I smiled widely, brushing away some of the drops of sweat on my neck. "Thanks again for today, Gramps!"

He gave me a side-eyed look (as per usual, I thought, a bit affectionately), then busied himself with some of the fruits. He cleared his throat. "Wife's gonna be back starting tomorrow."

My smile faltered. "Oh," I said, my hand stilling. "Oh, then, uh..." It had been a month since I'd worked here, which was weeks later than I had originally expected. Since he'd wanted an extra hand while his wife got better (she was such a nice grandma, giving me random loaves of stuff whenever she visited now and then), I was probably out of work here. "...I guess you won't be needing me anymore?"

He didn't speak for a few moments while I rocked on my feet. I waited in silence, then felt weird for waiting. Was I supposed to wait for him to say something? Or did he just want me to leave?

While those questions started whirling around my head, Gramps turned back to me. I tensed. "Every start and end of the week," he said gruffly.

I was not ready for that. "Huh?"

"Come help, every start and end of the week," he repeated. "She still needs to rest sometimes."

A silly grin overtook my face again, and my heart almost burst from affection for this grumpy grandpa. I leaped forward, took his hand, and shook it vigorously. "Thank you so much, Gramps!" I exclaimed.

He shrugged me off almost immediately and grumbled about being too loud, turning away. I only chuckled, thanked him again, then skipped all the way back home. So I wasn't out of my job, not yet!

"Hi mom!" I sang as I waltzed into the room. "Did Mother Lily come by?"

She looked up with a gentle smile. "No, was she meaning to?"

"She said she had something to give back to you. I was pretty sure she was planning on coming by today morning, while I was at work."

Mom and Mother Lily were childhood friends (much like Rosa and me, actually), and apparently they had a secret trade going on that none of us-- not even Rosa the know-it-all-- knew anything about.

Mom's smile took on a mischievous edge. "Oh, if she is coming in for that," she said, her voice still light and airy, "I'm sure she'll be in soon."

I slung my coat over the edge of the dresser. "Right," I said. "And I suppose you won't be letting us know about what the two of you are doing."

She only laughed, not even deigning the question good enough to answer. I rolled my eyes but smiled. It was honestly nice to see that mom, who barely ever got out of the building, had something fun (?) to look forward to with Mother Lily. Mother Lily was easily sick, too, so she ended up staying at her house for way too long at times.

"How's the knitting coming along?" I asked as I rebraided my hair.

"Why don't you take a look and tell me yourself?"

I tied up my hair as quickly as possible and walked over. "Let me see."

I took the gray scarf-in-progress from her hands and inspected it. A few bumpy edges, but that was about it. Everything else seemed fine so far. I said as much. "Seems fine so far. It's gotten a lot better from our first tries," I said, half-joking. Her first scarf had been riddled with accidental holes, and we had undid the thing way too many times to count. Yup, wouldn't want to go through that again.

She breathed a small sigh of relief. "That's good, then."

I gave the knitting needles and her project back to her, and she fumbled with it for a bit before she found where she'd left off. She began knitting again, and I watched her.

"Don't you have things to do?" she asked, sounding amused. "Better things to do than watching your mom knit?"

I chuckled. "Probably. By the way, we're due for a visit from Simon and Gair soon."

Mom paused. "And we have--?"

"We have enough," I assured her. For this month, at least. But soon, Gramps and his wife wouldn't need me anymore, and then I'd be  out looking for another job. Again. And I really disliked this instability. Borrowing from Sheriff and his wife was out of question, too-- we still hadn't paid back everything from the first loan.

I swallowed back the fears growing in me for the moment, focusing on Mom again. "Don't worry, everything's working out," I said in my brightest voice, though I didn't really believe myself. 

Mom didn't seem to believe me either. She pursed her lips and didn't say anything.

The silence that followed was almost unbearable. It felt like the very air of the room was squeezing me smaller and smaller, almost to the point of bursting open like a cherry tomato.

"Well," I said cheerfully, stretching my arms out, "I think I'll be going now."

She turned her head towards me. "Out? Where now?"

"The restaurant."

Mom frowned. "Isn't it too early for work?"

"Yeeahh, but I forgot to finish up the numbers from yesterday. I'll do that and maybe get us some bread from Claire's bakery, I don't know." I shrugged, though with Mom so concentrated on her knitting work, she probably didn't notice. 

"Okay," she said, and I gave her a quick hug before pocketing a few bills from today's work into my pocket.

The numbers thing was a lie, but the bakery thing wasn't. I bounded out and went straight to the bakery, intent on taking up Danny's promise of the apple bread thing he'd been talking about, like, four weeks ago. I hadn't seen him since the huge robbery incident, but surely that didn't mean he'd forget his promise, right?

A familiar newsboy cap on top of black curls caught my eye. I instantly brightened. "Lindent!" I yelled.

He didn't respond, probably too focused on... whatever he was looking at to hear me. He was reading something in his hands. I called him again, and he belatedly turned around. 

Once he saw me, he hesitated, looking a bit confused.

I raised an eyebrow. What did he have to look so confused? Weren't we on friendly-bickering-talk-to-you-sometimes terms now? Or had we back-stepped into unknown territory again without me knowing? "Hi, Lindent," I said, pointedly.

He gave me a (hesitant) nod, folding up his paper very nicely and putting it into his bag.

I came up to him. "I haven't seen you at the restaurant for the past week! Been in any more fights?" I joked. 

He shook his head, backing away a bit. I resisted my urge to roll my eyes. I guess we had gone back into unknown territory in the past week.

"Are you doing anything?" I said, ignoring the wary look he was giving me. Eh, I was probably reading him wrong anyway.

He narrowed his eyes and shook his head again, slower this time, as if he was suspicious of why I was asking.

I actually did roll my eyes this time. "Relax, I'm not going to make you do things. I was heading to the bakery. Wanna come with?"

Lindent seemed to grow even more suspicious. I threw up my hands. What was there to be suspicious about?

"I'll take that as a no," I said, feeling a bit cross. Here I was trying to shake off all the stress and tension from thinking about loans, determined to have a refreshing walk. If he was not feeling up to it, I was not feeling up to this. I flapped my hand at him carelessly. "Enjoy your day, then."

"I'll go with you," he said, just when I'd turned away. "I was going there anyway."

"Oh, now you choose to speak." I gave him a look and fell into step with him. At least he seemed kind of sorry. Or did he? I could never be too sure with this guy. 

We walked a bit without any conversation. I usually disliked long periods of silence, especially when I was with someone I didn't consider "close" to me. The silence always felt stagnant and awkward, which forced me to revert to a half-hearted Customer Service mode and talk the day away. But for some reason, I didn't feel that pressure when walking with him, though we literally did not talk at all.

Huh, maybe it was because I wasn't really expecting him to really talk that I felt less burdened to talk myself. Or maybe it was because he was being openly rude to me that I didn't think he deserved a polite conversation. I chuckled. That was probably it.

Lindent glanced at me (with curiosity? Suspicion?? Disdain???) when I laughed. Just in case he really was curious, and not just giving me a signature Paul glance of you're-scaring-me-please-stop-being-weird, I explained, "Oh, no, it's just, you're so rude sometimes, and it's funny."

I thought he looked offended, which made me laugh a little more. "It's not in a bad way. It's like, well, it's like you're not afraid to be yourself, you know?" I tilted my head. "Like nothing really bothers you."

"That's not true," he said.

"Probably not," I agreed. "We all have our own problems, don't we."

I waited for him to say more, but he didn't, and we went the rest of the way to the bakery without another word. And I was completely fine with it.

---

A/N: Happy 44th chapter! Why are we celebrating the 44th chapter and not any other chapters? No reason; it's just that it's gotten way longer than I was expecting, lol. I'd originally supposed I would be done writing this story by chapter 50, but nope. Absolutely nope. Why can't I follow my outlines? pretending like I didn't just sneak back in after saying I'll be updating regularly five days ago ahaha 

Also, in order to start forcing myself to update more regularly (sorry, quarantine life is paradoxically busier than I had been before), I officially declare that I will be updating at least three times a week and more if I can manage. Thanks for sticking around, lol.