Page 4 of Derek
“All those birdies need to find something else to chirp about.” A kid bumps into Indy, causing her to stumble again. This time, I reach out and grab her. Her hands land on my chest, and fuck no… abort.
I straighten her up as fast as possible and remove our hands from each other before grumbling at how long this line is.
“Sorry,” she whispers, and I see the pink stain bloom on her pale cheeks. “I really need to work on my balance.” I know she means it to be a joke, but her words cause me to remember a conversation I had with Indy’s brother, Ash, last year. Indy has Multiple Sclerosis, and even though I’m not supposed to know about it, Ash told me after Indy had a relapse in her MS and was having problems controlling her bladder and stumbling. She couldn’t work due to her trying to recover, and she had been embarrassed about me seeing her that way, so we haven’t really talked since then.
“So,” Indy clears her throat, and I thank god that I’m next so I can end this. Indy is nice enough, but I don’t do chit chat, I don’t do closeness, and I definitely don’t do whatever the fuck this warm vanilla, floral scent is that’s trying—and succeeding—to invade and take over all my senses. “Are you having a birthday party?”
“No,” I state firmly, not moving my eyes from the person making the burritos. Good, they change gloves between customers.
“Not even with just the gang at Hel’s?” My eyes glance her way briefly before looking back at the expectant employee. It’s finally my turn.
“What does it matter to you? You don’t work around me anyway, so it’s not like you’ll be there.” I snap out before turning to the person to begin ordering my food. Once I get down the line, I furrow my brow when I realize I didn’t hear Indy order anything. I turn to say something to her, but a man is standing next to me instead, talking to the person making his order. I pay and grab my bag, looking around for her as I walk out. It’s then that I see Stevie’s black Camry drive by with Indy in the passenger seat, her head in her hands.
Goddamn it. I rub my chest again as I walk toward my vehicle. Why? Why did she care about my birthday? Why did she get upset at my comment? Why do I care that she got upset?
Never again will I allow myself to fucking run out of food at my house.
Chapter2
Indy
“How long are you going to keep this up?” Stevie sighs from her spot next to me behind the jewelry display counter.
“Keep what up?” I ask brightly, as if I have no idea what she’s talking about. Her stare of annoyance tells me not to continue to fuck with her. That is probably good advice, considering she’s on day eighteen of her period, and the poor thing is miserable. Stevie has a horrible condition called Endometriosis, as well as Uterine Fibroids. Basically, her uterus hates her. Sometimes she has no period, while other times, she’ll have them for months straight, and she is constantly in pain. Though, like me, she does her best not to show it because what’s the point? Of course, we hurt, we always hurt, but we have to keep going while we can anyway.
“You cannot keep doing these night shifts,” Stevie states as she unbuttons her jeans and sighs with relief; her bloating today must be worse than usual. “You know it’s fucking with your schedule, your brother hates it, and it’s not good for your health to be here so late and then at the hospitals in the morning. It’s too much for you, and it’s starting to show.”
“That reminds me,” I say as I pull out my phone. “I need to see if Janie can help me next week. There’s a little girl that wants to see that one princess, I can’t remember her name, but I think Janie got famous cosplaying her on social media.” Stevie stares at me blankly while I send a quick text to Janie.
“Did you absorb anything I just said?”
“Yes, you think I’m doing too much. Look, I know it’s a lot, but I like working here, and it helps me fund the nonprofit.”
“So work during the day! You would make more money anyway!” Stevie groans, and I raise a brow.
“Are you wanting to lay off the night shift?” I ask tentatively, and I see the guilt on her face… she’s doing the night shift for me. “Ah, gotcha. Okay, I’ll switch.”
“Indy,” I smile at her and wave my hand.
“You’re right; I do need the break, and so do you. This just became easier than the alternative.” I mutter as Stevie lets out a sympathetic breath.
“Babe, you know that no one thinks about what happened, right?” Muttering a “uh huh,” I roll my eyes while she continues. “You’re only obsessively concerned because you have some weird crush on Derek, and he called you darlin’.” My face and ears go hot as I stare at her smirk with wide eyes.
“Shut up!” I snip, adding an unusually sharp tone to my otherwise calm voice. Stevie, unaffected by my warning, gives me a blank look and shakes her head slightly.
“Who the fuck are you worried about hearing us? Fucking Brooks?” She sneers, and I laugh at her scathing tone when she says his name.
“You can’t still be giving that man hell?”
“Yes! He is a terrible person. He deserves nothing but mildly annoying misfortune for all eternity.” She huffs and sits back.
“And this was over what again? A cookie?” Stevie’s face falls, and she looks at me as if I’ve insulted her.
“He came into my bakery and asked for a peach danish, but a little boy said he wanted it, so I told Brooks to pick something else, and he got all pissy and threw a fit, so I went and made him more to which he said it didn’t live up to the hype. He can rot in hell. My danishes are fucking amazing, and he didn’t deserve them.” I fight the smile as I listen to her ranting. This hatred has been building over the past few months, especially after Janie hired Brooks to stay with us during the night shift.
“Anyway,” Stevie states through clenched teeth. “Derek doesn’t care about that. Honestly, he probably doesn’t give any of us much thought. You know how he is. Realistically, you’ll probably never really see him during the day. And if you do, he’ll just glare at something until you move on.”
I chuckle as we stand and start closing the shop. I don’t understand the whole grumpy persona that the shop has tagged Derek with. I mean, he’s quiet, but he’s never been anything but nice to me, well… until today. I was so nervous when I saw him in line at the burrito shop that I stumbled over myself, something I’ve been doing a lot the last two red days. That’s how I categorize my days, by color instead of good or bad. When you live with chronic pain and illness, you have to come up with other ways to describe your days, so while I might be smiling and laughing and in a positive mindset, I may also be in terrible pain. I picked it up while working as a nurse at the children’s hospital, and it stuck with me. So, I have five colored bracelets indicating my five levels.
