Eliza was midway through drafting a "Tragic Rye" marketing campaign—focusing on its backstory as a starter abandoned in a storm drain but rescued by a lonely Duke—when Caleb burst into the kitchen. He wasn't walking; he was executing a high-velocity dash.
"Eliza! Cease all qualitative activities!" he commanded, holding his phone in a white-knuckled grip. His suit jacket was off, a clear sign of impending corporate catastrophe.
"What is it? Did Reginald run away to join the circus?"
"Worse. We have received an unforecasted, high-volume order that requires immediate, non-negotiable execution. It's Mr. Sterling Thorne—Julian Thorne's older brother, a massive figure in high-frequency trading."
Caleb slammed a printout onto the counter. The order was for thirteen individual, customized starters, each tailored to a specific personality type for a dinner party he was hosting. The delivery was required by 7 AM tomorrow.
"Thirteen? Why thirteen? That's not a standard unit of transaction, Caleb."
"He is a hedge fund manager, Eliza, and he requested a 'Baker's Dozen of Assets' to impress a highly selective potential investment partner," Caleb explained, his voice tight. "The total immediate revenue is $6,500. This is an exponential, mandatory growth event."
Eliza whistled. "A baker's dozen of existential yeast. We're going to need more jars. And caffeine. This is an all-nighter, Vance."
"I have already generated the optimal workflow." Caleb produced a complicated, laminated schedule, color-coded yellow for Mixing, blue for Initial Proofing, and red for Critical Window: Emotional Narrative Generation. "We have twenty minutes per batch. You handle the hydration and the narrative naming; I handle the temperature control and the precise volumetric division."
The next few hours were a blur of organized chaos. Caleb, armed with his digital scale and laser thermometer, was a machine of precision. Eliza, fueled by pure enthusiasm, looked like a flour-dusted whirlwind.
Caleb wore specialized nitrile gloves and used a separate, sterilized spatula for each batch. Eliza used her hands and hummed show tunes, occasionally stopping to whisper encouragement to the molasses.
"Batch Seven is the 'The Maverick Amaranth,'" Eliza announced, leaning over the dough. "It needs a story about bucking trends and high volatility—you know, something to appeal to a man who enjoys leveraged buyouts."
"Batch Seven's core temperature has drifted 0.5 degrees above the optimal range," Caleb countered, adjusting the sous-vide bath they were using for proofing. "Its narrative will be jeopardized if its thermal stability is not immediately corrected."
"Relax, Caleb. It's just showing its maverick nature early," Eliza teased.
Around 2:00 AM, the atmosphere changed. The only sounds were the soft, rhythmic hum of the ovens, the faint bubble of the starters, and the occasional sigh of exhaustion. Caleb had been standing rigidly for hours, monitoring the final bulk fermentation. His hair was slightly dishevelled, and the crisp white collar of his shirt was slightly askew. He looked less like a consultant and more like a very tired, very handsome ghost.
Eliza saw him rub his eyes. "You look like you're running on 0% battery life, Vance. Sit down for five minutes."
"I cannot," he said, his voice husky with fatigue. "Batch Twelve is in the critical fold stage. I must maintain visual confirmation of the dough's structural integrity."
Eliza didn't argue. Instead, she grabbed two cups of coffee, heavily dosed with milk and sugar—the anti-Caleb coffee. She placed one next to his elbow and nudged his hand with her foot.
"Fine. Stand. But hydrate," she said gently.
Caleb looked at the coffee, then at Eliza, who was now quietly braiding the edges of a dough basket to pass the time. He picked up the mug, his fingers brushing the warm ceramic.
"Thank you, Eliza," he said, his voice softer than she'd ever heard it.
"You're welcome."
The silence stretched, not tense this time, but companionable. Eliza looked at the array of perfect, rising, bespoke doughs, then at the man beside her.
"You know, you're really good at this," she admitted. "You make this ridiculous business feel… real. Like it can last."
Caleb took a sip of the coffee and winced slightly at the sugar, but he kept drinking. "I am good at logistics and revenue optimization, Eliza. That's not a personality trait; it's a transferable skill set."
"No, I mean you're good at the dough," she insisted. "You handle the starters like they're fragile, million-dollar contracts. I used to think you were just obsessed with the money, but… you care about the product. You care about Larry."
Caleb hesitated. He looked away from the dough and toward the dark window. "I spent a significant portion of my life dedicated to optimizing systems for people who only cared about the number in their bank account," he confessed, his voice almost a whisper. "I was very good at it, but the returns were hollow. This business… the metrics are absurd, but the product is tangible. It requires genuine care and patience. It's different."
It was the most vulnerable, uncalculated sentence she had ever heard him utter. It was a data point she couldn't ignore.
"So you needed a tangible chaos to balance out the intangible perfection?" she summarized, a small smile playing on her lips.
He looked back at her, meeting her eyes. "I needed something that didn't follow the rules," he corrected softly. He shifted his weight, and suddenly his arm brushed hers. It wasn't the accidental contact of the flour or the delivery, but a prolonged, low-grade contact in the quiet dark of the early morning.
Eliza felt her own heart rate spike, an unmeasured metric far more volatile than any dough temperature. She didn't move.
Caleb finally cleared his throat and pulled away, reverting to his professional shell, but the moment had already been filed away in both their minds.
"The final batch, Batch Thirteen, is ready for shaping," he announced, his voice regaining its sharp edge. "I have designated it 'The Calculated Risk.' It is a very large asset, requiring careful management."
Eliza stared at him, unable to tell if he was talking about the dough or himself. "I think I can handle a calculated risk, Vance. Especially when it's this close to proofing."
They finished the final shaping in strained silence, aware of the gravity of the exhausted, shared moment. As the first light of dawn filtered through the kitchen window, they packaged the thirteen custom starters. The emergency Baker's Dozen was complete. They had pulled off the impossible, and the successful completion felt less like a business win and more like surviving a shared, intimate crucible.
That late night session certainly escalated their personal connection! Caleb's vulnerability is a critical step in their relationship arc.