"Here you go ma'am, yes that's all twelve of them," Ludo smiles as he hands the baked goods over the counter to the older woman grinning, letting Ludo know that her husband's favorite croissants were the one's that him and Tal made. "Glad to hear it, have a good one ma'am," a toothy grin coating his playful expression as the interaction ended between him and the elderly lady. Looking over at Tal, he nodded childishly sporting two thumbs up towards her. He watched her huff, as usual not showing much expression but he always took that as a good sign. "We're almost out of most of our goods for the day," he mentioned to Tal as he counted what was left of the cookies placed out on the counters. "I'll probably head out after this rush here if that's cool with you," he ruffled his curly hair as he leaned against the counter. His eyes soon trailed lazily over to the back of the line where a striking woman had opened the door for the elderly couple that he had just helped, the pure epitome of a bubbly personality that had illuminated the room more than the late afternoon sunshine draping in. She waited in the line, seriously contemplating the options before her. Her thick reflective honey hair draping down her shoulders as he observed her leaning towards the bakery case studying each individual cookie.
He notices her looking his way and thinking nothing more of the gaze other than a customer needing to be helped, he saunters over with a friendly smile. "Good afternoon, anything I can get for you today?" he crossed his arms on the counter as he leaned over, examining which cookies she had her eyes on. "Tough choices, huh?" he chuckled as he rubbed his stubbled chin in interest. It didn't take the woman long before she brimmed her pearly white smile right back at him, confidently greeting him. At first, he was a bit taken aback with how much energy the woman was able to cram in to a simple hello. A smirk danced across his features as his curiosity piqued each moment the woman continued to speak excitedly. He listened as she requested the peanut butter chocolate chip cookies as well as snickerdoodles. "Ah, looks like that will be the last of them," Ludo stated peering down at the case. "Oh- I don't think we'll have enough to fill the dozen snickerdoodles. Would you perhaps be interested in trying some of my test cookies? Free of charge," he smiled politely. "Wait here," Ludo states as he strides back into the kitchen. "Hopefully these will do, I mean, they're similar to snickerdoodle."Strolling back out with four cinnamon sugar oatmeal cookies he hands one over the counter to the woman, "Here, tell me what you think of these," he nods his head, excitedly waiting for a response.
He sees her reach into her messenger bag, pulling out her wallet energetically as she quickly states that he can put them in the same box since she had quite the distance to walk. Although before he has time to even say okay, the lady is moving on to the next subject at hand which happened to be his name tag. She happily states that she liked his named, although she had never heard of it before. Immediately after, she introduces herself as Elain and asked inquisitively if they were staying busy. "Well, I just moved here not too long ago from Naples, so that's most likely why you haven't heard such a name before. You can just call me Ludo, no need to be so formal," he teased as he gathered the cookies all together in one bag. "Nice to meet you Elain, is this your first time to the bakery? And yes, we've been staying busy. I've been getting to learn a lot from Tal," he nods his head in Tal's direction. "She's the owner, I'm just here for fun," he adds jokingly.
"Does this look okay?" he inquired as he scooched the ornate box of cookies towards her. "Glad to see new faces in the bakery. Make sure to come in again and try more of my experiments," he grinned happily. "Oh, I'm actually just leaving my shift for the day. Did you need help carrying those cookies to a meeting or something?" Ludo politely asked as he started to untie his apron and lift it above his head. |