Page 48 of Grumpy Sunshine

Sometime in between me heading to a patient room and him coming back, an emergent case had appeared, and he’d had to go into a spinal surgery with the head of ortho.

I spent the rest of the day looking out for him, but came up empty.

Sadly, my luck didn’t hold out, because I had to jump start my stupid car by pushing it down the hill again.

When I got home, my air conditioner was also not working.

When I sent a message to the super, he told me he was out of town and the soonest that he’d be able to get to it was the following morning.

Needless to say, by the time I’d collapsed into bed that night with my chocolate cake, I was in a whole lot worse of a mood.

I ate my cake, bite by bite, and contemplated whether or not to open the window or not.

In the end, I decided that I’d better do it.

My box fan had died last week, and likely the only stupid air flow I’d get was by whatever breeze was blowing inside.

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.

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