Page 50 of Grumpy Sunshine

“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.”

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