Chapter Text
"Can you ... sh-ow me?" his voice was small, almost shy and he buried his hands deep in his pockets. Stephanie looked up and found an uncharacteristically fidgety Joaquín Perez rolling his huge brown eyes at her. He looked cute, unassuming and insecure, and Stephanie's heart melted at the sight. "You want to learn how to make Welsh cakes?"
Never, in a million years, would the Belgian reporter and accidental translator have imagined her neighbour asking her that question, and she wasn't quite sure of his intentions. Joaquín worked for the US government, and he spent a lot of time at home going over files. In fact, he never really seemed to be going out at all. He had moved in one night under very strange circumstances, and from what the woman had gathered he had been re-housed because someone had threatened to kill him. It was an unlikely story, but over the past weeks, Stephanie had caught him working when she went knocking on his door to bring him ... cake. Stephanie had always been a stress baker, and when she had come to Colombia, she had been swept off her feet by the heat, the dust, the constant hum of the city, the violence, the drugs. Her paper had sent her to write about the drug cartels and the infamous Medellín comunas, but she hadn't ventured into Medellín yet. She had been to Sicily and Naples to write about hierarchical structures in organised crime, and her editor had chosen her for the Colombian job. She didn't think that she was doing well. She felt lonely and under pressure, and so she had chosen to cope with the stress the way she knew.
The first neighbour to taste her goods had been Señora Ruiz. The friendly lady had smelled it and had rung her bell to offer her some lemonade. Stephanie had fed her cake, and the señora had loved it. She had told all the neighbours, and so Stephanie had started gifting all sorts of little cakes and biscuits to everybody - including the elusive bachelor next door. She didn't know much about the dark and brooding handsome: he was a smoker (blowing the exhale out of the window to waft into her bedroom). He sometimes listened to a jolly type of music. He stayed up late. He sometimes had visitors over, but they would never stay long. They seemed to be bringing groceries and files, and Stephanie had twice run into gorgeous women. Joaquín's and her bedrooms shared a wall, and she would sometimes hear very obvious noises (little grunts from him and the occasional shriek from the female visitors). From what Stephanie had heard, there were several lady friends, so either Joaquín was really popular and into one night stands or he was cheating on all of the women. Somehow, Stephanie didn't think either option sounded quite right. Joaquín was quiet and guarded. He didn't come across as a gigolo. He did own a crazy number of shirts though, and he loved to wear his denims real tight. He held doors, carried hampers up- or bins downstairs, and he always gave a polite nod followed by a little growl of buenos días or buenas tardes. He also spent time on the roof, reading and smoking and watching the buzzing city below.
She liked him. In his own dysfunctional way he was kind and funny. And so she had brought him two appel flappen (in case he'd have a date over). The week after that it had been a piece of fruitcake, the week after that Welsh cakes. He had frowned at her the first time she had shown up, and she was almost sure that the flappen had gone straight into the bin. He had raised an eyebrow at the fruitcake, and she would bet on it having followed its predecessors. But he had kind of smiled at the pancakes dusted in sugar. At least, the corners of his mouth had pulled up a fraction, and then he had tried one, getting sugar into his neat little moustache, and he had genuinely smiled.
"Can you show me?"
Stephanie made a funny face and grinned, but Joaquín nodded solemnly. "Why?" He shrugged and admitted that he liked them. Stephanie's lopsided frown deepened and she tilted her head. "I do," he insisted, "these are nice, and I-," he cut himself off, then added in a more conspirational tone, "I used to bake ... a lot. With my ... abuelita. Took my mind off ... my mom dying. I ... won the cherry pie contest," he blushed and hung his head, "I thought I could make them ... for my dad." Stephanie felt bad for making fun of him. He seemed genuinely stricken, feeling sheepish about his confession. "When?" she said, and he looked up with a glimmer of hope in his eyes that wrung the woman's heart. He had expected to be turned down, she realised. He had genuinely thought she'd laugh at him and send him on his way. "I'm free on Thursday," she added, and his answer was a smile so radiant that it would have outshone the sun, "I can get Thursday night off," he nodded eagerly, relieved that she wasn't asking when he had won the baking contest, and Stephanie added, "On one condition." Ah, he thought and heaved a sigh. She'd want to sleep with him, see if there was substance to the legend. Well, she wasn't half-bad, but he didn't fancy her. He'd probably manage to get him up though, so that should be a sure thing. He gave a slow nod and pressed his lips into a thin line, quirking one eyebrow in question. "The recipe for that cherry pie," she smiled, and Joaquín frowned. What? "The winning pie," she reminded him, "I'll show you mine, you show me yours." Joaquín chuckled under his breath and pointed out, "Normally, we'd be showing each other something quite different." That made Stephanie laugh, and she reached out to touch his arm and shook her head, "You're cute, but you're not that irresistable." Joaquín scowled at that and pouted, "You sure about that, hermosa?" She nodded, and he watched her closely. She was a challenge, he realised, and he liked a challenge.