Several days had passed since she went to Steven's, they had started texting each other on days they wouldn't get to see each other as a sort of updates. Lapis would have to get the next weekend off along with trying to get Peridot to have it off, Peridot had been back to working 24/7 ever since her client got off vacation. She was also pretty sure that Jasper hadn't been told any of the plans either.
In about 20 minutes Sadie would be in the shop helping her open up and get more things cleaned and prepared for the next few days. This would be the first day they worked together since her weekend off. That would be the time to strike, to try and get another weekend off when she had just had one. The storm had finally completely gone over and was back to the warm mornings waking up at five and not even needing to drag the blanket around with her. The shop was warm too along with all the ovens heating up the room.
The sun had been gazing into the bakery for the last hour it felt like, giving a nice light feeling in the middle of her chest. After removing several different assortments of bread from the ovens and beginning to refill all the cases she heard the door close. Slowly drawing her head out of the case to gaze at the front of the door and there she was. Sadie was just switching the sign on the front to tell everyone that it was open
Not any neon sign or anything just a basic piece of paper laminated with open on one side and closed on the other. She then turned and began walking to the front of the desk. Her eyes had large black bags underneath and she wasn't her regular somewhat happy self, she hadn't even spoke a word so far.
"Good morning," Lapis said as Sadie finally reached the front visibly fighting the urge to yawn.
"Good morning Lapis, how was your weekend?" Sadie asked. Lapis sat there for a moment to think over it. Ex, lies, and snuggling Peridot…
"Not too bad, how have you been?" She asked leaning on the counter instead of getting to work. With both them there it would take no time to get all the work done. Sadie seemed to agree as she just began to stretch and stay where she was.
"Not the best, he stood me up again," Sadie said with mounds of sadness in her voice. Her head tilted down as she finished her sentence slightly shaking it as if to forcibly take off the memories of her pain.
"I'm sorry, what happened?" Lazuli asked knowing that Sadie and her relationship were at the point of talking to each other about everything that had went wrong and boy would Sadie have fun listening to her fun weekend. Sadie dragged her head up to meet Lazuli's eyes before she began talking.
"Well we were supposed to go out Saturday to the movies at 630 so I got there at 6 and watched the movie at 7 by myself." She was beginning to move her head a bit more looking off to the side. "Only after the movie did he even bother texting me saying that he wasn't going to make it." Sadie got a little bit louder out of frustration it seemed each moment, until she finished her sentence that seemed to put her on the edge of tears. "He freaking canceled it by saying he didn't want to hang out anymore."
"Jeeez and you still want to date him?" Lapis questioned slowly patting the poor girl on the head. Sadie was strong and it took a lot to put her this far down, she must really be head over heels for this person. This was the third time a date for them hadn't worked out well and wouldn't be the best time to ask if she'd be okay with her taking another weekend off soon.
"Well I mean, he's not a bad guy, he can just be dumb sometimes." Maybe you're the only one that thinks that too, he doesn't seem that good to me, Lapis thought to herself. Sadie began to move to the other side of the counter likely seeing the other trays of bread needing to be filled. "Here let me help you with those," she said picking up a tray and stuffing them. A few moments of silent passed getting most of those trays put away before a low beep was heard signaling more bread to be done.
"I got it," Lapis said leaving Sadie to manage the front end, no one had shown up since Sadie got there so it should be fine. Lapis didn't really want her to deal with customers till she woke up a bit more, for now if she heard that door open she would rush out there. At least the sun would do well for her, another tray of donuts pulled out and it was done. Slowly dragging more product to the front with Sadie stacking up things to bring to the back. "Are you going to be okay to work today," Lapis asked knowing it might be a bit late for it.
"Yeah I'll be fine, so what happened with your weekend?" Sadie asked dragging the dishes into the back room. With how close everything was it was pretty easy to hear each other regardless of where they were in the shop.
"If you say so, well day one I went out into the club with Steven and Jasper to figure out he invited my ex and all them." Lapis wondered whether she should sugar coat any of it and started testing the waters. "I kind of ditched a bit early that night because of it," Lapis confessed.
"Oh I'm sorry why did he do that, he knows you and Amethyst wanted space for a bit right," Sadie questioned knowing the whole situation.
"Well I mean I wanted space but I think the rest of them thought it was time I got over it," acknowledging the amount of time they had been broken up without even seeing each other much.
"I mean Pearl did threaten you if you stayed, talking about how dangerous you were to them and such."
"Yeah she did apologize for that, you know what they aren't even dating," Lapis knew Pearl liked Amethyst, why else would she kick her out.
"Really?" Sadie asked genuinely surprised, something darker had traced her mind though at that instant.
"So correct me if I'm wrong but I really feel they'd be together by now if they wanted to be am I right?" Lapis asked trying to see if her suspicion could be correct.
"Yeah, it's been like a year right? I remember when you'd sleep in the shop when Steven's parents let you turn this into a bakery before they fully moved out." Those weren't from Pearl but she liked to blame the bad parts of her life on something other than the fact that she and Amethyst weren't the best together. Occasionally she would lie and tell Sadie that Pearl threatened her to stay elsewhere when usually it was her and Amethyst yelling at each other and her angrily walking out.
"Yeah, do you think she might have a crush on Peridot?" Lapis asked intentionally making sure that Sadie and her were separated by a wall. Sadie was now working on baking in the back room while Lapis was dealing with cleaning the front of the store to which the door closed once again closing their conversation for the time being. "Hey how are you doing today," Lapis asked the young lady entering her shop.
After helping the customer and a few others that had come in during it she was finally left with just Sadie once again, past nine o'clock however and their conversations would cease do to the customers constantly coming in.
"It's possible but I don't know, have all you guys hung out together before?" Thinking back to the club she didn't seem to notice them chatting too much.
"Yeah the second night off I went to the club with all them, they didn't seem to talk all that much."
"Well then I doubt they are, why though?" Sadie asked now facing the nervous Lapis. She was nice but not a mind reader and for that Lapis was thankful, her hands felt a little shaky talking about the reason that lay behind it.
"Well I kind of like Peridot," Lapis stammered out as if it was an actual confession, well it was a confession but not to the woman she's been falling for.
"Huh, have you tried asking her out," Sadie asked patiently standing in front of her like a regular conversation goes. To her disappointment Lapis was not prepared for a regular conversation about something like this, so Lapis was turned into the case tidying things that didn't need to be tidied.
"Well not really, I mean I did cuddle her," Lapis slyly said still facing away from Sadie.
"Whaaat," Lapis took a few moments to explain the whole night to her, Sadie was a great listener she also explained the rest of the weekend to see how she would feel about all the news.
"Well you know those people who say they aren't dating but practically are?" Sadie asked with both hands placed along her hips and a stagnant face.
"Yeah kind of…"
"Isn't that like you and Peridot I mean if you snuggle her that's pretty close even for friend's y'know." Sadie was making some valid points but it wasn't like that at all and Lapis knew that she only needed safety.
"No she was just scared of the thunder and such, honestly I wish that were the case but it's been more so me leaning on her than anything else," Lapis admitted. Peridot was the guard rail to her insecurities, to her pain and was the only thing keeping her from going over the edge again and drowning herself out in unhealthy choices.
"Well can I just say this, I wouldn't let you sleep with me even if I was scared just saying," Sadie said making a face. Sadie's mood seemed to have been lifted as well as it changed to a small smile tugging at the corners of her face.
"You sure about that," Lapis said finally looking her in the eye and winking at her. This drew a laughter from each of them, also it felt like the only way out of the conversation that she was scared of.
With that more customers came in and they split off to allow Lapis to help the customers and Sadie to work on cleaning up the store and make whatever they were low on. Like their regular schedule of customers and due to the warm days being back there was a lot more customers than regular. They also had to have Sadie run to the store to pick up groceries since she drove.
While it was a busy day for the rest of the day it was quite easy and felt like no time at all before they were closing down. It was a good day too, she enjoyed working with Sadie, Lapis often thought about how lucky she was to have gotten a hard worker so that she could actually have days off. It was such a rough start, seven day work weeks for months. Even when she did get Sadie to work with her, she had to work alongside her till she was confident enough to open by herself.
"Hey I'm going to put the sign as closed now, are you okay with that?" Sadie asked as their day came to an end. Busy doing nearly double what they had clocked on the stormy days, due to no one wanting to visit a small shop in large amounts of rain. It was weird how it changed over the year, during summer no one came if rained while in winter it was a nice little hang out area for people when it did.
"Yeah you can leave now if you'd like but I do have a quick question." Lapis said cleaning out the cases in front of her. She had gotten most of the customers even when Sadie seemed to be fine, which was okay with her, she dealt with customers well.
"Its fine I'll stay to help clean up will only take a moment," Sadie said as she slowly locked the doors. "Also he texted me, asking me out tonight, do I go?" Sadie asked.
"Well do you want to see him?" Lapis asked once again leaning on her elbows to converse easier.
"Well what if he really does well for once, maybe just maybe I can help him get better you know? I just feel that no one out there is giving him a chance and that he can really make a difference." Her words were very genuine and the concern was prominent in her face but it all seemed very sour to be in that situation. You can't choose who you love but this girl sure did have dedication.
"Go see him, if he doesn't show up tonight say you're going to block him and block him." Lapis sternly said knowing she wouldn't listen to advice otherwise but maybe this would reach her.
"Alright, I guess I should do that," Sadie gave in, her words seemed to be honest with herself for once. This would be a good final chance, every time Lapis heard of him it was negative things that had happened between them. She had personally only met the kid briefly when he came to visit Sadie and ask for a job then asked for a manager when Lapis said no. To which Lapis had to kick him out and tell him not to come back into her store. "So what did you have to ask me?"
"Steven was doing a trip to his family's barn not this weekend but next and was wondering if you'd be okay without me?" Lapis asked feeling the large weight of her conscious on her shoulders. Asking for a whole weekend off felt greedy not giving some one any free time on which most people are free to hang out. This also wasn't the steadiest job with it changing each week what days each of them worked only thing it had going for it was getting out early in the day. Getting out early also meant having an adjusted schedule to going to bed early as well.
"You're kind of the boss, if you want to do something with the schedule feel free to do it." Sadie said quite plainly. They were standing face to face behind the counter, looking of small amounts of things. Lapis was making a small bag of unsold goods that would go bad for Sadie, she occasionally did this knowing her family loved it.
"Well yeah but I don't want to just piss off my only other employee," Lapis retorted hoping for a real response.
"Just take those days off, you need them anyways, I can just take the weekend after off or something like that, and I really don't do much with my life Lapis don't worry about it." Sadie's expression was sad with that, it may be the truth but somethings aren't so nice to say aloud and Lapis only ever really heard about the boy she was after never much about other things she did.
"Alright just remember if you ever need a day off or something I owe you some," Lapis happily said back to her, trying even if only a little to lighten her mood. While she did get her days off, it felt very disorganized.
The day had finally came to an end with the whole store being a bit cleaner than previous days and set up for the following days easily laid out. They said their final good byes to each other with Sadie being clocked in for a slightly longer shift than usual.
"Have a good one Lapis." Sadie said doing a quick wave before turning around bag in hand leaving the opposite direction. While the black haired girl began walking around the building with a slow pace. She waved back quickly as well before she placed her hands in her pockets, one of her favorite places to rest them.
"You too see you tomorrow," Lapis said she began going up the metal staircase. The first step shook slightly as she pressed her foot on it, if it showed any more signs of deterioration she would have to actually investigate it instead of just a quick look down. After that she began to take off.
Lapis had somewhat ran up the staircase, Run up the start than quickly walk up the midpoint till reaching her doorway. Gazing in through the window to see the couch with a bundle of life sitting along the edge covered in a red blanket. When she stopped focusing inside she could then see her hair sticking out in several directions, taking a moment to fix it in the reflection before walking inside.
Slowly closing the door to make a bit less noise she walked forward, at first with a goal in mind to sneak up on the girl. As she drew close to the girl that usually wore ear phones clouding her hearing to notice she was actually asleep on the couch. She seemed a bit restless with her head resting on the edge of the couch with small movements of her hands that rested beside her head. Lapis had slowly moved towards her till she sat just besides her causing a bit more of movement.
Slowly drawing her hand to the blonde's forehead she lightly pressed through her hair. As Lapis continued petting Peridots head she began to wake up a bit more with just barely opening her eyes. She brought her hand up to rub her eyes before finally waking up fully.
"Good afternoon Peridot," Lapis said still brushing her hair.
"Morning," Peridot said drawing her arms up till she was yawning, at this point Lazuli had finally stopped. Gazing onto Peridot, her hair had spiked along the side she was laying on while the other side remained flat and the top of her head was an amalgamation of spikes and curves. Still wearing her regular green hoody, her eyes wore lines underneath them.
"Why are you always sleeping on this couch by the way," Lapis asked thinking over the weeks that she'd mostly seen her along this couch. While it was definitely not a negative to her, it was still odd knowing she had a nice bed as well.
"It's not that I'm trying to sleep on the couch I just tend to end up falling asleep while working," Peridot calmly said. "Well why are you petting me while I sleep?" Peridot asked quickly back with a confused face.
"Because I feel like it," Lapis coldly said back trying not to give into any of her inner thoughts that'd make her blush. Hiding away her feelings with jokes was one of her better defenses, only really few people would see past it in the end.
"Huh…" Peridot gave a long pause with a genuinely confused look on her face as they both sat there in silence for a moment. "Well I like working out here because it's more spacious while I feel a little suffocated after being in that room for over an hour aware." Peridot's room wasn't too small but the bed did seem to take up almost half of it so Lapis could see a valid point. At least the closet was pretty spacious, she used to hide in there with Steven thinking up stories. They were a bit old for that but they both loved it.
"Well at least you have walls, and it has a pretty decent sized closet for storage." Lapis wasn't sure why she was trying to justify that room but it felt needed to her. A home for a large portion of her life was a home not to just her but memories and this was the only home with good ones at this point. Lapis had thought it was weird had memories could be replaced, such as when bad ones outweigh good ones so heavily you can't think of them well anymore.
"Yeah that is pretty good, at least no one can see me change, and th-," Peridot tried to continue on but Lapis couldn't allow that. Her face felt as if just as quick as her words flew did her face into a new color, a warm one like summer met her face, bright red.
"Wait see me change, have you been watching me change?" Lapis frantically questioned. Her words had been forced out before she could even logically think about it, which might have been for the best.
"Well I don't try to but sometimes my eyes wander up there at night and can barely see you, don't worry about it." Peridot was beginning to laugh at the blushing girl beside her, Lapis began to stand up frustrated that within the few weeks they lived together she had been seen like that. Trying to rationalize she thought of the time she had seen her in a towel and it couldn't be worse than that right?
"What's the least amount of clothes?" she asked taking steps towards Peridot now, determined to not let her out of it. Peridot continued laughing with nasally voice becoming more prominent the more she asked.
"I was joking, I mean one time I did look up at you changing but I looked away immediately," Peridot was laughing hard enough to hold her sides. "I didn't see anything really," She wore a large smile finally beginning to calm down from her laughing fit while Lapis just felt her face getting redder.
Lapis took in a deep breath covering her face with one of her hands while she slowed herself down to try and think. Peridot may have just got the best of her but that would be okay for this time since nothing wrong had really happened. She admitted to herself that she did just get caught up in the moment and that she shouldn't care too much even if she did see her.
"So before you cut me off I was trying to say all my stuff put into the closet doesn't even take up a fourth of it that things huge," Peridot loudly said still covering her face with a smile. "I mean I may have had like nothing to bring over but still."
"Huh you don't have much things do you?" Lapis asked remembering how quickly they had put stuff away it seemed like she shouldn't have even needed help moving. Peridot had pulled the red blanket up to cover most of her body but underneath was that same green hoody.
"No but I do have everything I need to function properly."
"Oh really?" Lapis questioned putting herself close enough to Peridot to steal some of the blanket for herself. It felt odd why she had few things and admitted to it being fine without a reason but that conversation could be had for another day.
"My clothes to keep me warm and my laptop to do work is all I really need I mean honestly." She wore a smug look as she finished off her sentence reluctantly giving up more of the blanket.
"Alright but when is the last time you washed your clothes, I swear I have not heard the washing machine go once besides with mine in a long time." Time for a bit of revenge she thought to herself watching Peridots eyes open a little bit looking at Lapis.
"Hoodies don't need to be washed unless directly covered in something," Peridot stated clearly trying to evade the previous questions. To which Lapis responded by pulling herself to Peridot and sniffing her hoody and immediately covering her nose. It smelt of old pizza and beer surprisingly, maybe she ended up spilling some on herself at the club or something along those lines.
"Well yours needs to be washed it smells aweful and do the rest of your clothes while you're at it." The blonde looked slightly uncomfortable as she just looked down at herself and had her hands wrapping together. "Why haven't you done laundry yet?" Lapis asked at the awkwardly unmoving Peridot and after that statement she began looking away.
"I may not remember how to work one… Rose insisted on washing my clothes and the one I had at my first apartment was a bit different…" Peridot slowly said those lines to which Lapis could finally respond how she wanted to the whole time, with loud obnoxious laughs.
"And the truth finally comes out eh?" Lapis stared at the now blushing Peridot. "Well I need to do a load of laundry anyway so just toss me your clothes and I can chuck them in with mine." Lapis said drawing a bit closer to Peridot who stayed silent. "Okay? I'm going to need that hoody then." Easing herself over to her but finally she responded.
"You cannot take my hoody," Peridot said grasping over herself while Lapis debating how far she was willing to force it off the girl. She came to the conclusion that taking it would be hilarious to her and seemed like the right thing to do.
"I'm going to wash it just hand it over and then go gather up your clothes," Lapis asked finally starting to try and force it off the blonde. The blonde responded with a series of grunts and wrapping her arms around herself as if in a strait jacket to hold down the sides. Trying to lift herself up to escape the couch, Lapis just pushed the girl back down with ease, she was light and not in that good of shape.
"Hold it Lazuli you can't have it," Peridot began shouting while she was getting over powered and slowly began showing skin as the cloth was lifted. Lapis kept laughing to herself as she was lifting the shirt to get up past Peridots innie to figure out she wasn't wearing another shirt underneath.
"Why aren't you wearing a shirt?" Lapis asked genuinely confused and slightly concerned for her friend red in the face with heavy breaths.
"Like I said I don't know how to use the washing machine so I'm trying to preserve clean shirts. Besides it's much too hot to wear both layers of clothes." Peridot said which left Lapis even more concerned than the start.
"Both layers wouldn't you have three?" the further they fell down the rabbit hole the more she regretted starting this conversation, while it was her fault she also felt Peridot should take care of herself better than this. Peridot just breathed through her teeth after she had heard Lapis question showing another concern had been met. "Okay so first off we need to wash your rank ass clothes, second off I had a real discussion I had to have with you, can you get this next weekend off?"
"I'll figure out how to wash them myself," Peridot tried to say and before she could answer the second part was cut off once again.
"No I'm doing laundry today and now I'm doing yours too and next time I'll show you how to do it." Lapis was being quite stern feeling it to be a good time to be.
"Maybe I mean I really should be working right now in all honesty I have a lot to get done." Peridot said slowly looking back over to her Laptop lying closed on the table in front of them.
"Well we'll talk about that more the closer we get but for now go gather your clothes alright? Also I'm going to wash that hoody I don't care what you say." Lapis demanded as she began to stand up drawing some distance between them.
"Fine but I'm staying in my room till I get it back then," Peridot said with a drop of irritation in her voice while beginning to stand up as well.
They each parted ways to gather up clothes, it might have been a slight lie for Lapis though she only had a few pairs of clothes to actually clean despite what she said earlier. Dragging the basket down the stairs being as light as it was, it was quickly picked up. Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs she saw a mound of clothes lifted with small arms wrapped around the side with a socking falling off as she moved forward.
"Alright this way to the washing machine," Lapis said as she pulled some of Peridots cloth pile into the basket so that she could see. It took a few minutes to properly teach Peridot to use the machine but it was a simple thing. It was also laid out in a simple way to see which goes first and so on and the settings were always set to the same thing because of not caring enough on her end. After dumping all the clothes into the metal box it came to the last thing, Peridot tried walking away to avoid it.
"Where do you think you're going?" Lapis asked grabbing her shoulder before she could make it out of the doorway. Peridot stood there and Lapis could hear her taking a deep breath.
"I have work to get done you clod," with those words Peridot attempted to make a break for it and pulled Lapis a good foot before she had both hands on her to stop her.
"Don't think I forgot about that nasty thing," Peridot had finally began to turn to meet Lazuli's eyes. She looked genuinely scared as she finally gave in to defeat.
"Fine I'll take it off and hand it into this room but you better not try and sneak a peek I'm running straight to my room."
"Fine, fine just give it here," Lapis said while Peridot left the room and within a few moments the green hoody was thrown into the room through a cracked door. Lapis finished up setting everything back up in the wash room and tidying things up before she left giving plenty of time for the blonde.
After leaving the room she went straight to Peridots door and sat there thinking to herself. It was nice to just calm down and relax for part of her day but she still had a few words she needed to share with Peridot.
"Hey Peridot, so the whole trip thing is Steven's going out to his families barn soon and invited us to come along, would you want to go?" She asked waiting for a response, this might be a little bit awkward for Peridot talking between closed doors.
"Sounds good to me, what would we do over there though," Peridot asked apparently not knowing much about the barn or the wonderful things surrounding it.
"Well there's a lake that everyone would swim in and also drink beers by a campfire and walk around the woods playing games stuff like that." Remembering their previous conversations got Lapis to thinking about Peridot. "Do you have clothes to swim in though?"
"No," Peridot quickly said from behind the door.
"Well let's go shopping the Thursday before it, so you can pack Friday morning and we can all leave at a reasonable time then." They seemed to sit there for several hours of just idly talking about things they enjoyed about outdoors and things they disliked. Lapis loved watching the sights but hated being in the car for hours.
A loud ring had first interrupted Lapis before another thing had a chance at interrupting and that was Peridot.
"Sorry boss is calling I'll talk to you later," Peridot rushed out of her mouth with them still segregated.
"Yeah, sure…" Lapis sadly spouted back before finally standing up and leaving her door way behind. Peridots voice had seemed scared and that was a usual whenever her boss would call, Lapis was displeased at what she couldn't help. Leaving she decided one last thing, to do some dishes before she would finish up Laundry and throw the jacket back at the blonde.