Page 12

Twelve

Sometimes I wonder what happened to the people that asked me for directions.

— Aella to Chevy

CHEVY

I contemplated going up to her apartment a hundred times, but in the end, sat my ass on my bike and stared up at the apartment that I knew was hers.

Her birthday.

She hadn’t told anyone, because no one had asked.

Fuck.

Why did that hurt my goddamn heart so much?

And why did the thought of no one celebrating her birthday at work piss me off?

Usually, one of the doctors pitched in when it was someone’s birthday, ordering food enough for the whole floor.

But not this time.

Luckily I’d been at lunch when I had, and had seen her enjoying her chocolate cake so much that I’d wanted to give her mine.

And I fucking loved chocolate cake.

Seeing the smile overtake her face was worth giving it up, though.

Milena had given me a hard time as we’d walked out to her car, and I hadn’t had a single way to refute her words.

I did like her.

A lot.

And the last few days had only made me like her even more.

On the way home today, I’d made a special stop by a bakery to buy Aella a cake, and I’d been contemplating when to give it to her for a fuckin’ hour now.

I’d just decided that maybe I should bring it with me tomorrow to work when I saw her come into view.

She had a fork of what looked like the chocolate cake in one hand, and her other opening the window.

I frowned.

Why would she have her window open when it was so damn hot outside?

It might be ten at night, but it was still ninety degrees.

Frowning still, I walked around to the side of the building, taking my cake with me, intending to drop it off at her door, when I stopped next to the air conditioner units.

None of them were on.

That was strange.

There was no way that they shouldn’t be running right now.

And maybe if one wasn’t running that would be normal…but all of them?

I’d been hearing the air conditioners run from the apartment building behind me for an hour now.

At least one of them should be on…

I looked down as I passed and realized the problem.

The copper had been stolen from the units.

Goddammit.

Pulling out my phone, I gave Hagrid a call.

He answered on the first ring.

“Sup?” he asked.

“I have a situation,” I said as I gave him all the details.

“I’ll send a crew out,” he said. “Probably take about fifteen minutes to get there, though.”

I hung up, then went ahead and ordered some pizza.

Since I didn’t know what she liked, I ordered a couple of them, as well as adding a shit ton of breadsticks and dessert pizzas.

I waited on the side of the building, cake in hand, for them to get there.

The pizza guy and Hagrid’s crew showed up at the same time.

Leaving Hagrid’s crew to do what they would, I headed upstairs and found the apartment that I knew to be hers.

Knocking on the door, I waited for her to arrive, then questioned whether it was too late when it took her a long time to get to the door.

Just when I was about to leave, the door cracked open, and a brown eye poked out to look at me.

That brown eye widened, and she closed the door in my face, only to open it again without the chain.

“Chevy!” she said in surprise.

I blinked and stared at the beautiful woman in front of me.

I’d seen what she was wearing from the ground, but up close and in person was enough to make my knees slightly weak.

“I wanted to treat you to dinner for your birthday,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound as angry as it felt coming out of my mouth.

She was wearing another t-shirt, but this one fit her like a glove. The front of it said “Red Raiders Volleyball” on it, and mother of god, she had no bra on.

Aella didn’t have the biggest tits in the world.

To be completely truthful, they were quite small.

But that meant that she could get away with not having a bra on, and mostly you couldn’t tell.

But when the t-shirt was white, tight, and practically so threadbare that you could see through it?

That meant that I had a great view of her dusky nipples through the material.

And those nipples were hard and practically begging for me to put my mouth on them.

Her lower half was just as fantastic as the top.

She was wearing a pair of shorts that were honestly the best shorts I’d ever seen.

They were loose, short, and had these slits on the sides that went all the way up to the waistband.

They did fantastic things for her legs and ass, and the slit on the side was practically inviting me to run the palm of my hand up along the outside of her thigh and around to her ample ass.

Her feet were bare, and each of her toes were painted a bright shade of fire engine red.

She also had toe spreaders between them, letting me know that she’d just done them herself.

Fuck.

She was goddamn cute.

“You wanted to treat me to dinner?” She placed her hand over her heart, once again bringing my attention to her nipples.

“Yes,” I replied, the rasp in my voice an octave deeper than it usually was. “I don’t like that you didn’t tell us.”

She winced. “I’m not usually one to bring attention to myself.” She hesitated. “But, just sayin’, y’all don’t normally do anything for any of the techs. That’s the reason the last one quit. She was getting treated like shit by everyone and no one even acknowledged how much work that she did.”

My brows rose. “What?”

She winced. “I, um…”

I pushed into her apartment, my hand going to her lower belly to force her out of the doorway so I could allow myself entrance.

“Please,” I said as I walked to her tiny kitchen table. “Tell me. It’s not something that we can fix if we don’t know it’s an issue.”

She sighed and walked to the counter and hopped on, her legs folding up underneath her while she hugged her legs to her chest.

“No one sees us,” she admitted softly. “It’s like, y’all only acknowledge us when y’all need us, and then when we’re not needed, we blend into the background. No one talks to us, sees us, acknowledges us. I have to admit, I didn’t bother telling anyone it’s my birthday because the lady that quit right when I started quit over not getting a cake.”

I crossed my arms over my chest, then took a seat on her dining room chair before saying, “Do I act like that?”

“You don’t act any way.” She shrugged. “You’re mostly off to yourself.”

That was true.

“And when you bought Dru her burgers last year, I think that you only heard through the grapevine that it was her birthday. No one else had done or planned anything, so you just bought food the next time that you were on shift.”

“That’s exactly what happened.” I grimaced. “I heard that it was her birthday, and someone missed it the previous shift. So I ordered burgers and a cake from my sister-in-law’s sister who I knew would make it for me last minute.”

“That was really sweet,” she said. “Not that you wanted that acknowledgment or anything.”

I flashed her a grimace.

She snickered. “You don’t like being known as sweet?”

“I don’t like people expecting sweet when I’m not,” I admitted.

“Anyway, you’ve never acted like that at all toward the techs. But honestly, I think it’s just your personality. You don’t act very welcoming to anyone.” She shrugged.

I sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she assured. “You don’t have to be welcoming. It’s your right as a person to be who you want to be. At least you’re not setting a double standard. I would rather be ignored and neglected by someone that ignores and neglects everyone rather than having it shoved in my face that they’re willing to go above and beyond for someone else, someone with a better degree than I have, than me.”

When she put it that way, it did sound pretty bad.

“I’d offer to talk to the floor about it, but that would be me actually putting forth effort into socializing, and I’m deathly allergic to that,” I admitted.

She snickered. “I just ate some cake.”

“The cake that I gave you?” I asked.

“Yes,” she divulged. “Did you know that that particular chocolate cake is by far my most favorite in the world? I know that sounds super weird to say that cafeteria cake is my favorite, but there’s just something about the cake.”

“I agree.” I paused and winced, hoping that she didn’t pick up on that.

“What?” she asked, letting me know that she had. “I thought you didn’t like the cake there?”

“Well,” I confessed. “I kind of do. A lot. But you looked like you’d enjoy it a whole lot more than I would.”

She smiled. “I could eat a whole pizza on my own.”

I stood up and lifted the lids of the three boxes. “I had no clue what you’d like, so I got pepperoni, cheese, and a supreme.”

“I like them all,” she admitted as she came over. “You have to learn to like all kinds of things when you’re only given food that someone else gives you out of the goodness of their heart. Except mustard. I can’t stand the stuff. That was on my burger today and I wiped it off.”

“Why didn’t you send it back and ask for no mustard?” I asked, reaching for a slice of supreme while she took a slice of cheese.

“Well.” She looked hesitant, as if she didn’t want to tell me why, but then decided to do it anyway. “Money’s tight. I’m about to be in my final semester of school. Which, thank God, got paid for by a scholarship. But I still have to do so many clinical hours, as well as try to get a full-time schedule in that usually only ends up being part-time. Anyway, long story short, I don’t have the kind of money to be complaining about food that people give me. Manuella saved me that burger today because someone asked for mustard and didn’t want the mustard after she got it.”

“Manuella saves you food?” I asked.

“Sometimes.” She shrugged. “Manuella can’t just give me stuff for free. But if there’s a complaint, and she’s on shift, she’ll usually save it for me.”

“Gotcha,” I said as I contemplated ways to pay for Aella’s stuff without her finding out. “Hopefully this’ll give you a couple of days to feed yourself on.”

I’d eat two pieces and say that I was full.

That’d give her a few extra days’ worth of lunch while I came up with a solution.

I could probably put a pizza and a half away, but I could grab something to eat on the way home.

“Did you get the money to the charity yet?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “That’s what I was doing before I came here. Making sure that it got there all right. You have any idea how much your mom had?”

She shrugged. “I have no clue. That much money was a bit overwhelming to me, and let’s be completely honest here. I’ve never seen that much money in my life. It’s a little shocking to even consider.”

“Five hundred and fifteen thousand,” I said.

Her eyes widened.

I pulled out a stack of cash from my pocket, then put it on the table.

“What…” She looked at the money. “You didn’t donate it all?”

“I kept some,” I admitted. “Because I felt like you could use some of it to pay for your car to get fixed. And split some with your sister.”

She opened her mouth and then closed it. “That’s very sweet but…”

“But you’re keeping it,” I pointed out. “It’s not much. Five thousand dollars. It’s enough to get you both a little of what you need.”

“It’s not much?” She laughed as she looked at it. “Newsflash, Chevy, but that’s the kind of money I could live off for the next year.”

“Then do it,” I returned.

“I can’t…” she hesitated some more.

I stood up and braced my hands on the table, using my size to intimidate her. “Either you keep it, or I go get more of it and keep dropping it off until you figure out that I’m not playing around.”

She snapped her mouth shut.

I grinned at her and took my final slice of pizza and headed to the door. “See you tomorrow at work, Whirlwind.”

I had the door wide open, and I was swinging it shut behind me when I popped my head back through and said, “Oh, and Aella?”

She looked up, eyes wide. “Yeah?”

“Enjoy your A/C.”

Her mouth fell open in shock, and she started to look around as if she could see the cold air now coming out of the vents.

I didn’t wait for her to reply as I headed out to my bike.

I did, however, send out another text to Apollo and ask him to look into their bank accounts.

It would be a lot easier if I could just dump some cash into her account and she didn’t know where it came from.