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Gibbs didn’t know why he was here. He didn’t even have any kids, but somehow he’d ended up at the nearby school anyway. He blamed Gloria, who had wanted company for the bake sale they were doing to earn money for a class field trip for her kid.
He didn’t know Gloria that well. She’d just moved into his neighborhood a couple of years ago, but she seemed nice enough and well baked goods sounded delicious. The entire auditorium was filled with tables full of various desserts, breads, and anything else that could be baked.
It looked like there was enough food here to feed an army. Gloria had spotted another mother that she knew and had left him in the sea of women that he’d never met before. He was moving from table to table out of sheer self preservation.
If he stayed at any one table too long then they all converged on him, particularly the women attempting to sell their goods. He hadn’t bought anything, yet. He’d looked at a table full of cookies, but well he didn’t have that much of a sweet tooth.
The next few tables held desserts of various kinds and while he loved a good apple pie, he could do without “Summer Berry Grunt” and “Rhubarb Eton Mess” and whatever other strange things they were selling. They seemed to be selling well, so they had to taste better than they sounded, but it wasn’t enough of a draw to convince him to buy any of them.
In fact, he’d kind of zoned out now. Everything was starting to look the same. Wasn’t there anything a down to Earth guy would eat?
“DiNozzo! You got any of those luscious Margarita cupcakes left?” A bald guy hollered across the auditorium.
The guy was loud enough that Gibbs glanced up from his daze to see what was going on.
“Sure do, Sweetcakes. Come and get ‘em.” Someone shouted back. Gibbs assumed it was the one called DiNozzo.
He looked for the first guy and noticed a swanky pinstripe suit, the kind of suit a CIA operative might wear. Wait. That was a CIA operative. Why was Trent Kort at a bake sale of all places and how did he know this DiNozzo fellow? For that matter what the hell was a Margarita cupcake?
With his gut churning, or maybe it was just curiosity, Gibbs followed Kort to this DiNozzo fellow's table. DiNozzo appeared to like cooking with alcohol. In addition to the aforementioned Margarita cupcakes, he had a variety of other desserts with alcoholic names.
Gibbs found himself particularly interested in the Bourbon Balls and Bourbon-Glazed Brown Sugar Pecan Poundcake. He glanced at them out of the corner of his eye as he watched Kort’s sedulous flattery of DiNozzo. Gibbs couldn’t help wondering if this DiNozzo guy was actually an informant for Kort or something.
Gibbs couldn’t understand why Kort would be at a bake sale otherwise. Kort bought his Margarita cupcakes, an astonishing twelve of them, and DiNozzo turned his attention to Gibbs.
“Welcome to DiNozzo’s Delightful Desserts. I’m Tony DiNozzo and I’m here every year, but you can take a business card if you want to be able to reach me outside of the bake sale.”
“Do your desserts really taste like the alcohols in their name?”
Tony nodded. “Of course, it would be false advertising otherwise and I wouldn’t get any customers.”
Gibbs glanced at the array of people in front of DiNozzo’s stand and shrugged, “People will do a lot for eye candy.” At least, that’s what Abby said all the time.
“They can look, but they can’t touch.” Tony winked.
“Kort?” Gibbs probed.
“Nah. He’s just an old friend, who loves my cooking and a good cause.”
Gibbs frowned. That didn’t sound like the Kort that he knew, but people could change. Before he could talk himself out of it, he picked up Tony’s business card.
Tony nodded to the card, “Seriously call me anytime. If I can help out, I will.”
Gibbs nodded, “You can help right now, by ringing these up for me.” Gibbs held up the two bourbon desserts he’d been eyeing.
”Great choices. You a bourbon fan?”
Gibbs grunted.
“Here you go. That will be ten dollars.”
Gibbs handed over a ten dollar bill and left the bake sale. He couldn’t decide if DiNozzo, or Tony?, had been flirting with him or not. Returning home, he sat on his couch and stared at the business card.
The desserts sat in a bag on the table, but they weren’t even on his mind. His thoughts were entirely centered on the business card and whether DiNozzo had meant it when he said call anytime. Of course, he couldn’t get the thing with Kort out of his mind either.
DiNozzo had said that they were friends, but how would a bake sale cook run into a CIA operative. It didn’t make any sense. Gibbs remembered his baked goods and grabbed the Bourbon Ball out of the bag to try.
He bit into the ball and couldn’t help moaning. DiNozzo definitely knew how to cook. There was no faking the taste of good homemade baking. The bourbon came through strong and Gibbs absolutely loved it.
He stared at the bag that he knew contained the Bourbon-Glazed Brown Sugar Poundcake. After the way the Bourbon Ball tasted, he really wanted to try the second dessert, but at the same time he wanted to savor it and not finish them both in the same sitting. He stood up and quickly made his way down to the basement to work on his boat and hopefully distract himself from the tempting second bourbon treat.
He woke up underneath the boat where he’d passed out and glanced at his watch. It was Monday. He needed to get up and go to work.
Grabbing the bag with the second bourbon treat on his way out the door, Gibbs zipped through traffic on his way to NCIS headquarters. He grabbed the Bourbon-Glazed Brown Sugar Poundcake from the bag as he exited the car. The bag went into recycling and Gibbs continued through security munching on the treat.
He walked into the bullpen as he finished his first bite and froze, clamping his mouth down around the moan threatening to escape as he noticed Tony waiting in the bullpen. “DiNozzo?” he gulped out.
“You’re the guy from the bake sale.”
“Gibbs. What are you doing here?”
“I’m your new recruit.”
“What?”
Tony shrugged. “The baking thing is just a side business. Law enforcement has always been my passion.”
“So that’s really how you know Kort?”
“He really is a friend, but yeah we met on a case a couple of years ago.”
Gibbs wasn’t sure what to make of this new development. He’d been interested in DiNozzo when he thought he was a baker. Now, he wasn’t so sure if he should act on it.
Tony would be working with him, after all, and he didn’t want to make things awkward. He was kind of glad he hadn’t called Tony now, but he also couldn’t help wondering what he was missing out on. He tried to put it out of his mind as they caught a case and he needed to focus on finding the murderer of their dead petty officer.
He was happy to see that Tony was as good at solving cases as he was at baking. In fact, Gibbs would have to say he was even better at solving cases than baking, which Gibbs hadn’t thought possible. Tony had put the pieces together to find the murderer and they’d arrested him and gotten a confession faster than Gibbs thought possible.
With the case solved they both went home for the night and Gibbs once again stared at Tony’s business card and wondered if he should call. He refrained from calling again, but it was getting harder and harder to do so. Of course, he woke up under his boat again.
This time DiNozzo’s face greeted him from the stairs. Apparently, they had a case. He’d dumped his phone in a can of paint thinner to prevent himself from calling Tony and had missed the call from dispatch.
Fortunately, Tony knew better than to ask him about it and Ducky came up with some explanation about his ex wife, which was more true than not. The next few times Gibbs had to call Tony after work it was for work and Tony never seemed to mind. It made Gibbs wonder if it really would be ok to call him for more baked goods or maybe even a date.
The next time they had a day off, Gibbs picked up the phone and called Tony.
“Gibbs? We have a case.”
“Nope. I was wondering if I could get more of those bourbon desserts you make.”
“Sure. I can show you how to make them if you want, even.”
“Sounds good.” Click.
Tony shook his head. Gibbs really wasn’t much of a talker. Still he grabbed the ingredients he would need for the bourbon balls, the easier of the two recipes, and headed over to Gibbs’ house.
Tony walked in and started setting up in the kitchen. He assumed Gibbs was in the basement, but by the time he was almost set up, Gibbs had appeared.
“What are you doing?”
“Setting up. I’m almost done. Are you ready to learn how to make these Bourbon Balls?”
Gibbs shrugged.
“Why don’t you start by stirring these ingredients together and I’ll add the additional ingredients at the right time.”
Gibbs nodded, taking the spoon and stirring vigorously. A bit too vigorously as the flour formed a cloud and covered both Gibbs and Tony.
“Whoa, Gibbs slow down. Not so fast. This isn’t a competition to see how fast you can stir. Nice and slow.”
Gibbs slowed down and eventually the batter started to smooth out and thicken up.
“Ok. The final step is to take the batter and roll it into balls like this.” Tony demonstrated.
Gibbs tried to follow his lead, but the batter stuck to his hands and just would not form into a ball at all. Tony chuckled and handed Gibbs some butter. “Here rub this on your hands and try again.”
Gibbs gave Tony a weird look, but he did as asked. The batter started to behave better that way. Still by the time they got all the balls rolled and in the oven, Gibbs and Tony were completely covered from head to toe.
”We better clean up.”
Gibbs nodded. “There’s a bathroom at the top of the stairs that you can use.”
“The Bourbon Balls need to come out in 20 minutes.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
Gibbs tried to wash up a bit, but it didn’t help much. His hands were too greasy for plain water to work. He finally used some soap and managed to clean up his hands, though his clothes and face were still covered with the evidence of their baking.
Gibbs looked in the oven and the balls had turned a nice golden color. He pulled them out just as Tony descended the stairs.
“I borrowed some of your clothes. I hope you don’t mind.”
Gibbs glanced up and couldn’t help the possessive feeling that rolled over him at seeing Tony in his clothes. He coughed. “I don’t mind at all. The balls are ready. I’ll just go take my own shower now.”
Tony stared at Gibbs as he left. Did Gibbs just say what he thought he said? Tony shook his head and grabbed a ball. They were as good as if he made them alone.
When Gibbs finally returned, he tried one of the Bourbon Balls for himself. He couldn’t help moaning.
“You really do like my baking, don’t you?”
“Of course. Why else would I call you about baked goods?”
Tony shrugged. “I thought this might have been your attempt at a date.”
“Really?”
“It’s not every day that a guy shows up at a bake sale. I figured someone had told you about my proclivities.”
“Nope. It was pure accident that I was at that bake sale. Do you really do it every year?”
“Yep. What can I say? The women love me.”
“The men too if Kort is anything to go by.”
“Oh, well, we tried that. It didn’t really work out.”
“Why not?”
“Let’s just say that while Kort has the right parts. He prefers to catch and so do I.”
”You know I’ve been looking for a catcher for a while.”
“I’ll just bet you have, but that’s a third date thing, so you’ll have to pay up first.”
“No problem.”
They may have met in an unusual way, but Gibbs knew things were going to work out just fine.