The Cheese Cellar – Part 2: Ripe
Workplace·EN·1 min read·Published 2026-11-07, updated 2026-11-07·Part 2 of 2
In October, the wheel she had helped to make was ready.
Fabian carried it out of the deep cellar himself, in both arms, and set it on the wooden table in the tasting room. A lamp glowed warm over it. Snow had begun to fall outside the little window.
"You cut it," he said.
"Me?"
"It is yours. You turned it a hundred and eighty times."
She took the long knife with a trembling hand, and cut. The wheel opened with a soft sigh, pale gold inside, glistening, studded with tiny crystals. The smell rose, sweet and nutty and deep.
She tasted. It was creamy, salty, sweet, impossible, a flavour with a mountain in it.
"Oh," she said, and found her eyes wet. "That's mine."
"It's yours."
"It's wonderful."
"You are wonderful at it," said Fabian, very quietly.
She looked up. He was standing close, hands in his apron pockets, looking at her with such open gentleness that her heart thumped.
"Can I ask you something?" said Lena.
"Yes."
"May I kiss you?"
"Yes," said Fabian. "And if you say stop, you must turn every wheel on the top shelf."
"There are four hundred."
"Yes."
"Then I'm in trouble."
She rose on her toes and kissed him, gently, her hand against his beard. He kissed her back with slow, careful sweetness, tasting of salt and cream. Snow ticked against the window, and in the cellar below, ten thousand wheels slept on.
When they parted, both of them were smiling.
"Green?" he asked.
"Green," said Lena. "Very green."
The first wheel they ever sold together had a small handwritten label: Lena & Fabian. Ripened slowly.
More workplace romance stories: The Late Shift · Night Shift · The Personal Trainer
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