The Bakery Love

23 | Cranberry Pie

“Bells, someone is asking for you outside,” Alex said to me as soon as he entered the kitchen. I chuckled as I felt a sense of déjà vu when Jake came to visit me. I dusted my hands and went outside to check who was asking for me. And nothing could have prepared me for the sight in front of me.

And apparently, my presence was as much a surprise as their presence was to me. “Isabella!” He shouted in joy as he rushed towards me. I grinned as his arms wrapped around me, and I immediately hugged him back. I could also feel my eyes getting wet as I took in the feeling of his very familiar presence.

After a few seconds, I pulled back and looked at him. He has become so different than the last time I saw him. I felt people staring at us and among all of the stares, I found Noah staring at me intensely. I realized that we were creating a disturbance in the cafe and that people were getting disturbed so without another word, I dragged him inside to the kitchen where I could actually talk to him.

“Who is he?” Noah asked me as soon as I entered the kitchen and he stood in a way that he was in between me and the person that I knew for a long time. Noah’s stance was almost protective as if he was trying to protect me.

“Guys, this is Ethan. He is one of my oldest friends.” I introduced Ethan to my team. “Ethan, this is my team.” And then I introduced everyone to Ethan and everyone welcomed him well almost everyone, Noah for some reason was cold towards him. “Not that I don’t love the surprise but what are you doing here, all of sudden?” I asked Ethan as soon as everyone resumed their work.

“Well, I missed you too much so I wanted to see you.” He said after he gave me one of the smiles that I was and still am so fond of. I smiled back at him. “And also because I’m the one who is going to follow you guys around and take video for your preparation for the competition.” He added with a grin. I smacked his arm playfully as he didn’t mention that before.

“Oh, that is the reason for your sudden visit,” I exclaimed. He nodded in reply with a shrug. “Well that is a good thing, I will be more comfortable with having you around,” I added, I was now suddenly excited about this when up until a few hours, I was dreading that a stranger would be here to capture every small thing that we would be doing for content.
We had been catching up and he told me that he had been doing well in his career as a videographer I told him that I was so proud of all that he had achieved.

“Isabella, who was that guy? He looked familiar. And he looked like he wanted to kill me when I hugged you?” he asked me. His expression was curious but still playful.

“Which guy, Ethan why would anyone think of killing you?” I shook my head at his silly thoughts.

“No, there was a guy. Wait I’ll show you who I’m talking about.” He said in determination. He looked around and then pointed his finger at someone, I followed the direction his finger was pointing and saw Noah. Noah was looking at us and as soon as he saw that I was now looking at him, he immediately looked away. Even in the distance, I could spot that his fingers were curled in a fist with his shoulders tensed up. I almost wanted to go over there and ask what made him mad. “See I was talking about this guy. Who is this guy?” Ethan’s voice made me realize that we were having a conversation.

I shifted my gaze from Noah to Ethan. “Ethan, he is Noah. I introduced you guys before. He is also a part of the team.” I reminded him.

He nodded in reply and continued to look at Noah. “He looks so familiar. I’ve definitely seen him before.” He muttered to himself. His eyes lit up for a second and then dimmed.

“I don’t think so, Ethan,” I replied. “Anyway, I need to get back to work so should you, by the way,” I said with a smile and walked away from him.

“Isabella?” Ethan called out and stopped in my tracks to look back at him. “One of my colleagues will also join us and he will be here soon. Once he arrives we can start the shoot and so until then if you want to prepare and get ready, you can go ahead with it.” He informed me and I nodded at him in reply.

“Bella?” Someone called out from behind me and by the use of the nickname, it would probably be Noah.

I stopped and looked back and watched him walk towards him. I waited for him to reach me when I asked the reason he called me. “I wanted to talk to you about something.” He replied.

“Go ahead.” I prompted him with a smile.

He gave me a strained smile in return. “How long have you known this guy, Ethan? And you haven’t ever mentioned him before, why?” He asked me in a single breath as if he had been waiting for a while to ask these questions. I was taken aback by this sudden interest so it took me a few extra seconds to respond to him.

“Well, we have talked about Ethan before,” I stated as I suddenly remembered that I shared about Ethan with Noah before.

He furrowed his eyebrows as he tried to remember which time I was referring to. “When? I couldn’t remember.” He asked me again when he cannot seem to remember.
“Remember that night when we both got locked in the café and Alex came to rescue us? During that time, I had mentioned that Ethan was my best friend and how close we were before he got adopted by a family.” I reminded him of that particular night in which we were both locked inside the café. I hadn’t a single detail about that night not only because of the absurdity of the situation but also because that night I opened up to Noah and he also talked about his past and his life.

“Oh.” He muttered as he remembered the details of that night. “Okay. Let’s get to work then.” He said suddenly and walked past me. I looked at his back as I tried to take in what happened right now. Why was Noah acting so weirdly? His behavior was so strange that I could feel a headache forming and this was also not the right time for whatever this was. I had to focus on getting everything for this shoot and more importantly mentally prepare myself so that I don’t make a fool out of myself. I will talk to Noah later about his strange behavior, I decided and walked towards my team to prepare them.

“Okay guys, listen up. I know it's a little intimidating to get all our actions captured in the camera and someone constantly following us around but try no let it affect you. We are going to act normally and unaffected, okay?” I gave a pep talk to my team members. Though it was as much to them as to myself. I get flustered and nervous around cameras and if someone’s attention is on me.

“Isabella is right. Don’t let the camera intimidate you. And I promise we will try not to come in between your work or create any disturbance.” Ethan promised as he pointed to himself and John, who was a colleague of Ethan; they both will be in charge of taking videos.

After a round of agreements from the team, we all went to do the work trying not to be conscious of the fact that we were being video recorded.

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Hey, Hey! I hope you all are enjoying the story. And a little spoiler for you guys, something big is going to happen in the next chapter. I would love to hear what you think might happen in the next chapter, so please leave a comment below mentioning the same. Happy reading ❤️