Giselle didn't mind at all. "Lucky me, now I don't need to go out!", she explained to the pizza and carefully bit into it. While holding the slice in her left hand, her right finger swiped a response to Rachel, telling her thanks, the time was great and they'd be fine without Kamal, too.

The dishwasher took the plate off her hands after she finished the pizza. Stretching out on the sofa, she turned on some lo-fi on the speakers and stared up at the ceiling. Her hands supported her head as she was lying on her palms. "What am I gonna do now? A month or two, I'll be fine with my bank account, but how am I going to solve this dilemma?", she thought and stared at the white colour until it started spinning in a circle. It made her dizzy. Eventually she turned to her side. If nothing came up until the end of the month, one thing she could do was to try and reduce the loan payments at the bank. Yet for that to happen, she needed Ian's approval. At the moment both of them were listed as debtors. Last time they wanted to change something, both were required to leave a signature.

The thoughts about finances and her worries attached to it made her tired. Her eyes fell shut. Then she drifted into a shallow sleep until Rachel rang the door bell and woke her. Sleepily Giselle pushed herself up and let Rachel into the apartment. "Hey, is it already three?", she yawned at the redhead. Her guest giggled back at her and responded in that unusually high sing-sang voice, "I'm probably five minutes early. Did you fall asleep?". The brunette nodded and yawned again. With a gesture, she begged Rachel to come in and make herself at home. "I can see what you meant by how different our apartment looks. Oh wow! I can hardly recognise the similarities!", the woman commented and quickly sneaked a peek into the bathroom, bedroom and kitchen. Giselle just watched in amusement, "Yeah, I guess our version is a mix of modern and classy?". "Yes exactly, while ours is probably oriental and alternative". The brunette scratched her head and thought about it for a moment. "Not sure I agree with the oriental vibe. Don't take this the wrong way, but your apartment looks more like a geeky version of the sixties". "Eeeh? It's not that geeky!". "Yes it is, you have cosplay armour on your wall". Rachel sighed and made a face that showed her objection, but let it go and produced an enormous cake from the basket she was carrying in her hand. "Coffee?", Giselle asked and went into the kitchen to fetch forks and plates. And a huge knife. "Yes please", her guest requested and came running into the kitchen. A shriek escaped her when she almost ran into the knife. Giselle was startled and immediately put the weapon aside, "Are you alright?". "I just got scared for a moment. What are you going to do with that? Hunt animals?". "It's for the cake. It can cut and then act as cake server". The redhead let out a lengthy Oh and took the knife from the counter. Appraising it intently from all sides, Giselle had to squeeze around the woman to reach the living room table with her plates. Slowly her guest trailed after her. The coffee machine rumbled and produced two mugs of black brew with some crema on top. "Sugar or milk?". "Sugar please!".

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

When Rachel still held the huge knife and didn't let go of it, the hostess watched for a moment in silence, but then decided to point at the unwrapped cake, "You need to cut it". "I what?", the neighbour looked back at her absentmindedly, weighing the large knife left and right. "The knife is for the cake!", Giselle said intently. Her mind was trying to figure out whether it was safe to let her guest even handle the knife. While the grip and general handling seemed quite professional, the thoughts in that woman's head were somewhere else.

"Right right", Rachel said and cut the cake into pieces. When the first slice toppled over onto her plate, it revealed the layers. Whipped cream, biscuit, yogurt and raspberries, more biscuit. And it tasted similar to how it presented itself, incredibly tasty. Giselle beamed at her guest, "This is amazing!". "Thanks, I did bake this earlier", came the response and a blush decorated her guest's cheeks. "I'm going to invite you for cake more often! Oh my goodness, this is so amazing!", Giselle kept on praising the cake and ate half of it while doing so. Her last cake had been, she had to ponder about that one, half a year back when they were invited for her mother-in-law's birthday.

Giselle fell back into the backrest and sighed happily. Rachel had only eaten a single slice. Maybe being able to bake a cake this good eventually got old after a dozen times. A mystery she didn't quite care about now. Her guest leaned back as well and sent her a curious glance. "What are you thinking?", Giselle wondered. "That thing about Ian, I was really sad to hear that. But I'd be lying if I claimed not to be curious about what happened". Both her eyebrows shot up and she shrugged, "I'm not sure what happened either. In the end, he made a couple of stupid decisions and I did the same. We weren't able to fix it. Circumstances and all that...". "Then, this was a long time coming?". "Oh no, all of this happened recently. Annie and I don't go back long. A couple of weeks maybe. The reunion with Celestine also happened quite recently as she had been working up state". Rachel had a very puzzled expression on her face. The one that a person gets after realising that an answer to a question revealed the true vastness of the mosaic, but only offered a single stone.