Retail Therapy. [Open for everyone]

[asharpertongue]

Lara might have bought too much.



She tended to do the majority of her Christmas shopping on Black Friday but usually she knew exactly what she wanted and went for it. Today she was wandering. She'd bought things for herself, for Levi, for the house and all of that on top of the things she went for.

The last week was intensely stressful. Losing people, searching for them and then the actual rescue and they still have no idea who is responsible. It was frustrating and usually buying for other people made her feel better but not today.

So she's grumpy, her feet hurt, her arms ache and her savings are cowering in fear but she trudges on. She still has a few more things to get before she can call it quits.


(OOC: Come find Lara and shop with her. Or buy her coffee. Or rub her feet. (Don't do that last one...Levi is the jealous sort.))

Comments

[starting_over]

To be honest, Samantha hadn't quite known what to expect from Black Friday on the other side of the counter. Sure, she'd spent her share of them out among the crowds just for feel, but with very few people to buy for, it hadn't ever been a full out consumer panic thing.

For her own shop, she'd offered a reduction on all Christmas themed items and a further one on all her card stock. She'd managed a brisk business, and was pretty damned proud of it.

Once the crowd thinned down to a trickle, she treated herself to a latte from Quill and was now walking back to the shop to hang out for a few more hours before calling it a day.

She stood outside the store for a minute or two, latte in hand, and breathed in the salt air and held her face to the weak late-autumn sunshine.

[asharpertongue]

Lara should have been looking where she was going, but her phone had been beeping at her for the last twenty minutes and she couldn't ignore it anymore. She was rummaging through her bag when she walked bodily into someone else.

"Shit!" Lara cursed loudly, nearly dropping everything she was carrying but managing at the last second through some serious contortion to balance it all. "Sorry." she grumped out as she looked the person standing in the middle of sidewalk over. "I didn't hurt you did I?"

[starting_over]

"Yes, I'm fine. I'm a little hardier than I look," Samantha waved away the apology and offered a hand. "Can I help you with some of that? You looked like you needed about four other arms right before the tackle."

She was grinning to show there were no hard feelings. "Would you like to come in, maybe sit for a second?"

[asharpertongue]

Lara made a face and she was going to turn her down but the skies were starting to look threatening and a few droplets of rain were staining some of her paper bags. "I...thanks. Just for a minute?" She said, stepping inside, obscenely glad to be out of the cold.

"This is your place?" She asked.

[starting_over]

"Yes, it is," Samantha told her, holding the door for the other woman before closing it behind them. She indicated the small sitting area near the workstation where she made her custom stock during working hours, one with a small, inviting looking love seat.

"I just opened a few weeks ago. Probably not the soundest decision, opening a business on a beach boardwalk in the late fall, but I didn't want to wait months to start this new phase of my life."

[asharpertongue]

"A new start. This is a good place for it." Lara said, sitting gratefully and flexing her feet in her shoes. "What made you decide on Siren Cove? We're more than a little out of the way."

[wakingwakewood]

Essie had commandeered a cab for the day. With the house almost completely done she had a million and one things to do and she was running out of time to do it. Especially it she wanted the party to go off without a hitch. She was leaving in a couple of days to go back to Washington to pick through Grandy's things to decide what she wants shipped to Siren Cove but in the meantime there was the party to plan and presents to arrange.

Which brought her back to the cab, the trunk of which was already full along with the passenger seat. She was probably going to need another cab by the end of the day, but for now she just focused on one foot forward. Passing the driver another $20, she looked around and seeing Lara she waved. "Hey, Lara! Need a delivery cab?"

[asharpertongue]

"Oh god, yes!" Lara grinned at the young woman and ambled over. "That sounds amazing." She said, putting her bags down and smiling broadly.

[wakingwakewood]

"We'll have to pile in, but I was thinking it was time to drop a load off anyway. I can drop you, where are you headed?" Opening the backseat,s he started rearranging the piles of bags and boxes to make room for another person. They'd probably just fit and that was okay for a short trip wherever Laura was going.

[louise_abasi]

There had been no Thanksgiving festivities and for some reason, Lou had come out unscathed. Of course, there had been a small lunch at the family home but no presents, no dinner, and barely any loved ones. If she didn’t know that Lara was a bigger fan of Christmas than Thanksgiving, she’d feel a little bit bad about bumping into her, the day after.

Now she was just happy to see her best friend. This, combined with already a successful amount of shopping (socks for Grant, a pretty vase for Valeria) could only brighten Louise’s day.

[asharpertongue]

"Lulu. Oh my god." Lara said, dumping her bags and throwing her arms around her friends neck. "You have no idea how happy seeing your face is making me right now." She said, giving Lou a big smooch on the cheek.

[louise_abasi]

"You overshopped again, hate everything and find yourself too far away from home but too stubborn to grab a cab?"

She hugged her friend, kept her close for several minutes. "Let the record say that you're the only good siren in my life right now. How can I help you, besides showing my face?"

[asharpertongue]

"Yeeeessssss. I am." Lara whined. "You can help me by taking some of these and pitying me enough to buy me coffee."

[louise_abasi]

"You know some of our shops deliver, right? And you also know that you are the Matriarch and shops will be pleased to show up at your home with a selection of their wares?"

Lou took several bags of her friend's shoulders, moved and prodded until she was balanced out. "Quill?"

[asharpertongue]

"But I like shopping." Lara said, even though she really didn't look like that was true right now. "Wheres the fun in getting it all delivered?" She asked, nodding at Quill and heading in that direction.

[owenphillips]

Thankfully Siren Cove was relatively small, so Black Friday meant the shops were busier but there weren’t fights breaking out over televisions and game consoles and coffee machines. (At least not that Owen had seen.) Then again, Siren Cove saw enough fighting and blood shed for the year without it following through to holidays.

Last year he’d been in the hospital and thusly not been involved in shopping for Christmas presents. The year before that he’d already bought his presents before thanksgiving. So it was the first time in a while he found himself out and about trying to work out what people would like for Christmas. The simple answer, he had no flipping clue. He always had found buying Coop something easy but this year he had no idea. Chris was a recent addition to the present list and Lara had literally saved his life so a box of chocolates wasn’t going to cut it.

Sighing, he rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. This was going to be fun.

[asharpertongue]

Lara spotted Owen doing some struggling with his own bags and headed over to him. "You too, huh?" She hadn't seen him since the rescue and she was happy he looked hale and hearty. "Why do we do this to ourselves?"

[owenphillips]

"Because apparently this is something people regularly do for their friends." He frowned slightly at all the stuff in the shop labelled 'Christmas', "Assuming you know what they like that is. I used to be good at the whole present thing."

[asharpertongue]

She snorted, laughing, and nudged him. "Shall we get off our feet? I could use a coffee. Then we can discuss how hopeless we are."

[owenphillips]

Owen couldn't help laughing, "I'm not one to turn down a distraction from shopping failure. Especially not when coffee is on offer. You thinking the Quill or...?"

[tarnishedbadge]

"Rough day," Levi said almost as soon as Lara walked in the door of her place. It wasn't a question, he knew Lara and her moods well enough that it was easy to tell just from her body language that her day hadn't been as relaxing as she had hoped. Not that he could imagine that Black Friday shopping would be all that relaxing for anyone but she had explained it was one of the ways she indulged her predatory instincts.

"Whatever you do, don't think about the gift you got me. Between now and Christmas."

[asharpertongue]

Of course, in her mindless shopping spree Lara hadn't thought about the fact that her boyfriend was more than slightly psychic. She sighed as the image of her gift to him ran through her head unbidden. Normally she was better at guarding her thoughts but today was not her day, apparently.

"Great." She said, dropping her bags at the bottom of the stairs. "I guess you can have it now if you want."

[tarnishedbadge]

"No, that's fine," Levi said with a smile, getting up off the couch where he'd been lounging to wrap his arms around her and give her a kiss. He felt a bit bad for mentioning the gift thing but she likely would have realized it on her own and it was better to do it now than when it was too late for her to exchange it if she wanted.

"But if you still want to surprise me I'm always happy when you buy some new lingerie for yourself. That's practically a present for me."

[asharpertongue]

Lara snorted a tired laugh and let her head thud forward onto his shoulder. "New lingerie is wasted on you. You'd only have it off me in like thirty seconds." She looked up at him. "Sorry about the gift thing. I wasn't thinking straight."

[tarnishedbadge]

"I'm sure you can think of ways to ensure it stays on," Levi said. Sometimes that was half the fun of what they did, torturing the other to keep them from getting exactly what they wanted for a bit. A sort of delayed hedonism, but it worked for them.

"And it's fine. Why such a rough day? Someone didn't get the last item on sale that you wanted, did they?"