Page 46 of Grumpy Sunshine

“Oh, I have a surprise for you.”She smiled and hurried behind the counter.

I watched as she went to the warming area and pulled out what looked like a hamburger.

“Someone ordered this, asked for mustard, then complained about their mustard.So I saved it for you when we refunded them.”She smiled.“Voilà!”

Because Manuella was so sweet, I wouldn’t admit that I loathed mustard.

I’d just wipe it off with a napkin, and load the burger up with as much ketchup as I could grab without feeling bad for grabbing too many packets.

“Thanks, Manuella!”I grinned.“I’ll have a cup of soup today, too.”

She got my soup, my burger, and then headed to the checkout.

When she saw that I had the free cake, she went to the back and brought out a fresh piece.

“Here you go.”She beamed.“I just iced it.”

Even better.

My mouth was literally watering when I took my seat, and as I looked up just as I got situated, it was to see Chevy there, standing with his niece, staring at the lunch lady with a questioning look on his face.

Had he heard what we’d just been talking about?

I hoped not.

Chevy spoke low to the lunch lady, and she smiled.

She spoke animatedly with her hands, and then started to gesture to Catalina in his arms.

I looked down at my food and groaned.

A burger.

It’d been months since I’d had a burger to eat.

Honestly, it’d probably been longer than that, because I could trace my food consumption down to specific times and places.

I loved food, which sucked when you were poor as hell.

If it wasn’t ramen, I ate what was on sale that week from the grocery store.

Certainly, they never put anything super good on sale to the point where I could afford it, and if they did, it was gone in moments.

On the day I’d last had a burger, I could specifically remember it because Chevy had been the one to provide food for everyone.

It’d been Dru’s birthday, and he’d gone out of his way to provide lunch for everyone that was on shift that day.

I’d been intending to eat a salad for lunch, and had fully expected to get a wilty one from the lunchroom when a full catering order of burgers and fries from a popular burger joint down the street had arrived.

There’d been so much food that I’d even had two orders of fries.

It’d been one of the happiest days of my life.

Which was pretty damn sad that I called it one of my happiest days because I was given a burger and two orders of fries for free.

I took a large bite of the burger and realized that this day was a pretty good one, too.

I’d fully expected my birthday to suck because not only did I have to work, but Silver was out of town.

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