I wrinkled my nose. “Low blow.”

“Yet so well aimed.”

The door to the employee break room opened, and Pete—the night manager and my former boss—started toward us, expression suggesting that he’d just bitten into something sour. He usually looked like that when he had to interact with customers. That the customers included me was just a bonus.

“October,” he said. He had the decency to try sounding surprised. He just lacked the acting skill to pull it off. He glanced at May and Danny, eyebrows rising in much more realistic confusion. Whoever warned the staff that I was in the store hadn’t bothered to pass along the fact that I was traveling with my identical twin.

“Pete,” I replied. “Busy night?”

His cheeks reddened. “Inventory.”

Inventory would mean more staffers in the store, not fewer. I didn’t call him on it. “Right. Well, this is my friend Danny,” Danny nodded, his sheer size making the gesture intimidating, “and my sister, May.”

“Hi!” May grinned, rocking back on her heels. “Nice to meet you. Thanks for being so awesome to Tobes when she worked here.”

“Uh,” said Pete. “Right.”

I couldn’t blame him. Meeting May has that effect on people, especially the ones who’ve known me for any length of time. She looks almost exactly like me, and people don’t expect that level of pep to come out of my mouth. She’s taken steps to distinguish herself from me, piercing her ears six times and getting a feathered bob before streaking her ashy brown hair with magenta and electric blue, but the underlying bone structure has stayed the same.

Pete rang up the groceries on a sort of swift autopilot, bagging them himself when no one came out to help him. He didn’t try to make conversation. In a rare display of mercy, May didn’t try to force him.

The total was over three hundred dollars: painful, but not unexpected, considering that we’d been down to ramen noodles and mystery cans from the back of the cupboard. I paid cash. Pete frowned but didn’t comment. Sometimes it’s better not to know.