Don't Go Baking My Heart

Devon

Devon King didn’t likeanything that derailed his daily plans. He knew, of course, that in business, it paid to be prepared for the unplanned. Be proactive rather than reactive—but there was nothing that could’ve prepared him for this meeting so early on a Monday morning.

He stared around the crowded conference room, the excited chatter the equivalent to the screech of nails on a chalkboard. It wouldn’t bother him so much if everyone was this hyped up about something work-related—hell, there were enough projects in the pipeline for that—but the block letters on the whiteboard made him frown harder.

FIRST ANNUAL COMPANY BAKE-OFF COMPETITION!!

Dax Jenkins, the CEO of their architectural design firm, tapped the board. “Alright, everyone, I know we’re all excited, but simmer for a sec.”

Devon glared at the board. There was even a lopsided cake drawn next to the words. This was the reason for the buzz? Devon wanted to storm out and go lock himself in his office to get some actual work done. They had shit to do, and his boss had called everyone together to talk about some bake-off. How ludicrous.

If everyone was in this room, then who was manning the phones? The thought of potential clients getting irate because they couldn’t reach anyone didn’t sit right with him. No one else seemed to give a damn, though. Everyone’s attention was on Dax and the words on the board. The incessant buzzing was enough to make Devon want to scream, but then the focus would shift to him. He didn’t need that.

He crossed his arms over his chest, waiting for Dax to explain what the hell all of this was about.

When he entered the building this morning, he was greeted by several choruses of “Happy Monday!” sung loudly by his co-workers. He hadn’t appreciated their attempts to add some cheer to the start of the week and had, in fact, ignored the exuberant thumbs up and the multitude of clichéd motivational quotes they tried to send his way. He didn’t need shouts of “Carpe Diem!” to actually seize his day. He did that on a daily basis instead of ambushing his co-workers with nonsense.

Devon had barely settled down to get started on work when this alert from Dax had gone out with no prior notice of a planned meeting. Not that he could have refused his boss’s request; he simply wished there had been some heads-up. He would have shifted his schedule around to suit. So now everything was being thrown off. He could have been sifting through important emails right now.

He had already suffered through everyone being way too laid-back last week due to the country’s Emancipation holiday. No matter that August 1st had fallen on a Wednesday, his co-workers had kept their laissez-faire attitudes right through Friday, acting as if they had an extended long weekend, using the fact that schools were closed for the vacation period as an excuse. There were a few people on vacation right now so they could be with their children, and yet, there had been those who didn’t have children rolling into the office late on Thursday morning, as if that was okay. And now this.

Who had time to waste on some bake-off when real work had to be done? Obviously, he couldn’t simply leave. Not when everyone was here on Dax’s orders. He tried to look less like he’d rather be anywhere else and forced his hands into a relaxed drape across his lap. Hopefully, he succeeded in schooling his scowl to something that resembled casual indifference.

Dax had a knack for sniffing out people’s true feelings. He didn’t know how the man did it, but Devon couldn’t afford to be called out for being less than enthusiastic about all this. Not that anyone expected him to be, but it didn’t hurt to look like he was paying attention. It certainly wouldn’t work in his favour if he pulled out his phone and proceeded to check his emails from there.

If his intern—well, former intern, now—Kim was still here, she’d poke him in the side and tell him to fix his face. But Kim was back in London for school, and there wasn’t anyone to keep his expressions in check. He actually missed the kid. Kim had been an exceptional intern who was irreplaceable in his estimation. Dax had been hinting that Devon needed to choose a replacement soon, but Devon wasn’t sold on the idea; he had been stalling on shortlisting candidates based on the applications received. He would have to buckle down and do it before Dax got on his ass again.

Kim had set the bar so high, he couldn’t envision anyone else working to his standards. Devon knew he could be a bit of a hardass and that his ornery ways, as Kim had put it, could scare anyone off. He didn’t have time to placate some new person’s hurt feelings. Whoever he eventually chose would just have to adapt to his persona.

In spite of wanting to be back at his desk, getting some real work done, he remained seated and quiet. Dax was always a jovial man, quick to smile, but underneath all that was a sharp mind, always cooking up some new scheme to motivate his employees. It was great that their leader took the time to care about all that, but Devon couldn’t see how this was going to help any of them. Trying to look less annoyed by this entire disturbance of his morning was getting harder by the second.

“So, as I mentioned a bit ago, we’ve decided to do a bake-off this year. We’ll still have the sports day next year, but after the success of the Building An Appetite initiative spearheaded by Devon and his intern, Kim, I got to thinking. And well, you all know I love my belly, so it was a no-brainer that we come up with something a little different this year.”

Dammit. This ridiculous idea had sprung from that?

“And we’d like everyone to participate, if possible,” Dax continued, gaze fixed on Devon for a few seconds before he moved onto someone else. Had that been a coincidence? Or was Dax sending him a not-so-subtle message?

Devon was infamous for not taking part in company extracurricular activities. If it was work-related, he was there one hundred percent. Sometimes Dax joked about Devon’s anti-social behaviour, but had Dax been noting every time Devon refused to join some waste-of-time event?

He didn’t hang out with his co-workers after work or get heavily involved in the annual events like the sports day. He didn’t see the point. He was here to work, not make friendship bracelets and bond.

The bracelets had been an actual venture suggested by one of his colleagues. Devon could still recall Evan’s excited yapping about it. What self-respecting grown ass adult walked around with embroidered bracelets? In Devon’s estimation, there were way better ideas to boost morale than sporting a bracelet with supposed motivational words and phrases. Evan had never forgiven Devon’s very vocal shutdown of the ridiculous idea, or so he assumed since Evan didn’t try to be friendly with Devon so much anymore, which was exactly what Devon wanted.

Sure, organizational health was important—the damn survey that HR had started sending out last year showed that employees wanted more company extracurricular activities—but Devon didn’t need to personally involve himself in any of them.

He spied Evan one row over from him, eyes riveted to the board. Of course, he’d be all for something like this. Evan was a champion of upping employee engagement; he was constantly trying to outdo HR and whatever ideas they came up with. There was too much work to be done to stop for cake and ice cream in the lunchroom, after-work karaoke, or whatever other shit he concocted in that mind of his.

As head of the staff club, there was always an email from him about some new and exciting thing he wanted employees to be a part of. Devon had created a separate folder for emails from Evan, and he barely looked at them. He didn’t need his inbox cluttered with Evan’s ideas. His inbox wasn’t an out-of-control dumpster fire, and he was proud of that.

Belting out a song on the office rooftop that they shared with the other companies in the building wasn’t going to get his work done faster. No, it would most likely give his co-workers a good laugh at his expense. His voice wasn’t anything to swoon over, and while he could carry a tune better than his brother Keiran, performing wasn’t something Devon would ever be up for. His father lamented all the time on how Devon should do something with his voice, considering his father was well-known in the music industry, and his brother was becoming more sought-after every day as a producer in his own right.

Devon didn’t give a single damn about any of that. He was right where he wanted to be. Well, in general, not currently. He definitely didn’t want to be in this room right now. The number of emails he had to address, the details of the big project he needed to nail down the proposal for, were way too much. Maybe he should get back to looking at those applications. He truly did need someone to help him. He was a champion at organization, but even he could admit Kim had made a real impact while she was here. He needed an actual full-time assistant. He didn’t think anyone could measure up to Kim, but if he could find a candidate who could take direction well, maybe he could shape them into someone good enough that he might keep them around on a permanent basis.

How did Dax even think they had time for any of this?

“Since the idea’s inspired by that, Devon should sign up first, no?” Evan’s annoying voice rang out, and all eyes turned to Devon.

Devon ignored the stares, cutting his eyes over to Evan, who wore one of his shit-eating grins. “I don’t have the time.” Simple. A factual statement. He couldn’t be taken to task for that, could he?