The Last Baker
Title: The Last Baker [22]
Author: shorthorror
Pairing: Brian Haner & Zachary Baker
Rating: NC-17
Summary: This beautiful asshole just came around and started ruining everything for me. I was the last Baker, and I'd promised my father our name would not die with me.
Disclaimer: I am confident the readers can distinguish between what is real and what is fiction. I need not state the obvious.

0.5|One|Two|Three|Four|Five|Six|Seven|Eight|Nine|Ten|Eleven|Twelve
Thirteen|Fourteen|Fifteen|Sixteen|Seventeen|Eighteen|Nineteen|Twenty|Twenty One



Withdrawing into yourself is much easier to do when you cut off all your communications with the outside world. After Brian had showed up at Milan Verde the other day, I told everyone to just leave me alone. Including Greta. I told her that I loved her and appreciated her trying to help me, but I just wanted to be alone with my thoughts. I just wanted to think and think until I sifted through so much of myself, that perhaps the answer would show up. The answer for what though was what made it so hard and me so depressed.

I laid in bed for a long while, even after I was fully awake. I just felt no need to get up and do anything. I wasn't hungry and didn't want to cook, and I sure as hell wasn't going back to the restaurant. I wanted to be anywhere but there or around anyone that had to witness the conversation between Brian and I last night. It was humiliating enough that now everybody knew, but to show my face, the blush would never cease to show.

So I spent a few long and lonely days locked up in my house. It was just like when my parents had died. I stayed at home, cleaned things up when I eventually got out of bed, organized the house from top to bottom. And then once I was finished I would do it all over again. It was a good way to keep my mind off recent events. But that didn't mean I didn't think about them.

I thought about Brian constantly. I thought about what he was doing at that very same moment as me. I wondered what he was doing for money? If he missed me or if he had moved on. Maybe he was hitting up the bar scene to see what kind of people he could get to take his mind off our break up. Or maybe he didn't care at all? By the way he didn't make even the slightest effort to contact me, I assumed the worst; that Brian had come to the conclusion that I was a fucking psycho and he could do much better than me.

No matter what I did his image followed me.

When I looked out onto the Californian ocean with it's golden sunset and sparkling Pacific water, I remembered the day Brian and I had spent watching the same sun go down and we sat beside each other in the warm sand. I remembered kissing him on the beach for what felt like hours, until the sky turned inky blue. His lips on mine felt like no other I'd had before. In fact, I couldn't even remember a time when I had been so close and so passionate with someone for that long.

In the back of my mind I knew the way I had treated him was wrong. Brian didn't deserve to lose his job and me too. That was two of the largest components of your life, and I had burned his ties to me in more ways than one. Anguish and guilt soon became my primary emotions as I stalked around my house like a man lost and far away. And when my phoned ring and I ignored it and just let it sound, the guilt was gagging. I wasn't sure if it was Greta or Brian, or somebody from the health unit or a credit card company. I just ignored the phone and continued doing whatever it was that I was preoccupied with. Such as watching TV or reading on my couch. Or just moping around, thinking about how much of a downward spiral I'd made.

When one day turned into three, I started getting bored and sick of having no one to talk to. I would occasionally hum to myself, but my tongue was itching to pronounce and my teeth asked to click. My mouth was almost dry with the need to say something. But to who? I considered maybe buying a bird or a small dog and talking to that, but I realized that a dog would make a mess and bird would make too much noise.

There had to be something I could do. I wasn't going to stay in my house forever and become one of those people on TV that go on talk shows after being inside for twenty years or more. I needed to go for a walk or a drive. Something so I wouldn't suffocate in redundancy.

I decided it was a good idea to go out for coffee. I wanted to go to that little cafe down the street from my restaurant and drink a latte and perhaps eat a beignet while I used the wireless Internet connection on my almost untouched laptop. I packed up everything, had a very quick hot shower, dressed and then left my house.

It was around six in the afternoon and the sun was beginning to go down. The sky was bright orange with pink, but a plateau of blue could still be seen where the clouds broke up. I slipped on my Chanel sunglasses and got into my Beamer. I was thankful that I hadn't lost my car and fancy things along with my mind and my humanity. At least I still had the pleasure of glancing out the window of my sleek black BMW onto the horizon that filtered through the black of my designer shades. I smelled like Armani and Calvin Klein and looked young and famous. Yes, at least I still had that.

I got to the cafe and parked around the side. When I went in some people looked up from their Macintosh laptops and smiled subtly. The distinctive smell of brewing coffee beans relaxed me. It was so deliciously aromatic in that place. Especially after they took freshly baked cookies and tarts out of the oven and let them cool down on top of the chrome on glass display cases. I ordered myself a low fat vanilla soy latte and bought one of their cranberry tangerine muffins. I was in the mood for some substance and their muffins were quite large. No wonder one cost around six dollars.

I took my muffin and my latte to a table and sat down. I unzipped my messenger bag and pulled out my laptop. It had been a long time since I checked my e-mail or even did online banking like I was accustomed to. When my desktop loaded and a message popped up telling me I had five hundred and thirty unread e-mails I sighed and clicked to open up the inbox. A lot of the messages were notifications from my e-mail account provider and old friends that I hadn't talked to in months sending chain letters. Nothing really major.

Everything started to get boring very fast. The baristas shouting out orders was beginning to annoy me and the Internet never did really hold any particular interest for me. I finished my latte quickly and made my way out of there, feeling as though I had only wasted time and money.

This felt different. Usually, I had Brian with me to talk to or do things with. Brian was full of ideas and was never tired of going out. I was usually the same way, but going out for coffee by yourself was never as good as going out with somebody else. Driving wasn't as relaxing if you were only going back to your boring house full of the things you had to look at everyday.

When I arrived home, my answering machine told me that I had received four new messages. I sighed and pressed play, listening half hearted as I went into my kitchen to get a drink of water. I had already suspected at least one of them was going to be from Greta, so when her voice sounded over the speaker I was not surprised.

"Zack, it's me Greta. Listen honey, you have to come back to the restaurant, or call me at least. Let me know if you're alright and if you're not than I can help you. Zacky, don't lose yourself. Sometimes you have to make a choice that will determine the follow through. Don't make the wrong decision."

Her last words really got to me. Don't make the wrong decision, before she hung up. That's what I had heard my father say in the dream that I had. He had told me not to make the wrong decision. Greta was telling me not to make the wrong decision. And at that moment I wasn't the best I had been. Perhaps I was doing something wrong.

The next day Greta came over without warning me. She came into my house and looked at me sitting on the sofa watching the news, curled up in a ball under a throw blanket. In her hands she carried one of those clear blue bags with the newspaper inside. I wondered why she had it because I didn't get the newspaper. So it couldn't have been from my porch.

"Hi." I said bleakly.

"Hello Zack. How are you?" She asked me as she came to sit down the chaise longue beside my microfiber sofa.

"I'm okay." I said.

She held out the bag with the newspaper for me to grab, so I did and then looked up at her inquisitively.

"What's this for?" I asked.

"You should read it."

"Why would I need to? I'm watching the news right now."

Greta nodded at the newspaper. "Read the food section."

I sighed. I knew this was about Brian's stupid little reviews. I already knew what was in the food section. Recipes and reviews and health studies. I undid the twist tie and pulled the newspaper out of the blue plastic bag. It smelled freshly printed and unrolled in my hand as I pulled apart the pages.

What I didn't expect to see on the first page of the foods and entertainment section was a picture of Brian and I standing in front of the Silver Shell, I also didn't think I would see a picture of us at the bar in Los Angeles. But we were there, and we were hand in hand. I paled and looked up at Greta.

"What is this?" I asked her.

"Read the title." Greta said to me.

'Romance and Restaurants: How I found true love in food, by Brian E. Haner.' That was the title on top of the page in large bold scroll. I bit down on my lip. It was an article about me. I started to read it, but found it every hard because I knew it was Brian's writing. It was Brian writing about him and I to the whole population of Huntington Beach. Almost two hundred thousand people had the potential to read this article just like i was.

"I never thought in my profession of judging food and restaurants I would find the love of my life. Not the love of food and dessert or fine wines, but real true love. I met a chef a few weeks ago, and I fell in love with his ways. His name is Zachary Baker and he owns one of the most popular Italian restaurants in town. Some people know it as Milan Verde. But others know it as the only place that serves real and authentic Italian dishes. Zachary isn't your regular pasta and pizza boy. He's a chef and a culinary entrepreneur that sets high standards for other food related establishments. I was lucky enough to experience his astonishing commitment first hand by coming to work in his personally designed kitchen as his next to head chef. Somewhere amongst cooking fine foods for the patrons of Huntington Beach, I found a romance strong enough to make us both do crazy and irrational things."

The rest of the article was written by someone else, explaining that the famous Brian Haner would no longer write restaurant reviews, but would resign and continue on a different path in life. I was confused as to what I had to do with his supposed resignation, but now it was official. Brian and I had gone fully public.

"What do you think Zack?"

"I think I'm going to kill him."

"Zack..."

"I know, I know." I said, feeling that familiar wave of hotness and sultry liquid rush through my face and crash against the back of my eyes.

"Can I tell you something that is painfully obvious to everyone but you?"

Already I'd begun to cry. "Wh-what?"

Greta let out a long sigh and smiled at me. "You're in love."

I sobbed really hard after that. Like a kindergartner, I cried out the fat tears of my denial that was quickly leaving me and being replaced by total enlightenment. The knowledge that had been there all along. "I know."

"When did you realize this?"

"I think..." I sniffled harshly. "I've always known, but was too scared to admit it.

Greta leaned inwardly, her voice soft as a whisper. "So what are you waiting for Zack?"

I shrugged as I wiped away my tears. "A sign maybe?"

"A sign for what?"

"That he's the right decision."

Greta pursed her lips and took my hands between hers into her lap.. "Zack... my beautiful, insecure boy. You've made no wrong decisions thus far. Use that Baker instinct. Go for what you want."

I sucked back my watery emotion and smiled at her. "Thanks Greta."

"No thank you."

After that, I got up from the couch and left my house, but not before grabbing my keys, the page with Brian's article and giving Greta a kiss goodbye. I ran out the door, bounded down the walkway and jumped into my car. The key couldn't turn fast enough in the ignition. I pulled off onto the East Californian coastline and sped down the highway very illegally, passed the cabanas and beach houses and made a right onto the detour that took me all the way around and straight into the heart of Huntington Beach. Back to the heart that was mine.