Croissants as a Weapon

By Wednesday, Dani was forced to admit a fact that nauseated her more than any defeat in the chalkboard war: Theo Cassidy's croissants were, objectively and without a shred of bias, better than her own.

She was not going to say that out loud. She wasn't even going to think it at full volume — more like acknowledge it at the edge of her mind, the way you'd acknowledge an unpleasant medical fact better left unsaid to a doctor. But the fact remained: his layers were thinner, the buttery flavor deeper, and the crust shattered with exactly the sound cooking magazines call "correct."

"You're using a different butter," she said, walking into the kitchen with an accusatory look and half of a stolen — that is, taken for research purposes — croissant in her hand.

"Morning to you too," Theo said, not looking up from the dough he was rolling with the focus of a surgeon. "Yes. I am. It's called a professional secret, not a conspiracy against your menu."

"Which butter?"

"The kind you're not getting by asking with your mouth full of my own croissant."

Dani finished chewing — with as much dignity as is possible with pastry in one's mouth — and sat on a stool at the counter, watching him fold the dough into those neat, almost hypnotic layers.

"This isn't fair," she said finally. "I have customers. Regulars. Harold. He orders a croissant from you now and a latte from me, and every time he does, I feel like a mother whose kid got poached by the more interesting neighbor."

"Harold," Theo said, with an odd warmth in his voice, "is a very discerning man. I'm proud of his choices."

"You're doing this on purpose."

"Baking good croissants? Yes. Guilty."

***

Theo, if anyone had asked him directly — and no one had, because he would have lied — would have admitted that he'd noticed Dani's order in their very first week as neighbors and remembered it without meaning to, the same automatic way he remembered anything of professional interest: double espresso in the morning, no sugar, with an extra splash of hot water because it scalded her tongue if she drank it too fast, and she always drank it too fast.

He would never have admitted that this observation had long since stopped being professional.

So when she walked in that morning with exhaustion written across her face in block letters — apparently over the milk delivery running two hours late again — he silently slid a double espresso with an extra splash of water across the counter before she'd even had a chance to ask.

Dani stared at the cup like it was a suspicious device.

"What is this?"

"Coffee. The thing people drink in the morning."

"I didn't order it."

"You look like you need someone to make that decision for you."

She took the cup — because refusing a free, correctly made espresso would be pathological, not principled — and took a sip. Perfect. Exactly how she'd have made it herself, down to the temperature.

"How do you remember that," she said, and it came out sounding like a far more serious accusation than the butter conversation.

Theo shrugged with the exaggerated carelessness that always gave him away when he was lying, though Dani was only just beginning to notice.

"Professional memory. I remember every regular's order."

"I'm not your regular. I'm your enemy."

"An enemy with a very predictable order."

Dani wanted to say something devastating in response. She ran through three options in her head, all sharp enough to satisfy eleven months of accumulated practice. Instead she just sat there, holding the warm cup, feeling something in her chest do an uncomfortable, inexplicable flip that she immediately and firmly attributed to caffeine.

"This is a personal insult," she said finally, because she had to say something. "You remembering my order. I am furious about it."

"Noting it in the complaint file," Theo said, going back to his dough with a half-smile he wasn't even trying to hide. "Right between 'stole my butter recipe' and 'remembered my order too well.'"

"Quite the list of violations."

"I keep it very carefully."