Learning Baseline Bass Lines - Inanimate Insanity

CHAPTER THREE: Fresh food and bright sun

The afternoon was still fresh, with clouds shading the ground from above. Pepper had stolen some food meant for lunch from the kitchen, so she and Salt could have a picnic. They opened the back door from the kitchen to the back of the hotel, snickering with their basket of food, After all, it was too nice of a day to spend it inside.

"How much were you even able to get"? salt whispered. checking the door behind her.

"Like, a lot, don't worry." Pepper winked and closed the door behind her making sure the door didn't make a click when it closed.

Pepper knew Oj wasn't against people taking food to other places, but he was hesitant about it because it meant that people might leave their food in other places and Oj would have to hunt plates and silverware down. Pepper wanted to skip the hassle of trying to convince him, and decided to surprise Salt with a fresh picnic in the sun,

Or maybe, the shade, since Salt had already started skipping over to the large wisteria tree on top of the hill. It was such a nice spot, the billowing pink clusters hung down, and sunlight shifted through them, almost the entirety of the space beneath the branches was coated in a pinky rose tint, Pepper had no hesitance in following her there. She always felt it was a bit romantic whenever they went up there.

"Salty salt! Wait for me!"

Salt turned around and smiled, "I'll wait for you at the top! Race ya!" Salt spun on her heel before taking off.

Pepper felt light inside, these are the moments she loved most with Salt. She tucked the picnic basket under her arm and took off running after her.

Pepper barely caught up to Salt right before they reached the peak of the hill, but running uphill while laughing tends to take the breath out of you, so when they both felt the shade of the wisteria tree, they fell down, and like many things, they did it together.

Pepper was glad her best friend had agreed to come outside today, other than their morning walks they don't tend to spend too much time relaxing outside. Salt always enjoyed things inside more than being freezing cold or sweating hot outside. But today was one of the more rare occasions that it was perfect outside, Salt's perfect weather, that is. A little bit sunny with a cool breeze, Pepper knew she'd love lunch outside.

"Did you seriously make me run all the way up this hill?" Pepper asked out of breath.

"What? I needed to work off the stuff I'm gonna eat!" Salt said propping herself off the ground, still huffing, "speaking of which, like seriously what did you pack, I wanna see!"

"Oh yeah, it's not like, anything special, just whatever I could grab quickly that looked like Oj wouldn't miss it."

"*gasp* You're so bad peppery!" She shoved pepper playfully, "what if Oj finds out? Do you think he'd come out here?"

"There's no way he could catch us if he tried, did you see how fast you like, got up here? Oj doesn't even walk with us!" pepper giggled at the thought of running circles through the hotel with salt away from Oj.

Salt smiled and looked away, "yeaaahh he hasn't been walking with us, but like, guess what I did?"

The emphasis on the "us" in that sentence irked Pepper as she sat up to start pulling things out of the basket, her gaze didn't leave Salt as she looked off into the distance, hardly noticing the way Pepper gripped the contains from the basket a little bit more than usual.

"What did you do?" Pepper asked, making sure her voice didn't skew from the lighthearted tone it had before. It had gotten easier and easier to do that over time.

"So like, I convinced Oj to go outside Walking in the morning, after breakfast."

"Really!?"

"Yeah! And this was like, so smart of me. He cleans up breakfast, and that's when breakfast ends in his eyes! so whenever we finish our walk, he starts his! somedays, I'll go and walk with him! pretty genius of me, more exercise and time with Oj!"

"y-yeah! To time that you've gotta know him so well! which I'd say you do, remember trivia night?"

"Like omg yes! I am practically an Oj super fan! seeing Fan CRUSHED at my knowledge made my week."

That made Pepper giggle, it was such an intense battle, for every question Fan got right, Salt got three, test-tube did her best to comfort him, but at that point, Fan was a puddle on the floor. You wouldn't expect there to be that many facts about Oj, but they were there till late into the night, maybe even morning!

Pepper was pulled back into reality and put together a ham and cheese sandwich, little mayo, and a pickle on the side, and handed it off to Salt before starting on her own. Salt took it with a "thanks bestie!" and continued to talk about how getting time with just her and Oj made their relationship grow so much, and-

Pepper remembered a week or two before the Oj-Obsess-A-Thon, walking into their shared room, and seeing Salt on the floor decorating a t-shirt, that night wasn't so good, all they talked about was Oj, and it finally set in how long it'd be before she'd drop the subject.

It feels like more of their conversations revolve around Oj, or on the more rare occasion, what boys would want to date Pepper, Salt talked about nearly everyone in the hotel being an option for Pepper. Pepper was pretty quick to change these conversation topics, she didn't want to give Salt any ideas.

She appreciated the thought that Salt wanted her to be happy with someone, but Pepper knew she wouldn't be happy with any of the boys in the hotel, or in the world!

But... She couldn't tell Salt that.

Pepper blinked herself back into the moment again, with a finished sandwich in her hands.

"And so Oj did end up choosing a color pallet for the hotel from one of his favorite colors, orange! Anyways, I was like, thinking we could do modeling for Paintbrush again since we've been doing yoga, I think we could totes pose for longer."

Pepper finished chewed a stolen grape "Omg! Yeah! I'd so be down. Do you know when Paintbrush is hosting another, like, person-painting-class?"

"Uhh, no. but I bet they have it posted outside their art room! we can like, go by there later."

"After lunch." Pepper said lightly, almost as a question. nudging Salt.

"After lunch." Salt replied with a wink.

Salt and Pepper spent the rest of the bright afternoon sitting underneath the wisteria tree, in a cool breeze, eating their lunch together. And while Pepper was worried Salt might hear her heart beat a little too loudly, Salt was deaf to everything but the wind.