April is just coming back from Andy's shoeshine stand, bracing herself for a few hours of checking her mails, watching videos of puppies on YouTube and glancing at Ron through the window and nodding from time to time before finally leaving for home early, when Leslie appears in front of her out of thin air.
"April!" she says, loudly, and April winces.
"Hey."
The other woman is literally beaming so much April's kind of afraid her cheeks will stretch and stay stuck that way, or tgat it hurts. She drags her along the hall, blabbering about things April does not quite get — or care to listen to. Why would she listen if she can just daydream about the big man she left in the hall — she is going to take several long coffee-slash-make-out breaks with him today.
"So what I'm saying is I'm so sorry."
They're in Leslie's office by now and April finds herself wondering how they ended up here. Her legs seemed to be working of their own accord. She's still only thinking about Andy's warm body against hers in the water of Lake Michigan, about his big hands on her hips and his lips on her neck. She shuts the thoughts out begrudgingly to focus on Leslie just for a while.
"What for?"
Leslie tries to give her a knowing look, but April has no idea what she means. She opens her briefcase and pulls out a big present wrapped in blue paper with a fancy bow on top.
"For the wedding. Your wedding. I thought I knew better than you, but since you're obviously very happy together, I suppose I was wrong," she sighs the last word.
"Oh, that."
April was actually touched by Leslie's concern that night, to the point of hugging her (gosh, what had become of her?), but she appreciates the apology as well. Especially if it comes with a big box of free stuff. Maybe it's food. They could use some free food.
"It's okay," she says, after she realizes Leslie's been staring at her nervously. "It's totally fine."
Leslie gives her the brightest smile and April almost feels like smiling, too. Leslie has this ability to make her want to be nice, sometimes. She worried for nothing, still. She would have married Andy no matter what (she'd marry him a ten thousand times more if she could), and no one's opinion on that really mattered, but if she had to be perfectly honest, she doesn't completely mind having Leslie's approval. It does mean at least a little bit to her.
"Great!" Leslie cheers. "I'm happy to hear that!"
April shrugs and gives half a glance at the present still on Leslie's desk. It doesn't go unnoticed.
"This," Leslie says emphatically and pushed it towards April, "is for you and Andy. It'll fit right into the color theme of the living room at your friend's house, from what I saw the day of the wedding, hopefully it'll still look good in your new place. I hope you've started looking?"
She nods for April to open the present, but April waits.
"Actually, we had a fight to death with Burly in our wrestling ring yesterday. We won and buried him on Ann's front lawn. The house is ours now."
"I know you're messing with me," Leslie says with a judging but still benevolent look, "and I don't know what happened, but hopefully, nothing illegal. Now open it!"
April knows that, ideally, she should have asked Andy to come open the present, because he loves unwrapping stuff and playing with the paper afterwards, but Leslie is staring at her so intently that she feels like she has no other choice than do it herself right now. She tears the paper and pulls out what's inside.
"It's a… blanket?"
"YES!"
Leslie begins to clap and cheer and April doesn't really have the heart to comment.
"Are you happy? I crocheted it myself last night!"
"Erm, yeah, sure," April shrugs.
"I mean, I know the pattern is a little basic, I wish I'd had time for something a bit more intricate, maybe a picture of you two, but stripes are always elegant, and I think it'll fit right into your house, don't you? I wasn't completely sure about the colors, I mean, I think your favorite color is black, but I didn't know about Andy, so I chose colors that look like the murals because how can you go wrong with that, and that remind me of your living room, and pastel goes with black anyway, so you can just put it on your couch and then…"
Some day, April will have to comment on Leslie's rambling and let her know that everyone stops listening to a word she says after three seconds, but less talking for Leslie would probably mean more working for April and she doesn't want that.
"It's great, Leslie, thanks," she mumbles as fast as she can before leaving Leslie's office with the blanket and puts it into her bag before starting her computer. She has videos of cute puppies falling asleep to watch for a reasonable amount of time before going back to the shoeshine stand.