Page 24 of Bossy Grump's Secret

"You put so much effort into looking good today." She shakes her head .

"There, I know I messed up," I agree. "What did I think? That I was going on a date?" I ask myself more than her, but she takes it upon herself to answer the question.

"Maybe extra work is his way of professing love. The date venue is the room, and the vehicle is the cleaning trolley..." She can't say anything further: her laughter won't let her. I let her have her fun, though. There's only so much in my life to laugh about. Besides, my ill fortune is definitely not her fault.

We finish lunch way longer than we usually do, partly because of Lily’s small eating pattern and somewhat because she laughed herself almost into oblivion through the entire meal, making fun of me with every corny joke she could think of that fits my situation...so, entirely Lily's fault.

I resume the work Jane and I are to be done in silence, listening to her drone on and in about her kids. It is interesting in some parts. The boring parts, I just clip out. If I were working with Robbie, we'd be done by now. That woman is a complete machine. Jane believes in cool, calm and collected work spread over time.

Usually, we finish earlier than the close of the overall shift, and I prefer it. With Robbie, we'd be done by half the day, and even that is a gamble. If there's an uncommon event going on, we'd be called in as extra help. If not, the rest of the day was ours to kill.

I see Dylan pass by a few times as we work, but he never stops by.

Yeah, you better run!

Just as we are in the last room to tidy up, I hear his voice in the hallway. "All well here, I see!"

Jane answers back, but I remain silent. He pokes his head into the room. "Jane, Ava... well done," he pronounces. I know that was targeting me, so I continued with my work, ignoring him completely.

"Ava?"

Why does he have to be so pushy!?

I don't want to disrespect him in Jane's presence, imagining correctly that a relationship between two people isn't looked upon kindly in the same work environment, especially when one is superior. I just mumble a greeting, which he accepts, fortunately for me.

"You know, Dylan is nice once you get to know him personally." Jane says, offering to mend our “rocky'” relationship. So much oblivion in the air these days.

I simply nod and accept her push to mend things with Dylan. She probably will get a shock, knowing the type of mending that needs to be done. Once I'm done with my shift, I head straight to my room to cool off. Lily is there watching an anime series on her laptop, so I don't disturb her. The evening is going quite cooly with me, playing a game on my phone until I hear a knock on the door.

"Who's there?" I ask with irritation. Lily simultaneously brings her headphones down, asking the same question to me...like I would know.

"Dylan."

"Go away."

He takes that as his cue to open the door.

"I said go away." I swat at his figure from the bed like an annoying fly.

"I'm assuming she knows it all." He waves to Lily, who waves back meekly. I swear the two of them have a better relationship than me and him.

"Enough to not be surprised you're here," I say with irritation still oozing from my voice.

"You've been avoiding me all day... someone has ever interrupted you and you're still mad." He collapses on the bed beside me.

"You only stopped by once. Trust me, Papi, you're the one avoiding me."

"Huh," He grunts, folds his hands over his head, and gives me a look.

"And you just interrupted a multiplayer game. So trust me, I'm more irritated at that." Which is true. Have you ever been interrupted in a ranked multiplayer game? I'm going three ranks down...at least.

"Oh," he laughs. "I'm sorry about that one."

Only Dylan would laugh, but his face doesn't crease to show happy emotion. Not even a fake one. Weird lad.

"What about this morning, then? This week, actually."

"That I'm not sorry about," he shrugs.

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