1
Creed
Nothing made Monday worse than a bunch of entitled fuckers trying to get in my face and push my buttons. I was minding my own business, taking lunch in the indoor arboretum like always instead of the cafeteria full of entitled assholes, and two of said assholes just had to find me.
I did my best to ignore them as they yapped their gums about me cleaning up their piss or the big shit they didn’t flush after. Were they really such fuckers they didn’t flush the toilets to stink up the bathrooms thinking the maintenance staff would have to do more work?
Were the doctors of ASH really that stupid and didn’t know the toilets auto-flushed after thirty seconds?
“Excuse me,” a timid voice interjected.
I glanced up and was struck stupid by the most gorgeous chick I maybe had ever laid eyes on. She had long raven hair and blue eyes so light that I honestly wasn’t sure that blue was their color. It was almost like I was looking into a diamond and I was seeing whatever color reflected back at me. It was seriously disarming.
“I feel this conversation is inappropriate,” she said, focused on the two doctors.
Whoa, and she was defending me? Who was this chick? Someone who gave a shit about the damn janitor?
“He might be a servant, but treating him…” she trailed off and frowned, glancing at me with a bit of fear. It made me realize I was quietly growling. “I apologize, English is my fourth language and I miss things a lot.” She frowned harder. “I’m also not worldly and it gets confusing.”
She knew four languages and wasn’t worldly? How did that work out in her head?
“Politicians and police are civil servants, so I did not think it would be such an offensive term,” she muttered, looking worried before glancing down. “I apologize.”
“Service industry,” I offered. “Maintenance would be considered a job in the service industry. I get what you mean.”
Her worry eased and she shot me a grateful look before focusing back on the two doctors. “Yes, so while he is in the service industry, he is notyourservant, and society has long since progressed past kicking servants when you have a bad day. There are laws now against having whipping boys and long overdue.”
Was this chick for real? Here as a patient to get shrinked?
“Look, I don’t know what you think you heard, but clearly—” the one doctor started to say.
“I know what I heard, thank you, my ears work fine, and you were ratherloudin your bullying of someone sitting quietly,” she said firmly. “And the behavior was incredibly inappropriate and unsuitable of someone who works for ASH.”
That was the wrong thing to say, immediately pissing off the doctor. He opened his mouth to blast her but stopped when the other guy yanked on his arm. I couldn’t hear what he hissed in his friend’s ear, but they quickly tried to cover their badges before mumbling bullshit apologies toherand hurrying off.
What the actual fuck was that?
“I’m sorry they treated you that way,” she said quietly when we were alone.
“Thanks, but I’m used to it,” I muttered, glancing between her and where they had been standing. I pushed to my feet and she flinched as I towered over her. I took in a slow breath knowing I was about to make a mistake, but after she’d done me a solid, I needed to repay the favor. “You here as a patient?”
“No.” She cleared her throat. “I’m Aurora.”
“Creed.” I studied her another moment. “I don’t know why you’re here then, Aurora, but that sort of thing is typical at ASH. It’s not the miracle people talk about but a pit of vipers. So don’t get involved here if you don’t have to.”
I mumbled for her to have a nice day, wanting nothing more than to spend more time with the beauty, but chicks were trouble, and I was doing everything I could to stay out of that. Even if assholes at work made it really,reallydifficult for me.
I figured that was the end of it and mostly forgot about it besides the flash of her when I was getting ready for bed. I mentally swatted it away, pretending I didn’t even remember her name.
So nothing surprised me more than to find her sitting in the indoor arboretum with a legit picnic basket. Like a cliché wood fucking picnic basket.
I glanced around and looked for someone recording this shit. Someone had to be and this was some sort of punk social media channel, right?
Or one of those bullshit ones that “saved” people or something? Oh, she was fucking with the wrong person if that was her shtick.
Her face lit up when she saw me and I didn’t think anyone was good enough of an actress to fake the slight blush that crept over her cheeks.
I sighed and mentally cussed myself out when curiosity won out instead of me being smart and leaving—pretending like I didn’t see the beauty and just fucking leaving. I walked over to her and narrowed my eyes. “Why are you here?”
