The Bakery at Five

At four in the morning the street outside the bakery was silent and black, and inside it smelled of flour and yeast and the first warm breath of the ovens. Agnes arrived first, always. Tariq arrived at five past, always, with two coffees and an apology.

They had run the bakery together for a year, ever since the old owner retired and sold it to them in equal shares. They had divided the work neatly. She did bread. He did pastry. They met in the middle, at the long wooden table where the dough was shaped.

There was something about those dark hours. The radio playing low. The rhythm of hands pushing and folding. The way flour dusted his forearms, and the way he wiped a smudge from her cheek with his thumb without thinking, and then, one morning, thought about it, and left his hand there.

'Agnes,' he said.

She looked at him over the dough. 'The croissants will burn.'

'They're not in yet.'

She laughed and leaned across the table and kissed him, and got flour all over the front of his apron.

It became a habit. A kiss at the long table before the first loaves went in. Another as the sun rose and the first customers knocked on the glass. Some mornings the bread was a little late, and the regulars grumbled, and the two bakers exchanged a look and did not apologise.

On Sundays the bakery was closed. They spent those mornings in his flat above the shop, sleeping late for once, the whole street smelling of bread that someone else had baked.