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Jack learns to bake around his mother, when he can barely see over the counter and she immediately buys a step stool for him. It doesn’t last though because soon enough he grows and can’t stop. She jokes about him being a weed and brushes her fingers through his hair. From her he was given love and nurturing and when she died she also gave him loss and a conflicting sense of the world he didn’t really want a part of anymore.
But there’s something soothing about kneading dough with only a stove light to guide him and the pale morning trying to sneak in through the window that keeps him sane. He never notes how it keeps him calm or how his hermit forming symptoms recede when he does this. He never necessarily wants to admit bread and muffins and all the other things have replaced his mother because they haven’t but there is something in the way it makes him feel that not even another human being has been able to give him. (Not that he’s given anyone a chance to.)
So Jack bakes.
He leaves town a few days after the funeral. Makes promises about being home when people want to come pay their respects but he packs a handful of boxes and loads up his car in the middle of the night. He never looks back and only hesitates when he reaches the city limits and thinks about the only person that deserves an explanation but he has no idea what to say. He can’t so he presses on and escapes into the night without letting himself worry too much.
*****
Jack opens a shop in the middle of nowhere in a city where he knows no one and bakes breads and buns, rolls and muffins. He bakes pies and cupcakes and various other things. Some things are Polish while others are more western and American. Italian treats slip in on occasion, ones close to his heart that his mother never told him about. They make his soul heavy but also happy, memories of good things that he knows he can refer to whenever he needs to.
He never writes down what he plans to make, he only does them and at first there was a push for it, a gentle demand to but he ignores it. He’s sure at that point some people never come back again despite needing them for his little place but it’s not them he does this for, it’s himself and to keep mom alive somewhere aside from within his heart.
James is the man who he finds at the park. He looks too clean to be a transient but his unruly hair and his beard tell him he might just be one. He sits on a bench with the left side of his sleeve neatly pinned up and feeds the birds. After a few shared fragments of conversation Jack learns he too is running away from a ghost. There’s a charm layered with his troubles though, a shine in his grey blue eyes and it’s his faraway unguarded smile that tells Jack things aren’t as they seem. He’s hired to run the front after just a day of them meeting.
It takes two more days for James' ghost to find him.
Things quickly fall into place, a simple rhythm that, by the start of Autumn, Jack has decided this isn’t a whim and he’s here for the long haul. He has a new hire he didn’t plan for, a blond lumberjack of a man that refuses to leave because of James and he’s charmed by the both of them and their little push and pull of giving yourself what you want. It cements his decision to stay more strongly and he learns on social media that back home despite no one knowing where he had gone, all life as he knows it, has gone back to normal. There are stray messages of hope he is well and safe and those are ones he holds close to his chest. He looks for one name in particular but he finds him nowhere, things left unsaid between them but there is always a constant longing whenever he thinks of him.
*****
“Hey, you got some Italian jagoff looking for you.” Steve says as he comes into the kitchen with his thumb pointing over his shoulder on a slow Tuesday a few months later. “He said he won’t leave unless he gets to talk to you. Want me to convince him to get lost?”
Jack knows in his heart of heart exactly who he’s referring to, but he tries to be realistic as he uselessly tries to get the dust of flour off his arms and bits of dough from off his fingertips. He tosses aside his apron and carefully makes his way out to the front and against all odds it is Brock standing there, eyes currently trying to burn a hole in James’ face as the other is doing a remarkable expression of a murderous stare. Jack feels a complicated mix of happiness, self consciousness and anxiety.
“You can stop glaring at my employees, they’ll bench press your ass if you provoke ‘em.” He teases and Brock turns his head to snap something smart but his face suddenly goes blank and instead he laughs.
“What’re you doin’, Jackie? Runnin’ a front for some gang shit ‘cause this beefcake bakery thing isn’t what I thought when you took off.”
James goes back to work but his shoulders are tense and Jack only smiles at the wariness he can appreciate.
“It’s a legit bakery,” Jack informs. “Having two brick house employees was not on that agenda, I had no agenda actually but they’re good guys.”
“They were threatenin’ to throw me outta here.”
Steve casually strolls by as he heads over to the few tables needing a clean, draping a towel against his shoulder, “Still will if we have to.”
Despite the protective animosity in the room, Jack smiles and gestures to Brock to have a seat before he asks James to pour them a couple cups of coffee, slipping into the back to grab his attempt at zeppole that he knew by heart but was never confident in selling. Usually he just ends up sharing them with the guys and they never ask him why. It’s not like it’s too often anyway, just when it’s hard to do everything else and they’re the only way to ease his heart. He stares at them laid out neatly on a tray and he’s suddenly insecure, pessimistically picking out detailed flaws in the presentation before he steels himself and plates a few, bringing them out. To his relief Brock is by himself and customers are being helped to, he’s not sure if it’s the extra people that had eased the harassment he knows his friends can’t help but he’s grateful.
The effort on the pastry is all worth it for the way Brock lights up upon seeing them and the way his expression goes soft at the first taste, eating a couple more in a few bites before he reins himself in with an expression of guilt.
“These are damn good, I didn’t know you made zeppole here.” He pushes the plate away from him, lingering over the last few, “You still know how to knock me off my diet plan..”
It takes a lot for Jack not to beam or widen his smile, trying to relax despite the way his heart beats faster to the way Brock stares in fondness at him like he always did.
“I don’t sell them, I just make them among other things just to make sure I remember.” He pushes the plate back towards him and watches Brock struggle before he picks up another with a grin finally turning to his coffee.
“So,” Jack tries to avoid the sensation of nervousness coming over him, “What are you doing here anyway? How did you find me? Not that I’m unhappy to see you again, just not sure you ever wanted to.”
“You disappeared on me, Jack.” Brock says right off the bat, his voice soft and there’s a clear sign of sadness. “Yer fuckin’ stupid to think I wouldn’t come lookin’ for you. Took me awhile but I finally did, no one else knows. I jus told ‘em I was takin’ some time off and left. Nothin’ prepared me to find you runnin’ a bakery.”
Brock has good reason to be surprised, Jack did labor work back home, but at least he was still working with his hands. He clasps them together around his steaming cup of coffee, “I..Everything reminded me of her. I couldn’t deal with it and then what I thought was a road trip turned into me needing a new way to keep her alive in my head and still have my hands busy. It was just easier to run away, I guess. I never meant to make anyone worry but I just, I had to.”
The sun reflect off eyes that are too gold and copper, too busy to stare at him in earnest to worry about the glare, “Missed ya.”
The space between them is loaded and heavy, Jack feels slightly uncomfortable under Brock’s intense gaze and he swallows instinctively.
Brock presses his lips in thought before continuing, “I shoulda stayed with you. Shoulda ignored you when you said you were fine, I knew it too. Knew the second I came over and your car was gone, I knew I was too fuckin’ late. I had so much to say to ya but then yer ma got sick and I couldn’t say nothin’. Couldn’t say the shit I wanted to. Knew I was too late to tell you I love ya..”
Jack stiffens to those words, “Brock- ”
He shakes his head, “I know, I’m the poster boy fer no homo shit, I know. Don’t start but give me a damn break. I was used to you bein’ there, always jus there. It kept comin’ back and lingerin’ in my head and when I finally wanted to say somethin’ it was the wrong time. And then you left and all I kept thinkin’ was that I was too fuckin’ late. It took less than a day for me to jus say fuck it and go after your stupid ass.”
Brock’s hands are shaking as they stay close to his cup and Jack reaches out wanting to assure him all this wasn’t a waste of his time, placing one over his and giving it a squeeze. “I’m happy you came to find my stupid ass.”
Staring back at him, Brock finally relaxes, pressing his hand over the two together and Jack smiles. Everything is finally in its place how it was supposed to be and despite his loss, Brock completes Jack's need to feel like he's home again.