A sigh of relief escaped Enzo's lips with Rhys' words. It was a great burden off his shoulders to know that with this new hire they would be less stretched thin as a business. Plus, Enzo wouldn't have to worry about the place randomly being left alone when there was a fight.

"You're a life saver Rhys, seriously. If we hadn't gotten you then," Enzo ran a hand through his hair, "I'm not sure what we would've done to be honest. I was losing money because of the fights and randomly shutting down during peak hours. So thank you for being so understanding and willing to work. I promise we'll treat you fairly here, and you'll be protected from you know what while you work here."

Enzo hoped that Rhys could hear the sincerity in his voice, and that he really did turn out to be a good worker.

In the few days leading up to Rhys's first day of work, he spent a large portion of that time in the kitchen. He worked towards perfecting some of his recipes, as well as learning new ones, and becoming comfortable with making those as well. The result was way too much food for one person, so Rhys ended up calling some of his old coworkers-turned-friends from his multiple old jobs and giving them the extras.

On Monday, Rhys woke up early and made himself as presentable as possible. He needed to go to the bakery before it was open to the public in order to make the food. Enzo had let him see the kitchen the last time he was there, as well as gave him estimates of how many customers they got, and what serving sizes would be needed.

So, around an hour and a half before the shop was open to the public, Rhys was sliding inside, ready to begin his first day.

Ian's call was unexpected and the topic of the call was even more surprising. Enzo of course knew that Rhys and Ian knew one another, and that Ian felt indebted to him, but the random call to check in and see whether or not Rhys has gotten the job had seemed like a bit much. Especially since Enzo would have to be stupid not to hire at least one person that was not in the gang. Killian seemed to be rather involved as of late, and Enzo wasn't sure whether he should be happy about that or a bit worried. He figured eventually time would tell.

As Rhys slid inside, Enzo was cleaning up and preparing for the day. At the sound of the small bell above the door, Enzo immediately looked up. For a moment he looked a bit nervous, but once he realized it was just Rhys his furrowed brows softened and he gave him a wide smile. "Well good morning Rhys, I trust you slept well?" Enzo's friendly chatter was the only sound in the room, save for the soft classical music that spilled out the speakers.

Even though this was Rhys's x^th first day at a job in the past few months, it never failed to make him nervous. Still, Enzo helped to put Rhys at ease, with his friendly small-talk and kind smile, "Yep! I had had a great rest," (A lie, Rhys could hardly sleep because of nerves, and a layer of concealer was hiding his eyebags).

"And I'm excited to start baking!" (That was the truth; Rhys had fallen back in love with baking after trying so many new recipes, and perfecting his old ones).

That morning, Rhys had (after much deliberation) decided to text Ian a "thank you" message, for putting in a good word at the bakery, and letting him stay at one of his extra houses. Rhys didn't text this part, but he was planning to end the lease on his apartment soon, and sell the possessions he had that couldn't fit in the house. Then, once he made enough money at the bakery, Rhys was planning on moving somewhere else.

Sure, he loved the city he was in, but after being targeted by a gang, Rhys wasn't dumb enough to stick around for long.

It would take a while to make enough in order to properly move, so he could still keep his promise to Enzo about not leaving within two months.

-

do we want to go through the day? or should we just ts to the end/////ts to the next big **event** bc i think things will be mundane for a bit?

I think we should ts because I have no clue what to do here :,) Uh what was it we had planned again? Sorry it's definitely been awhile.

lol it's good. i remember there was gonna be a person that like. attacked the bakery but idk if that was the next big thing. what do you think? i don't rlly remember either

I mean we can do that if you want. I don't have any other ideas

:D okay then. can u start lmao w the invader person lol. rhys will be at the cash register

Liam was apprehensive about this robbery, the bakery was in the center of a busy intersection and there would be plenty of people in the bakery at this time of day. It was definitely the wrong place to choose as his target but he'd wanted to prove to his superiors that he deserved a promotion. So he'd taken the one job every other person had been avoiding for weeks now, just to prove his worth.

Sometimes Liam thought he might've chosen the wrong career path.

Either way, he was here now and there was no going back. So Liam entered the store, like any other customer, and made his way up to the counter, a medical mask covering the lower portion of his face as if he was ill. Liam then faced the blond boy at the counter, his eyes suddenly hardening as he growled softly, "give me the money in the register and no one's gonna get hurt." He revealed a white wand from his coat, with blue imprints that vaguely resembled waves.

So far, working at the bakery had proven to be an easy job. Sure, Rhys had to wake up early to walk to work (and as the weather got colder, the walk was growing increasingly more unpleasant) but that wasn't enough to make the job bad by any means. His boss was fair, his coworkers were nice (if a little bit intimidating, but a person can only be so scary until you see them shriek after touching some gross texture while washing dishes), and Rhys had reigniting his passion for baking in the process. Not to toot his own horn or anything, but Rhys was pretty confident in his claim that his baking definitely had the edge over other cafes in the area, causing an influx of customers - and an increased demand for baked goods. If the trend kept continuing, Rhys might even be able to convince his boss to hire an assistant baker to lighten the load...

Rhys was broken out of his musings by the approach of a customer. However, before he could even greet the person, the jerk was started spewing threats out the wazoo.

Eight years in customer service had prepared Rhys for this very moment: nothing phased him at this point.

"Sorry Sir, no can do. We empty out the cash register at noon and it is," Rhys shifted his head to the side, looking past the offenders (balding) head to the clock, "12:05. You just missed the prime time for criminal activities. Try again tomorrow! And if you want, you can take a muffin for the road! On the house, of course."

While blabbering his mouth off, Rhys sneakily stretched his fingers along the underside of the counter, pressing the "Help" button located there while trying not to alert the fellow of his actions. On his very first day at the bakery, Enzo had shown him the location, with very strict instructions to press it if anything ever looked suspicious. Being part of the... shadier aspects of life, the bakery knew that despite their distance from central gang activity, it was still possible to get caught up in messes.

Case in point: balding man with a threatening wand (was his primary power water-based? Rhys was pretty sure he could pull up a force field fast enough if the guy got twitchy, but he'd certainly prefer to let the others deal with this situation...) who was in the process of robbing him.

Oh joy.