Marissa

  Marissa’s afternoon was going just swimmingly.

  Clan Nettle Tea had decided to take an extended break in the afternoon, which was fine. Honestly, she was more than happy to get a bit of an extended break. It gave her some time to really decompress and relax, and considering she had gone straight from work to gaming, she could use it.

  And so as soon as everyone had logged off, she took a nice hot shower.

  Or at least she had wanted to. But the water available to her was merely lukewarm. Which, fair, the bakery was probably pulling most of their little building’s hot water for dishwashing at this time of day.

  Marissa sighed and convinced herself that it was fine. She took a medium-cold shower instead. It didn’t exactly help her unwind the way she wanted, but she still left the shower feeling clean and refreshed. That helped.

  Without the hot water to help relieve some of the stress in her upper back and shoulders, though, she opted to go lay down on her bed to stretch it out.

  She laid her top half off the side of the bed to really get a deep stretch in her back, extending her arms over her head and pushed them as far as she could. She kept pushing until she couldn’t help but let out a little squeak as she finally felt something give way in the stretch and she let the tension go. And then followed that with a huge deep breath and big sigh.

  She shuffled her body back onto the bed and lay there for a bit, half going over the raid so far in her head and half just zoning out.

  She still had more than four hours to burn before the group was supposed to gather again, but right now none of her usual stand by activities sounded interesting.

  She wasn’t feeling like watching anything, she didn’t want to play anything other than Mag Mell right now, and she was certain that the book she was in the middle of wouldn’t keep her occupied right now. She needed something more involved than reading.

  And to her chagrin, she knew what would keep her busy for a few hours. She closed her eyes and took another breath, this time to steady herself before getting up off the bed and changing her clothes.

  Ten minutes later she was headed down the stairs to The Flour Basket proper, despite herself.

  “Oh! Welcome back, Riss.” Julie said, her perfect customer service smile and voice in place. Marissa winced; she hated being called ‘Riss’, but saying so never seemed to stop Julie from calling her by it.

  “Het Julie. Don’t mind me; I’m just going to help with the clean up and backroom stuff until close. See if we can’t get everyone out of here early today, yeah?” Marissa said, rolling up her sleeves.

  “Oh, sure. I’ll head back to the front then. Sarah should be back here to start the last batch and clean up as soon as she’s finished filling the counter window.”

  “Sounds good. Good luck out there.” Marissa said to Julie’s back as the woman walked out. Marissa sighed in relief; she didn’t exactly hate Julie, but the woman was just a lot. They didn’t get along particularly well, but Julie was a front-of-house machine. Marissa did appreciate her ability when it came to being a saleswoman, if nothing else.

  “Yo.” Sarah said when she came to the back a few minutes later. “Thought you were taking off early?”

  “I did.” Marissa said, up to her elbows in soapy water as she washed some of the dishes. “My plans got slightly derailed for a few hours, so I figured I’d come help out for now.”

  Sarah put down the tub she had used to carry out the bread then turned to look at Marissa with a hand on her hip. “Really? Rissa, you need to get out of here more.”

  Marissa rolled her eyes. “Look, I like spending my free time at home, alright?”

  Sarah laughed. “And yet, here you are at work? Why aren’t you at home?”

  Marissa turned to face Sarah, her arms still dripping and chuckled. “You just meant I shouldn’t be at work so much, didn’t you?”

  “Bingo.” Sarah said, moving over to the next and final batch of dough for the day.

  “Sorry.” Marissa said. “I’m so used to hearing that I need to get out more that I just assumed.”

  “It’s all good.” Sarah said as she was going about her work. “Trust me, I’m very happy spending my nights at home too. But you really should spend less time here. At work.”

  “The downside of living above the place, I suppose.” Marissa muttered. “Or maybe it’s a manager-owner thing.”

  “I can imagine they’re both a part of it. But you really need to work on separating your work from everything else in your life.” Sarah laughed. “Not that I’m one to talk, I suppose, but you take it to a whole other level.”

  Marissa snorted derisively at herself. “Not many people would go to work because they’re a little bit bored, huh.”

  Marissa could feel Sarah roll her eyes, despite the woman’s back to her. “No. When I’m bored at home I find an activity to do or go somewhere, I guess. Work doesn’t come into it.”

  Marissa sighed, leaning over the massive sink. “Yeah, that’s fair.”

  “So, you’re going to help us leave at close today, then?” Sarah asked, sounding a bit more chipper as she changed the subject.

  “Yeah, that was the plan.” Marissa said. “Figured with all of us here we’d be able to get everything done before three instead of after.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  “Incoming.” Sarah said, and a set of bread tins came sliding down the counter and into the sink. “Works for me.”

  “Let’s get it done, then.”

  At this point, there was no reason for Marissa not to just do the work. Sure, maybe Sarah had a point and she shouldn’t have come down to the bakery at all, and that was fair. She really did have an unhealthy attachment to her work. But now that she was fully dressed and down here already working, she may as well stick to it.

  As she had expected, having the three of them working on everything did make it all go quickly. The Flour Basket typically closed at 3 p.m., and then whoever was working would finish cleaning up after that. Usually they were able to leave by four. Sometimes earlier, if the afternoon was slow.

  Today, they were able to leave at three. Everything was cleaned up and good to go for tomorrow basically at the same time they flipped the open sign to closed.

  “Thanks for the assist, Riss.” Julie said brightly as she hopped out the back door. “See you on Thursday!” She called, and then she was gone around the corner onto the main road.

  Sarah took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, then chuckled. “Julie is such a whirlwind.”

  “No kidding. Does her job like no one else, though.”

  “Don’t I know it.” Sarah said. “I don’t get to work with her very often, but I love it when I do. I basically get to just stay in the back all day and bake. She does literally all of the front of house stuff.”

  “That's why I hired her.” Marissa laughed. “She’s a beast.”

  Sarah nodded. “Now get your sorry ass back upstairs and do something not work related.” She said, turning to Marissa with mock outrage. “And if I see anything in the kitchen moved when I arrive tomorrow morning, you’re gonna get a good talking to.”

  Marissa snickered. “Sarah, I open the place up before you arrive. Of course things will be moved.”

  Sarah merely narrowed her eyes. “Then you’d better prepare for a lecture about not letting work ruin your life, yeah?”

  Marissa chuckled and rolled her eyes. “Fine. See you tomorrow morning then.”

  “Yup, see you tomo-”

  Marissa shut the door in Sarah’s face, then turned the deadbolt as loudly as she could manage. She grinned out through the relatively small window at Sarah who looked bemused.

  Sarah proceeded to roll her eyes, snap into a salute, then flipped up both her middle fingers at Marissa with a grin as she walked away.

  As Marissa turned to go back upstairs to her apartment, she stretched out her arms and back again. With the bakery closed for the day, Marissa could take that nice, hot shower she wanted earlier. She’d give it some time for the hot water to build back up, because she liked the water scalding.

  And that gave her time to eat.

  Given her current plans for the rest of the day, she figured now was as good a time as any to eat dinner. She wandered through her cupboards and fridge looking for something applicable that would make a decent dinner, but came up empty.

  Not that there wasn’t food in her house - there was plenty. But nothing stuck out as something she wanted. Worse still, she knew what she should eat, and that spoiled her mood further. Eventually, she gave up and pulled the leftovers from the fridge and popped the covered saucepan onto the stovetop to heat it up.

  The smell of the tomato sauce, meatballs, and sausage quickly rose and wafted through her apartment. And while it smelled great, that pot had been her last three meals. At least this one would be the last of it.

  She also put one of her loaves of bread in the oven to toast it to go with the sauce. She was a baker, after all. She had fantastic fresh bread at her disposal at all times, she may as well use it.

  Once everything was heating, she turned on her smart TV in the combined kitchen and dining area she had, and sat at the breakfast bar to watch whatever nonsense played.

  Once the food was ready and she started eating it, the lack of desire for it evaporated quickly enough. She was hungry, the food tasted great, and that was enough. She rinsed the dishes a bit before putting them in the crappy old dishwasher that would almost definitely not clean them.

  With food in her belly, Marissa finally went to relax in the shower. And now with steaming hot water at her fingertips, she could actually, truly relax.

  With her apartment being fairly small and her penchant for spending so much time either in her apartment or at work, there were few places as sacred to Marissa as her shower. She had splurged a bit when she moved in, and got the bathroom refurbished, complete with a new and slightly larger shower with a nice shower head and seas - actually comfortable seats - built into the fittings.

  Sitting under the scalding hot spray of water was one place that she really felt like she could shed some of her stress. It loosened up some of her tight back muscles, and allowed her to just exist in peace for a while.

  She had probably spent fifteen or twenty minutes just sitting under the water before she opted to move and get cleaned up. Yes, she had already washed once today, so she didn’t feel the need to scrub herself down or anything, but if she left her hair wet without any soap it would end up feeling a little gross. So she at least used a little bit of shampoo and conditioner on her hair before stepping out of the shower.

  She may have sat back down to relax once more before leaving too.

  By the time she was out and had finished blow drying her hair - because she didn’t want it to be wet while using headphones - she still had over an hour before the Clan had said they would reconvene.

  She stood in the hallway, still fluffing her hair with a towel, trying to decide whether she should go relax on her bed for a while or go and hang around on her PC a bit early.

  “Fuck it.” She muttered, stepping into her computer room. She rolled her shoulders and heard one crack before she sat in her chair and spun to face her desk. No one was in the voice chat channel yet, so she was presumably the first one back.

  She clicked into it, but left her headphones off for now. There was no real reason to wear them until someone joined the chat, so she let them continue to charge. Marissa considered opening a web browser to just waste some time on social media, but decided it was better to avoid that for her mental health. Especially since her mood was currently a bit sour.

  Instead, she opened up Mag Mell, intent on logging in. She navigated through the main menu and character screens quickly out of practice. And when Hibiscus appeared right where they had all logged out in [Gorias], her mood immediately brightened a bit.

  Something about gaming always put her in a better mood. And on top of that, Nyx and Evie were already logged in, just chatting in the Clan chat about work. When she logged in, the two of them appeared in the voice chat almost immediately.

  “Hey!” Nyx said. “And here I thought we’d be the only antsy ones.”

  “And I told you that I was positive some of us would show up before our stated time.” Evie laughed.

  Marissa smiled. “Yeah, putting Fiona and Caoimhe aside because they have kids, I bet we’ll see everyone early.”

  “Well, welcome to the early bird party.” Nyx chuckled.

  “Good to be here.” Marissa said, leaning back in the chair almost as relaxed as she had been in the shower. Almost.

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