Croissant-A Mullette Story [ON HOLD]

Chapter 1-They Meet

Laf POV

Once upon a time, in a land far, far, away.

Nah, I'm just joking. This, mes amies, is France!

"Laf, you going to finish these muffins or what?" Adrienne shouts.

I sigh, grin, and slap my pen down on the counter. "Coming, Adri."

Adrienne smiles at me as I come into the back room and she heads back up to the front. She's a pretty girl, with long, silky hair and light brown skin, but I'm not interested, and she isn't, either. She's got a partner, and I'm kept so busy with our bakery that I don't really bother.

Adri and I have been best friends since we were babies. Our mamans had been best friends since they were in college, and when Adri was born exactly six months after me, they got even closer, and so Adri and I spent basically our entire childhoods together.

I finished up with college about a year ago, and had no idea what I wanted to do, but luckily for me, Adri and her partner, River, had plans to start a bakery, and I jumped in. River dropped out so they could finish school, but I stuck with it, and a year later, Adri and I are running a pretty successful bakery on the outskirts of Paris.

"Laf. Muffins," Adri says, appearing out of nowhere and pointing to my work surface. I sigh again. "Okay, got it. Working on it. Now leave."

"Rude," she says, huffing and smiling at me before she leaves. I start mixing the ingredients for the muffins in the bowl, humming under my breath.

I've just put the huge muffin tin in our quadruple oven when Adrienne rushes in, covered in what looks like chocolate cupcake and frosting.

"Some rude toddler threw it at my face. I need to clean up. Can you take over the front, please?" she asks, clasping her hands together and begging me.

"Yeah, no problem." I walk out of the kitchen towards the front and lean on the counter, picking up my pen again. I like running the front counter when business is slow, because I can write while I wait for someone to come in.

I really love to write. It just feels like I can make my own worlds to disappear into when things get tough. And for me, a gay man in France with a homophobic family?

Things get tough a lot.

But I'll get to that later.

I start writing and soon I lose myself in the flow of ink. I don't look up when the door opens, I don't look up when I hear heavy footsteps across the floor, I don't look up when a shadow falls over me. I don't look up until I hear a slight cough.

I jolt up and hide the paper out of sight, my face flushing from embarrassment. "Sorry about that, I was just-"

I stop, and good thing I'm already blushing from embarrassment...because...wow.

A tall man, strongly built, is standing there, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. He smiles pleasantly and said, "One croissant, please," in English. He sounds unsure, like maybe he thinks I won't speak English, but thankfully I speak French, English, and German.

"Yeah, of course, sorry about that," I stammer in French. Then I correct myself in English and rush to get his croissant. In my hurry, I drop it. Blushing even more now, I throw it in the trash and grab a fresh one, wrap it up in paper, and hand it to him. He pays for it with a card, smiles again, and leaves.

"Wait!" I blurt as he shuts the door behind him. He turns back and opens the door again. "What's your name?"

"Hercules Mulligan," he replies, and leaves again.

I stand frozen behind the counter, staring after him, watching him go. Then I look at the clock, and it's time to close up shop. I shake all thoughts of the Mulligan guy away and slowly start to close. Adri reappears just as I'm shrugging on my coat. All trace of cupcake is gone.

"Hey, Laf, any customers?" she asks, seeing that I'm leaving.

"Yeah, one," I reply.

"Okay, thanks for closing up. I'll do it next time."

"Okay, Adri. Have a good night."

"You too." She turns away and wipes the counters down, even though I already did that, and I step out the door and start walking down the street, zipping up my jacket against the light spring air.

I had to park my car two blocks down, and my apartment was almost twenty minutes away, but I welcomed the walk and I knew I would welcome the drive. It was nice to have a little time to unwind. After all, my mother, father, sister, aunt, uncle, grandmother, and six cousins did live in the apartments on either side of me, so you can expect that I had peace and quiet absolutely never.

As I drove, I put on my musical playlist and sang along to the English words in French, my mood lifting with every song, until I felt so happy I was ready to withstand anything my weird, unbearable family could throw at me.

I stepped out of my car when I pulled up to the apartment complex and was about to walk inside, but I remembered my rainbow scarf and tore it off, locking it inside the glove compartment so that they couldn't see.

What was stopping me from telling my family I was gay? It's not like they owned the building or anything, and they couldn't do anything to me. I had a steady job, we weren't particularly well-connected, and I couldn't get kicked out.

I just loved my family. A lot. Even though they were homophobic and said bad things about gay people, they loved me and they were sweet people, and the only thing they had ever done wrong to me was call LGBTQ+ people horrible names.

Yeah, I know, you think I'm a coward. But just wait until you meet my family, and then you'll see.

Yayyyyy first chapter out! I like this first chapter better than my Lams one, and you're getting a little bit of Mullette already. Thanks for reading!

ED :)