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The first time it happens, it’s with freshly baked cookies. When he gets to work, he drops them off in the kitchen and proceeds to his office without a word. Alex had been hired about three months prior and though he’s generally friendly with everyone at the company, he likes to keep to himself.
At the end of the day, when he returns to the kitchen to grab the plastic tupperware, the container is empty except for a single sticky note stuck to the lid.
To whoever brought these in—they were delicious! Please bring in more!
Alex smiles to himself, tucks the box in his bag, and heads home.
That night over dinner, he tells Henry about the note. They’re seated across from each other, feet intertwined beneath the table, with music playing softly in the background. There are a few staples to meals in their household, music being one of them, along with lit candles, dimmed lights, placemats, and warm dishware.
“Love, it’s a sin to cook a warm meal and then serve it on a cold plate. No, the dishware must match the temperature of the prepared food.”
Alex treasures these moments. No matter what crisis he has to resolve at work or how many times he spills his coffee that day, he knows he’ll always be coming home to this: a dinner cooked lovingly by his husband of four years.
“The cookies were a hit. Someone even left a note begging for more,” Alex tells him, swallowing around a mouthful of mushroom risotto. “I’ll have to retrieve it from my bag after we finish.”
A broad smile crests Henry’s face. “Oh, they were? That makes me so happy. It’s the added umami flavor from the miso that makes them so addicting. I don’t think I’m quite done tweaking the recipe, but it’s almost there.”
“Well you know I can never say no to anything you make,” Alex says, watching a blush rise up the cheeks of his fair-skinned partner.
Henry rolls his eyes. “You’re too kind. I’ll have to start sending along any of the extra baked goods I make with you to work. More for them means I won’t end up eating them all myself.”
He gives him a stern glare. His husband sometimes stresses over what he eats, but he loves cooking and baking and just about anything that has him in the kitchen, so their house is always overflowing with delicious food. And, well, Alex loves Henry, all of him, especially his soft tummy, perky ass, and thick thighs, so he’s quick to put an end to any sort of disparagement about his body.
That night in bed, he reassures his husband of that fact by spending nearly an hour between his legs, leaving marks along his groin, dropping kisses by his belly button, and then eating him out until he’s writhing wildly against the sheets and coming apart at the seams.
From then on, a pattern forms. Every day, Henry packs his husband a lunch and a couple of times a week, he hands off a second container full of brownies or cupcakes or lemon loaf slices for the rest of the office to enjoy. And every evening, Alex returns home with a warm smile, an empty tupperware, and compliments from his co-workers he’d been instructed to pass along to the extraordinaire in the kitchen.
Elle has worked at the political strategist firm for a year, six months of which have been directly under Alex. He’s a great boss, a true motivator, and deeply values everyone’s time. The one thing he’s not is very open about his personal life. He clocks in, minds his business, and clocks out at the end of the day.
In fact, the only thing she knows about him comes from his lunches. Every day, he brings in a home-cooked meal for lunch complete with a little note. No one in the office knows what the notes say, trust her, she’s asked around, but Alex always removes the note from atop the meal, reads it silently, smiles to himself, and then either tucks it in his pocket or files it away with the other notes in his desk drawer.
He often eats lunch alone in his glass office, but when he does join his co-workers, either in the kitchen or on their small outdoor patio, he always has the best meal of the group.
Buttermilk grilled chicken with a corn, tomato, and avocado salad. Herbed lamb chops and roasted and smashed sunchokes. Coconut green curry with tofu and eggplant. Butternut squash soup and a maple spiced cookie. It was rarely the same, but each day, as his fork would scrape the bottom of the container, he’d lick his lips, and smile. He’d then snap the lid shut on his devoured meal and continue with his day.
Knowing all of this, people should have caught on sooner as to who was bringing in all of the baked goods. They started “simple” with things like chocolate chip cookies and lemon bars, but quickly grew more complicated. Elle only refers to the early treats that way because at their core, cookies and lemon bars are simple. And they would be simple if she made them. She places a strong emphasis on the last part because the treats that show up in the office are leagues above anything her meager skills in the kitchen could produce.
The first tub of cookies he brings in has miso, large chocolate chunks, and sesame seeds on the top. There’s nothing simple or basic about them.
The fourth time the treats mysteriously appear in the kitchen—ginger molasses cookies—she spots them at the same time as Chris does.
“Do you know who’s making these? I can’t get enough of them,” he asks as he bites into the soft brown cookie.
Just as she’s about to tell him she doesn’t know, Alex walks by the doorway and her mind begins to put all the details together.
“Hey, Alex,” she calls out. He pauses and turns to look at her, eyebrows raised. “You wouldn’t happen to be the person bringing in all of these baked goods and giving the whole office regular sugar highs? Hmm?”
Alex looks down briefly before stepping more fully into the kitchen. “Ah, actually those are me, but I can’t take any credit for how they taste. My culinary skills cover cooking, but promptly stop the second it comes to any sort of baking.”
“Damn, boss is lucky. He’s got a sweet little wifey at home who bakes like god’s gift to humanity,” Chris responds. She smacks him lightly on the arm for his demeaning tone and gives him a sharp glare.
“What?”
Elle rolls her eyes. Men are useless sometimes. “Tell her we said thank you and that everything is very much appreciated,” she says, looking over at her boss.
In a rare occurrence, the man blushes slightly and tries to suppress a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I will pass the message along. Thank you.”
With that, Alex nods, exits the kitchen, and returns to his morning tasks. By lunchtime, all anyone can talk about is their boss’ mysterious wife and her skills in the kitchen. He’s eating in his office though, so she covertly walks by and peers through the glass door in search of more intel.
He’s holding a square piece of light blue paper, his eyes tracking back and forth across it. When he finishes reading it, he places it down to the side and shakes his head. This time though, he doesn’t stop the smile from taking over his face before he digs into his meal.
After that day, everything makes a little more sense and going forward, the goodies only progress in complexity, leaving Elle thoroughly impressed and in a state of awe. Pre-sliced quiches start to turn up and then it’s macarons and eventually it’s a frosted and decorated three-tier peanut butter chocolate cake.
The whole office has fallen in love with Alex’s wife. They have yet to actually meet the sweet woman, but she’s won them all over with her truly spectacular baking prowess. It has also served as an avenue into the personal life of their most private employee.
When people ask about the ingredients of a marbled bundt cake, he makes note of the walnuts and even adds a little allergy warning next to it.
When a new hire starts and brings up the baked goods during a meeting, he tells them proudly with a smile, “Oh, my wife made those.”
There seems to be an invisible string between the word ‘wife’ and the muscles in her boss’ face. Whenever she is mentioned, a smile soon follows.
Elle’s running favorite is a perfectly creamy basque cheesecake that Alex brings in a couple of months after the secret emerges.
“This is to die for, Alex,” she nearly moans, going in for a third bite.
“Good to know. I’ll tell my wife this is a fan favorite then.”
Alongside the increased number of treats, comes an increased frequency with which Alex eats lunch with the team. This leads to a whole new line of questioning and adoring followers because it’s not just the baked goods. It’s intricate meals and complex recipes and always a personal note for their boss’ eyes only.
“When will we get to meet her?” Natasha asks one day while they’re sitting around in a conference room, waiting for a client to show up.
“Hmm?” Alex responds, his head tilted in question.
Natasha scoffs like it’s obvious who she’s asking about. And it is. To literally every other single person seated around the table. “You’re wife. The one who is extending all of our waistlines and making me question my stance on marriage.”
This draws a laugh from the man. “Oh. Her. Well, she’s quite busy during the day, but maybe you’ll meet her at the holiday party in a couple of months.”
“Does she know how much we all love her? Have you told her that? It’s important to me that she knows that because her strawberry-rhubarb crisp was heaven-sent and I had dreams about it for weeks,” Jacob adds.
Alex sets down his pen and nods. “I’ll pass that along. Both the note on the dessert and her position within your heart.”
“Good.”
There’s a running office thread discussing both when they will finally meet her and what she’ll look like. The answers range from the holiday party to never and from a short brunette to a tall redhead. The only thing people seem to agree on is that she must be a saint to make such delicious treats for everyone.
Alex, though, is no help. Whenever he’s pestered for details about her appearance or how they met, he simply smiles and says nothing. See her previous point about men being useless.
Things heat up when their boss is giving a presentation one day, his head angled towards the projected display. In a state of shock, Elle elbows the person next to her.
“Ow, what was that for?” Sera whispers as they look up from their laptop. Elle tries to aggressively point with her eyes at their boss while simultaneously itching at her neck. Her co-worker furrows their brows in confusion, clearly not getting the subtle message she was trying to pass along.
“There’s a fucking hickey on his throat,” she spits out beneath her breath. Sera’s head whips around, eyes narrowing in on their target.
The next time he turns his head again, they spot it and smile triumphantly at Elle. It’s subtle, but there is most definitely a dark bruise peeking out of the lip of his collar.
It’s another piece of information to file away because not only is she an excellent baker with an eye for exquisite taste combinations, but it also appears she has a bit of a possessive streak and likes to stake her claim on her man. Elle celebrates this new little tidbit of knowledge—a woman after her own heart.
It happens in mid-November. Elle is walking by reception when she sees a tall blond man standing there awkwardly, holding a plastic container full of food. She doesn’t recognize him and he’s dressed far too casually in a cream cardigan to be a new client.
Looking around, their receptionist is nowhere to be seen, so she steps in. “May I help you?”
Elle catches him by surprise. He’d been looking out the window at the city skyline when she spoke, so he jumped slightly before turning to face her. “Oh, hi. Sorry to interrupt your day, but I just need to drop something off with Alex and then I’ll be out of your hair.”
Huh, he was British. “Claremont-Diaz?”
He smiles warmly. “The one and only.”
Elle narrows her eyes at the food in his grasp, trying to put the pieces together. “Sure, you can follow me this way,” she says, motioning down the hallway.
“I’m Henry by the way,” the man adds as they begin to walk towards the main part of the office.
“Elle,” she responds cautiously. It comes off a little curt, so she tacks on a smile and tries to cover up her less-than-kind reaction. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Henry nods as they round the corner, nearly running into the man in question.
“Baby?”
“Baby?” Elle parrots, looking between the two men. She’s very confused because who the fuck is baby?
“Babyyy, what are you doing here?” Alex continues more excitedly, opening his arms wide and yanking the blond man into his chest.
What the fuck is going on? Elle glances around and sees she’s not the only one perplexed by this interaction if the faces of her peers are anything to go by.
Why is her boss hugging this man? And why is he calling him baby?
She proceeds to swallow her spit as they both draw back. Alex’s arms are still around the shoulders of the taller man and he’s positively beaming. Like he could power a whole town with his megawatt smile right now if he so wanted. It lasts approximately two seconds though because the next thing she knows, Henry is bending his head down and placing a kiss on her boss’ lips.
Elle jolts, shaking her head. The next word out of her mouth leaves involuntarily. “Huh?”
The stranger takes a half-step away from Alex but leaves one arm wrapped around his lower back. “Oh, I guess I didn’t fully introduce myself. I’m Alex’s husband.”
“I’m sorry, you’re his what?!”
She blinks rapidly because up until this morning, she would have bet her life on her boss having a wife. They talk about her all the time. Literally every single day someone is either asking about her or gushing over her culinary prowess.
“His husband.” He holds up his left hand, proudly showing off a gold ring on his fourth finger.
“Yeah, no, I get how marriage works, but I thought—actually, we all thought that Alex here had a wife. As in not a husband,” she states.
The man laughs, looking over at his “husband” with glee. “Anything you wish to tell me, love?”
They’ve gathered a crowd, people starting to stand up from their desks at the commotion. This might be the greatest thing to ever happen within these four walls and she doesn’t even know what it is that’s actually happening yet.
Alex though, her calm and confident boss who works hard and respects everyone, fucking swoons. And if that wasn’t enough, he begins to nuzzle his head into the blond’s shoulder.
“So I maybe, sort of, didn’t correct anyone when they called you my wife…” he explains innocently, trailing off with a wide smile.
His husband, which honestly, what the fuck, blushes, but rolls his eyes good-naturedly.
“A menace, truly.” He proceeds to untangle their arms, handing over the tupperware. “You forgot your lunch, you absolute cretin.”
“Oh, thank you!” Alex responds, taking the container of likely delicious food.
“You’re welcome, love. Now, I have things to do, but best of luck sorting all this out,” Henry says, motioning in a circle to the room and their attentive audience. He then places a quick peck on Alex’s cheek and begins to walk back in the direction they’d come.
“Hey, wait,” someone shouts. Henry pauses, turning back toward the room with a questioning stare. “We love your baked goods. Quite literally all of them. I talk about them so much that it’s beginning to make my own wife jealous.”
“Uh huh, what he said, so if you ever decide to leave him, I’m available,” another person calls out.
If Elle thought the man was flushed before, he’s truly aflame now, the redness beginning to crest the tips of his ears. “Umm, thank you, I guess. I’ll do my best to keep them coming, or maybe not if it’s causing relationship problems.”
“Eh, it’s fine. They're worth it.”
He nods once, an air of confusion in the motion, clearly unsure how to interpret the adoration thrown on him by his husband’s co-workers. When no one else chimes in, he offers a small smile and continues toward the exit.
All eyes turn to their boss who is sheepishly trying to back his way into his office. The inquisitive looks cause him to freeze.
He clears his throat. “So, that’s my husband and I guess also my wife, Henry.” He then glares over at Tim who had commented on Henry leaving Alex. “And no, he will not be leaving me for you—we are in a happily committed relationship and I would be crazy to do anything to ruin that. You’ve all tasted his baking. It literally only gets better from there.”
“Okay that’s all great and I’m happy for you, but are we all just going to ignore the fact that you led us on for months by letting us believe you were married to a woman?” Elle asks, accusatorily. She’s crossed her arms, taking a strong stance amid her total confusion.
Alex shifts his weight between his feet. “Ha, so, y’all just assumed I was married to a woman and I never corrected you. That’s on me, but now you know! And everything else was the truth. I do pass along all of your kind words and feedback,” he says to justify his actions.
“Anything else?” He looks around but gives almost no time for a response. “Good, okay. Lots to do today, so let’s all get back to work.”
Alex darts into his office, closing the door swiftly behind him. It’s pin-drop quiet for a single second and then all at once, everyone begins to talk amongst themselves in bewilderment and shock. Like Elle, they’re all trying to replace the woman in their head who bakes mouth-watering desserts with the six-foot-tall man with tree trunks for thighs who just left their office. It’s a startling realization that has nothing to do with the man itself and everything to do with the blasé manner in which their boss repeatedly called him his wife.
Elle gets a negative amount of work done throughout the rest of the day, too caught up in her boss’ mystifying relationship. By 5 p.m. she realizes she doesn’t really care though and as long as he keeps sending along baked goods, her adoration of Alex’s partner has no shot of waning.
In an unequivocally perceptive move, Henry bakes two items for work the next day. One is a truly decadent tres leches cake, which Alex claims is a family recipe, and the other is a lemon meringue pie. She has no idea how he had the time to make two such complex desserts—especially considering her boss also shows up to work with a couple of extra bruises lining his neck that hadn’t been there the day before. They were clearly very busy last night.
Everyone adores him. He’s been surrounded since the minute he stepped foot in the office for the holiday party and Alex has bided his time off to the side, simply overjoyed by it all and too obsessed with the love they have for him to be frustrated by how little he’s spoken to his husband all night.
This is the second time they’ve seen him, but really the first time they get to fully meet him after that one day in the office where his secret was spilled. Whoops. He’d been pestered nearly every day since to bring him back in, but he’d managed to hold them off until today.
Leaning against a raised table brought in for the party, he takes another sip of his whiskey, watching as someone shoots off a flurry of silver confetti. Henry looks around in awe and the skin by his eyes crinkles. Fuck, Alex is so in love with the man. Fucking gone.
His feet are moving across the room before he makes the conscious decision to do so, and then he’s sidling up to his husband and placing his hand just above the man’s waistline.
“Having fun?”
Henry turns to him, a bright smile across his face, his cheeks flush with joy and holiday spirit. He has a piece of silver paper shimmering in his blond hair, but it’s cute, so Alex leaves it where it is.
Their eyes connect and he feels it all. The acceptance, the desire, the tenderness, and through it all an undercurrent of deep understanding.
“I’m having a lovely time; everyone has been so kind,” Henry tells him. “And it’s nice to hear that all the baked goods I send along with you are so well appreciated.”
“Appreciated? I mean damn, I was ready to wife you up myself at the first taste of your pistachio swirl cookies,” one of his co-workers exclaims. Henry ducks his head down at the praise, but Alex knows it’s also partially from the term they used: wife.
His blush rises up his ears and suddenly, Alex needs to immediately be alone with his husband. So he tightens his grip around the other man’s down-right indecent waist and turns to their audience. “If you’ll excuse us, I need to speak with Henry alone for a moment.”
The swarm of people nods and coo over Henry some more, but then he’s dragging him across the room, down the hallway, and into the single-stall restroom. As the lock clicks, the music becomes muted behind the heavy door. They’re blessedly alone and Alex has plans.
In a mildly aggressive act, he pushes the man up against the wall and noses at his neck, leaving a trail of brief kisses in his wake. An abrupt gasp escapes Henry’s lips and his hands snake up beneath Alex’s suit jacket.
“What’s all this, love?” It comes out surprisingly breathy.
Alex angles his head back to look up at his partner. “I just really fucking love you and I was going a little crazy watching them all fawn over you from across the room.” He pauses, a wicked grin taking over his face. “My cherished little housewife.”
Henry blinks wildly, attempting to sputter out a response, but is unable to produce anything intelligible. Yeah, it’s become a thing for them.
“So here’s the deal. I’m going to get down on my knees right here in my office bathroom, blow the everloving shit out of you, and then we’ll return to the party like nothing happened. Sounds good?”
Henry gulps, nods, and then nods again. “Yeah, yeah, okay.”
He bites his lip, hands going to the man’s belt as he sinks to the floor. It’s over far too quickly, but Henry comes down his throat with a sharp tug of his curls and a whispered sigh.
Alex is smug. Way too fucking smug, and as they return to the party hand in hand, he realizes he doesn’t quite mind sharing a small part of his personal life with his co-workers. Because he just blew the love of his life a wall away from a room full of people and for the rest of the evening he gets to watch them obsess and dote over him while being none the wiser.
Yeah, Alex loves his wife. He loves him a whole lot.