Weiss' Pieces was the best bakery in town. It was an undisputed fact that every one of their delicacies, from their buttery croissants to their flaky eclairs, was a gift from the gods. The shop was warm, with wide windows that filled the place with sunlight and displayed a gorgeous array of goods to curious passer-by. The interior design was haphazard, with tables and chairs and cushions and rugs thrown together in a cosy, cluttered mess. Lucas pushed open the door exactly ten minutes before noon, when his shift started, and was greeted by the familiar jingle of the bell and the smell of baked goods. The shop was, as always, full of people, and Lucas had to nudge and squeeze his way around tables and through groups of people get behind the counter. He walked right past the register, nodding to Casey, who was taking her turn on register, and pushed through the swinging doors to the back of the shop. Where the magic happened, as his boss liked to say.
His boss, Lisa Huang, was already hard at work. She looked up as Lucas entered and offered him a wide smile.
"Lucas! Grab an apron, and get to kneading. We need these rolls done before the afternoon rush."
She nodded to the bowl beside her, already kneading a large ball of dough on the floured counter. The movement was so smooth and practiced it seemed effortless. Pressing down, folding, pressing down, folding. Her skills had an almost hypnotic quality, and Lucas often thought that he could watch her whisk egg whites or pipe filling for hours and never get bored. He snagged an apron from the hook by the door, tying it securely around his waist, and scooped up the remaining dough from the bowl.
"So," Lisa began as Lucas joined her at the bench. "We've got a new employee today."
Lucas looked up, surprised. They hardly ever had new employees. It wasn't for lack of interest, students and adults alike would've loved to work at Weiss', but they never had spots available. Lucas had been lucky: he'd applied just as someone had moved out of state.
"He's my friend Maria's son. Good kid, but she's a little worried about his direction, you know. He gets into trouble now and then, so I think she's just looking for a way to keep him busy. She worries, with the way her business is at the moment, and raising a teen boy on top of that can't make it easier."
Lucas got the distinct impression that he wasn't meant to be hearing any of this. Conversations with Lisa often made him feel that way. She was lovely, everyone agreed, but tended to gossip. It meant that Lucas often knew a lot of what was going on in town, who was fighting with who and whose divorce was going badly and who was secretly in love with who. That sort of thing. Talking with her was never boring, even if Lucas couldn't look at certain people the same way again.
"He's your age, too! I think he might even go to your school, I can't quite remember which one Maria told me. I'm going to need you to show him the ropes. Cash register, basic kitchen duties, washing up, simple things. Maybe he can even move onto baking once he gets good enough. You be the judge. That alright?"
All the while, she kept kneading, her rhythm unfaltering as she spoke.
"Yeah, alright." Lucas nodded, having to keep more attention on his dough to match the smooth pace Lisa was setting.
It'd be easy enough, he thought. He'd never been the most social person and didn't go out of his way to make friends, but it couldn't be that hard to just explain to some guy how to wash dishes and work a register.
"Actually," Lisa frowned, checking her watch, "he should be here by now. His shift started a minute ago."
As if on cue, the doors swung open, bringing with them the sounds of the bustling coffee shop and Casey's giggling. Odd. In his two years working at Weiss', Lucas didn't think he'd ever heard Casey giggle.
He looked towards the door, reaching up to scratch his nose. His eyes fell on the boy who'd just walked through the door, and his hand froze in place.
Damien Castillo hadn't changed much. He towered above Lisa, and even though Lucas was proud to say he'd grown a whole inch and a half over the last year he was still a good couple of inches shorter than him. He had the same unruly curls, inky black and tousled, as if he'd just rolled out of bed. Which he probably had, seeing as he was late. On his first day, too. Pretty rude, in Lucas' opinion. He had skin like the caramel they put into tarts, the kind you had to push right to the edge, just before it burnt. High cheekbones gave his face an almost haughty expression. Toned arms and a broad chest with a T-shirt that fell like water across what Lucas assumed would be abs, and...he was staring.
Before he could make it painfully obvious, he glanced back down to the dough, continuing his work. He couldn't believe his bad luck. Of all the places he could've worked at, Damien Castillo, certified asshole and his brother's mortal enemy, had chosen to work at the bakery. Lucas didn't really get along with people at the best of times, let alone with guys like this. The feeling was usually mutual too.
"Damien, you're late." Lisa said, pulling her hands away from the dough to rest them on her hips. Oh no. Lucas knew this pose well. He'd seen it countless times, when someone got careless or lazy or rude, and it usually preceded a thorough dressing down.
"Sorry, Lisa." Damien responded, and although Lucas didn't think he sounded very sorry at all, Lisa just smiled, shaking her head at him like one would a misbehaving child.
"Make sure it doesn't happen again. Now, this is Lucas. He's going to be showing you around, keeping an eye on you, that sort of thing."
Damien glanced to Lucas, and even though Lucas was still keeping his eyes fixed on his dough, he could feel their gaze boring into the back of his neck. He turned around, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose and nodding to Damien.
"Hey."
Christ, that sounded awkward. Lucas wondered if there was something else he was supposed to say, because even though he wasn't particularly fond of Damien, it'd be best to keep things professional. But he needn't have worried; Damien wasn't even looking at him.
Which was rude. Lucas was guessed that was a pretty standard for Damien. Deciding against anything too friendly, since he didn't seem like he deserved it, Lucas got back to work. Lisa had placed her dough back in an oiled bowl and thrown a cloth over it, and he did the same.
Unperturbed by their obvious lack of interest in each other, Lisa bustled off the pantry, and called from its depths:
"I thought he might've gone to your school, Damien. You don't have a Lucas Sawyer there?"
At that, Damien paused. He was leaning against the doorframe, head cocked to one side, and although he'd ignored Lucas before now those dark eyes were locked onto him. A slow smirk spread across his face.
"Sawyer?" He asked, experimentally, and his surname sounded almost dirty on Damien's tongue. Lucas didn't like the tone. "As in Mark Sawyer?"
"Yes." The word came out colder than he'd meant it to be.
"You're Mark Sawyer's baby brother, then?" Damien asked, sounding as if he were holding back a laugh. His eyes very obviously swept Lucas up and down, taking in the glasses and skinny arms and freckles, and there was a cruel, almost mocking little glint in his eyes when they met Lucas'.
Or maybe he was imagining it. Lucas should've been used to this by now. People never guessed they were related, much less twins, and when they found out he usually got some variation of this reaction. Incredulous amusement. They just couldn't fathom that someone like Mark, someone so strong and handsome and popular, would share DNA with someone like Lucas. Somewhere, deep down, Lucas knew he was the spare twin, but it'd be nice if everyone wasn't so obvious about it.
"I'm his twin, actually." Lucas said, in the same curt, cold tone. Perhaps this was what his friend Alex referred to as his 'people repellent'. Lucas didn't care. Damien had assumed he was younger. Which was probably a pretty logical assumption, and it had happened countless times before, but again. Being used to something didn't make it fun.
Damien scoffed, watching Lucas intently. No doubt he was searching for the family resemblance. He didn't find any. "Seriously? You and that dickhead captain are twins? But you're..." Damien gestured vaguely, as if searching for the right words, "...small." A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth as he looked very pointedly down at Lucas.
Lucas bristled, and before he could stop himself he snapped. "And you're an asshole. Glad we've got that sorted." Shock flitted across Damien's face, but it disappeared as quickly as it had come.
As if on cue, Lisa stuck her head out of the pantry, a suspicious look in her eyes. "Playing nice, boys?"
Damien smiled back, the picture of charming innocence. "Of course."
Once she'd disappeared, he reached up to smack Lucas across the back of the head. It wasn't that hard, but the jolt almost sent his glasses flying.
Lucas rounded on him. His temper wasn't cool at the best of times, and this guy was just so annoying. "What are you, five?"
"Yeah, five inches taller than you."
Damien seemed to enjoy irritating him, if his smug grin was anything to go by. Deciding not to dignify that last comment with a response, Lucas busied himself with wiping the flour off his hands onto his apron. There were also powdery white streaks in his hair and on his nose, and they made the scowl he gave Damien a little less intense.
"I'm supposed to show you what to do." Lucas said, his tone stiff with forced professionalism. "You're new, so you'll be washing up." He couldn't deny there was a small amount of satisfaction in giving Damien cleaning duties. It was an unpleasant task, which Lucas felt he deserved, and it'd keep him out of the way.
He lead Damien to the sink, where a pile of dishes were already stacked and crusted with mixture. Damien didn't look excited.
"Do I need to explain how to wash dishes?" Lucas asked, as if he really were speaking to a five year old. Maybe that made him an asshole too, but Damien had started it.
Damien rolled his eyes, and turned on the faucet, filling the sink with hot water. "I mean, if you want to keep talking to me that badly..."
Lucas definitely did not. With a huff of annoyance, he returned to the bench, where Lisa had already begun rolling out pastry. He cut it into perfect little circles, fit it into the tart moulds, and slowly began to forget about Damien. Or tried to. When he was busy like this, in the comfortable kitchen surrounded by the smell of baked goods and the sound of Lisa's chatter, he could let things go. He didn't have to say much to Damien, who was kept busy by washing up the countless bowls and tins they used to prepare for the afternoon. But still, their conversation stuck with him, like an itch in the back of his mind that he couldn't quite scratch.
***
The afternoon rush was intense, like it always was on weekends. Lucas and Casey were usually overwhelmed by it. You'd think having an extra person out the front would make things easier, but no. Casey was busy trying to show Damien how to work the cash register, and judging by her giggling, or the way Damien was leaning just a little too close, there wasn't a lot of instruction going on. Which, much to his annoyance, meant Lucas had to handle all the customers. He was trying to take orders and package pastries and collect and count change by hand because Casey took twice as long at the register when Damien was making her laugh. It was stressful, and all the while customers kept coming, pointing to items in the display shelf and beckoning him over with questions about ingredients.
"Do you think you two could actually help?" Lucas hissed as he pushed past, trying to load the bread a customer had ordered into a paper bag.
Damien shot Casey a look, corner of his mouth curving upwards, and, like clockwork, she pressed her lips shut to smother a giggle.
"Sorry, Lucas." Casey said, not sounding very sorry at all. "I'm just helping Damien work the register."
"He can't do it himself?" Lucas asked, passing the bread over to the customer. "Nobody's that stupid."
"Nobody's this uptight, but here you are."
"Uptight?" Lucas was offended. He wasn't uptight, was he? There wasn't anything wrong with doing things the way they were supposed to be done. They were at work. They should be working.
"Yeah, uptight." Damien was giving him that unbearably smug little smirk, and Lucas had the sudden urge to punch it off his face. He was usually able to keep his cool, but something about Damien got under his skin. Maybe Mark's years of football rivalry had infected him. The twins didn't agree on everything, but Lucas definitely agreed with Mark on this.
Casey was watching them both, eyes wide, as if it were some personalised soap opera. Lucas bit back another insult – professional, had to keep things professional – and started to shove a customer's tarts into a paper bag, with more force than was necessary.
"Just...do your job." He snapped, turning away and storming off to the back. The sound of Damien murmuring something and Casey's giggle followed him into the kitchen.