The next morning went by very fast, Silver woke up at five am along with Rouge. They got dressed quickly and had a quick breakfast for themselves before heading off to work, they arrived there thirty minutes after. Silver opened the front door, the slight ringing welcoming them inside as they stepped through the front and to the kitchen. Blaze was already there and setting up, firing up the large oven and getting the things, they'll need ready on the countertops.
"You're in early, how long have you been here?" Silver questioned, taking off his jacket and putting an apron on.
"Had to deal with stuff at home, got out of hand and didn't really want to stay here long." Blaze explained.
"Oh, did something happen?" Silver asked, slightly concerned.
"Yeah, some personal junk. Knuckles and Shade are getting irritated with the bills having to be unevenly split. Knuckles is very stressed from his job while Shade and I are the only ones with actual paying jobs, so between us." Blaze explained, sighing as she looked annoyed. "It's getting horrible and I'm almost exhausted from this."
Silver listened to her troubles as he cleaned his hands, feeling a twinge of guilt for Blaze. He knew of her troubles at home, Knuckles was the appointed guardian of the Master Emerald by the rite of his ancestors and while it was important it didn't make any money. Shade and Blaze had to take up the workload and tensions were rising between them and it was sad since they were such good friends when Blaze was brought into the relationship. To hear that they were fighting over money and letting it get in-between them was heart-breaking.
They were so happy two years ago and now it's risking falling apart. Silver has always felt bad about being well-off compared to them and wishes he could just give her money but like him, Blaze was stubborn and was intent on being independent. He wished he could pay her more, but he was already splitting the cash up unevenly with him getting the smallest portion out of Rouge and Blaze's pay. He could try and cut from Rouge's check, but he wanted to pay them evenly, he sighed and walked over to her. He placed his hand on her shoulder, giving her a sympathetic look.
"I'm sorry you're dealing with that right now if you want I could give you a temporary raise if that will help your living situation." Silver offered.
Blaze shook her head. "No, it's fine, I know you barely have enough to pay for us and this shop's expenses. If you give me a raise, you'll be taking it from the expenses and I don't want that."
"But, I don't want this to ruin your relationship. You can always quit and find another well-paying job, I won't be mad if you do."
"Silver- "
"No, I'm serious Blaze, if the fact that my shop can't help pay your bills then I'm failing at best. I can't keep you on if you're going to sacrifice your Knuckles and Shade for it." Silver huffed.
Blaze looked to the side. "Look, your shop isn't failing. You have wonderful recipes that create tasty treats and are good at making them appealing to eat. It's just bad luck that this venue isn't high-traffic as it was when you first bought it. That's not your fault and I'm proud to work here. I helped get this place off the ground and to abandon it would be careless of me," She sighed. "Besides, you're my friend. I would hate to have to make you do this on your own."
Blaze was so assuring, so determined and so loyal; she was the best friend anyone can ask for. Silver couldn't help but Smile, he was thankful for her as if it wasn't for Blaze he would have never gone through with opening this place up after he got his certificate. He owed her just as much as his own mother for helping him open his business, but he still felt somewhat responsible for her situation.
"But, let's put that behind us. We're already behind on baking and we need to get to it." Blaze flashed a smile. Silver nodded and grabbed a recipe book.
In no time Silver and blaze were busy at work at making fresh loaves of bread from the frozen dough they made yesterday after it thawed, getting the desserts and other baked goods from the fridge to put out. Rouge helped with displaying them in an appealing manner and putting them in their correct space while the duo baked away. When it was time to open, Rouge was too caught up in answer phone calls and getting the paperwork done in her office that Blaze had to leave Silver to work the front. Silver didn't mind as he was fine on his own, this gave him the chance to use his powers.
Ever since he was born Silver has always displayed psychic potential, his mother Rouge has always been telling him about how much of a little monster he was when he used it t cause havoc in her house. Silver was unsure about where he got his powers from, Rouge had taken him to the doctor, but they even couldn't figure out if these were something he developed naturally or was inherited. Rouge never talked about his father much, simply saying it was never meant to be and of how much he looked like his father was all he ever known about him. He liked to think his father was a cool psychokinesis hedgehog sometimes.
With a flick of his wrist and a twirl of his finger, he was able to manage both his and Blaze's work with ease. When he was finished with a batch of cupcakes, he put them neatly on a tray and brought them to the front. As he was about to fully leave the kitchen's door way he yelped and ducked back into the kitchen he was careful as to not toss the cupcakes as he cowered. He peaked through the door a tiny bit to see what caused him to hide; Shadow.
He couldn't understand why he was here, did he catch who he was? Did he accidentally him on Instagram and forget about it? Oh god he can't think of how embarrassing it was. He kept looking to see him chatting up with Blaze at the till. He couldn't hear what they were saying, and he was curious, he set the tray down on a table nearby and quickly tried to find something to hide his quills. He spotted Blaze's hat and decided that it will do. He tied his quills back into a bun and put the hat on before he headed out the door with the tray of cupcakes. The store was busy with some people here and there just browsing and kids drooling as they looked at the tasty treats. He snuck close to the display behind the counter and started to restock the cupcakes there.
"-I thought I'd drop by and see what this place was about." He heard Shadow's voice.
"I see, well is there any reason other than returning our takeout box?" Blaze asked.
"Yeah, never paid any attention to this place when it first opened across the street but yesterday some guy gave me this and ran." Oh god, he was referencing when he made a joke of himself.
"Oh? Well lucky that the box was one of our branded one. What did you think of the sweets?" Blaze sounded curious.
"They were pretty good and I'm not a sweets kind of guy, but they weren't as overly sweet as some places make them." Silver's heart leaped at the compliment. Shadow liked his baking? "Am I to thank you for that?"
"Oh no, I only help make them. Silver is the one who comes up with the recipes, we rarely use ones from cookbooks because of his genius." Silver was feeling himself blush at this wave of compliments.
He knew he was great at baking, but he didn't think his recipes were that great, at least until hearing his best friend and crush talk about them now.
"Oh? Well, can you tell him I really appreciate the sweets that guy dropped off? And I would like to place an order for a dessert platter."
Silver choked, putting the last cupcakes in their place before he rushed back to the kitchen, taking her cap off and untying his quills but was caught in the act as Blaze walked in.
"Oh, that's a cute look." Blaze commented.
Silver flushed red. "Ah- Blaze." He whined.
She giggled. "Well it's true, anyways some guy wanted me to compliment you for a box of sweets he got. Said they were really good and that you should be proud of them."
He nodded. "Well tell him I said thank you. Is there anything else?"
"Yeah, he wants a platter of various desserts. Said he wanted it to be an indefinite order so he put it up in his shop and direct revenue our way." She said with a smile.
"Really? That's great!" Silver felt overwhelmingly happy. He wondered why he wanted a dessert platter for himself but to find out it was for his shop was a twist. If he kept this order up then whatever customers Shadow got would be directed to him, he could probably break the maximum amount of money they make usually. He can finally give Blaze a raise!
"How soon does he need it?" Silver asked.
"immediately but he's willing to wait for a call." Blaze informed him.
Silver gasped. "I gotta get this done! Anything else needing to be restocked while I'm at it?"
"Not much, we need a plate of red velvet cake, a dozen marble cupcakes, lemon squares and a dozen buttermilk braided bread." Blaze listed them off.
Silver nodded and got to work. He focuses his time mainly on Shadow's dessert platter. It was a pretty big platter that he cuts the size down by putting them on a tiered one to make it look fuller and manageable to be displayed on a counter top. He got them done along with the cake, the cupcakes and it packaged the platter for Blaze to deliver, he couldn't bare to do it himself not after that blunder yesterday. He watched her walk across the street to Shadow's parlour and through the window saw them talking to each other before giving him the large box. He looked happy as he displayed it proudly on his counter, he smiled. Absolutely happy with how he liked the beautiful display he made and how visually appealing the desserts were. Blaze came back to the shop and he went back to the kitchen with a skip in his step and flutter in his heart. Shadow loved his baking and put in an indefinite order and was giving him more customers. This would be more romantic if he came clean with Shadow, he didn't appear to know who he was when talking to Blaze so that was good and seemed to separate when he first saw meet him as an entirely different person giving Shadow the illusion he's the greatest baker ever with a bumbling fool giving the box by chance. Silver was incredibly happy as he baked to restock and worked the kitchen by himself for the remainder of the day until it was closing time. It was stressful but by accounts of Blaze they did indeed make more money this day then they usually did. Silver couldn't have been happier as Shadow kept to his promise and directed the customers to his shop, he was so happy that he hugged Blaze and was far too giddy for any real conversation to take place. Blaze had a good laugh with him as they cleaned the kitchen and putted away stuff and prepared their materials for tomorrow.
Rouge was a little stressed but seeing Silver happy made her power through her paperwork and in the first time in awhile was finished with the bakery's paperwork, she celebrated by opening a bottle of wine (one of several) for this and congratulated Silver on making more money for the shop today. They were happy as they drank and laughed, Blaze was able to leave early and with a heft bundle of sweets as a reward for her good work at networking. Silver cleaned the place up himself and gotten all their prep work done for tomorrow, so he sat in Rouge's office with her to doll out the extra money they made and calculating it. If they continued to make more money by the end of next week, then he would be able to give Blaze the raise she needed along with pay for the rent of the building on time.
"I can't believe how today went, I'm so happy." Silver exclaimed.
"I'm proud of you sweetie. I'm glad that with Blaze's help we were able to generate more customers today." Rouge smiled.
"I know, and it's got me thinking on how to keep this going. Blaze's interaction made me think that maybe you can order dessert platters for your club. You always did want to give your customers something to munch on to go with the alcohol. And, maybe I can set up some place, get one of the casuals to walk around the city and passing out sweets while passing out flyers!" Silver was ecstatic.
Rouge giggled. "That's the most I've ever seen you excited, not since you first opened this place."
"I know! It's oddly fulfilling to know that it's not me whose dragging this place down." Silver blurted out.
"I told you, but you never listened." She said in a sing-song voice as she messed up his quills.
Silver chuckled, readjusting them before he got up. "I'm going to put away from stuff. I'll be back soon I promise."
Rouge nodded as he left her office, he grabbed a sheet pan rack and pulled it out front again. They had very little to reuse tomorrow but that's the best he's seen in the year and a half this place has been opened. He took them and put on the trays, ready to be frozen and used tomorrow but he stopped. He looked out the window and saw Shadow again in his shop. He looked like he was bored as he leaned on his countertop. Silver looked down at the various treats he was about to put away and back to Shadow. He watched him for some time before Shadow left his view, out of impulse he gathered up the treats and grabbed a takeout box from under the counter. It was much larger then the ones they usually used as it came with little cardboard to separate and tier the treats for a big order or in-house purchase. He packaged all the sweets, about 15 of them in total were crammed in here, he closed the box and looked back out the window, Shadow was still gone so he looked back down at the box. He bit his lip, an idea came to mind as he grabbed a pen and a business card of his. He wrote a little message down reading:
"Hey, sorry for the other day, I was too nervous and distracted. Felt like a complete fool, I found out you liked these and thought you'd appreciate them. :)"
He wanted to sign his name, but he felt that would destroy the illusion Shadow had of him, so he kept it nameless and tied it with ribbon to the box before he headed out. He walked quickly to Shadow's shop and opened the door, the soft ringing marking his entrance.
"I'll be there in a minute!" Shadow's voice came from a far-off room.
Silver panicked and put the box on the counter before leaving as quickly as he came. He ran back to his shop and hid, peering out to see Shadow come back to the counter. He looked around confused before looking at the box. He looked like he was reading the card and opened the box. He then walked outside and looked from either side of the street, ducking back into cover when he looked across the street. When he thought it was safe to look again, Silver peered out his hiding spot and spotted Shadow taking a cupcake out and biting into it. He looked pleased as he pulled up a chair, putting his feet up on the counter and ate away at his cupcake. Silver blushed and sighed contently, relieved he loved them.
Silver went back to the kitchen with Rouge still in her office, looking at Silver come in.
"Whoa, what's with you?" She asked, sarcastically as if she already knew.
"Nothing." Silver replied, lovestruck and completely consumed by his crush on Shadow.
Three chapters in three days is an accomplishment for me, hope I can keep this train going. Anyways hope you're enjoying this story so far also in the previous chapter I mentioned in a paragraph referencing Blaze's love life as "Girlfriend and her Boyfriend" but changed it as I liked the appeal of Knuckles/Blaze/Shade more and wanted to explore how three stoic like characters in a relationship. Most ships in this will be mainly ones I like or are interested in what I can write for it.