He leaned back, trying to force himself to stay calm and relaxed. This had been going very well. “What do you mean?”

  “Like a vacation.” A genuine smile spread across her lips and melted away chunks his reluctance. Still, he waited for more details, afraid to agree to something he’d regret. “That’s why I was looking for you earlier. I have an uncle who owns a cottage by Lac Saint-Damase, and Em and I will be retreating there for a few weeks. Livia and you would be welcome along. So it’s not even the two of us alone, really, and I think we could all use the time away from Val-de-mer.”

  “That sounds wonderful,” he said, and it truly did. He had promised Livia he would rest—and made her promise the same—and a cottage wasn’t his space. It didn’t feel like an intrusion. “Livia loves large bodies of water. She says it makes her magic easier, and it might help her recover. I’ll ask her if she wants to come.”

  “Deal, then.”

  Adèle leaned forward, reaching across the table to grab a muffin. Immediately, Claude snatched the plate away, his heart hammering. He didn’t understand his sudden surge of panic at the idea that they’d covered everything they needed, but his magic had flowed out on its own, and now he stood by the table, holding the muffins high, a little breathless, and confused at himself. Were they really done? Shouldn’t there be so much more to discuss? What if they forgot an important element and it shattered them down the line? Shouldn’t they take more time, and go over everything again, and—

  “Claude,” Adèle said softly. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m… I feel like we’re missing something.” He shifted away and forced himself to look at Adèle. “That can’t be it, can it?”

  “It can.” Adèle pushed herself up and slowly made her way around the table, to him. She removed the plate from his hands and set it down. “We’ll never unearth every potential detail of our future, Claude. We don’t need to. We’ll figure it out as we go and it’ll be okay. I know this like I know my last name. And do you know why?”

  It took him a moment. Adèle’s proximity calmed him and allowed him to return to the foundation of their relationship. “Je crois en toi.”

  “Je crois en nous,” Adèle corrected. “We can do this.”

  She was right. They didn’t need more precise rules any more than they needed romantic love. They had faith—the kind that destroyed industries and changed the cityscape forever. All they needed was to keep communicating, and they would get through fine. Slowly, Claude reached for the chocolate muffins and handed her one.

  “We can do anything,” he said, “but right now, I think we should start with muffins and a long, well-deserved vacation.”

  THANK YOU FOR READING!

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  REMERCIEMENTS

  Baker Thief is in many ways a book of self-discovery and self-affirmation. At the risk of sounding like I have an overblown ego, I want to thank myself for writing, for daring to put so much of myself into it.

  Books don’t happen without a team, however. Thank you to Marianne, first reader and eternal cheerleader, to Laya Rose for the wonderful cover, to Ren, Janani, Gaven, and Lynn for the help with both story and representation. In fact, double thanks to Lynn, who also patiently fixed all my grammar mistakes and blessed me with long chats about how we could play with French and English.

  Many thanks to my wonderful family for the continued support, to my friends who make me laugh and love every week, to everyone on twitter who ever got excited about this project, especially the aromantic community, to my patrons who love every single tidbit of Baker Thief posted and encourage my work in such a wonderful and direct way. I would never have the courage to pour so much of myself into Baker Thief without all of you.

  A particular thanks to my punmaster partner, Eric, who got me into actual baking and is always there by my side, even when all I do is stare at the screen and mutter angrily about plot holes. Our life together is full of croissants, delicious cheesy bread, and love.