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“Last delivery of the night…” Glenn whispered to himself. “Then you can go home, play Metal Gear, and enjoy a few hours of quiet…”
He walked up to the door and rang the bell. The glow of the living room light showed a shadow on the wall of a woman getting up to answer. Glenn bounced on his heels and took a quick step back when he heard her turn the lock.
The door opened and Glenn was wondering if he’d dozed off in the car or was high off of pizza fumes because this woman was… unreal. They way light was bouncing off of her hair and her brown skin was equally unreal. She grinned at him and dug her money out her pocket. “Oh, it was $16, by the way.”
“Someone’s tired…” she said.
He cleared his throat. “Yeah, you’re my last delivery.”
“Congrats. Long day?”
“Not any longer than usual,” he said. “I did get yelled at for bringing one house two drinks.”
She handed him his cash and a tip, and he handed her the pizza. “That sucks, why were they mad?”
“As usual, I have no idea, they didn’t even get charged extra, they just got two drinks.”
“People are crazy. If it makes you feel any better, I’ve had a pretty long day, too.”
Glenn checked his watch. He had to be back at the pizza place, but a part of him wondered if they’d really notice his absence. “What do you do?”
“I work for the sheriff’s department.”
“You’re a cop?”
She nodded. “Yup, I have handcuffs and badge to prove it.”
He leaned on the doorway. “So, did you get the wrong guy? Did someone escape?”
She sighed. “A jackass thought he could try and handcuff me during an arrest but I’m not exactly someone to be played with.”
He chuckled, slightly intimidated. “You don’t seem like it either.”
She eyed his nervousness and thought a smile would calm him a bit, she was right. “Hey, if you don’t get into trouble, you don’t have to worry. But, if trouble finds you, you know who to ask for.”
“Sure thing, officer…”
“Lieutenant Abbie Mills.” She extended her hand to him and he shook it. “Nice to meet you…”
He couldn’t remember his own name, and he almost wanted to crawl into a hole for looking so creepy. “Glenn, my name is Glenn. Nice to meet you, too, Abbie.”
Abbie’s eyes widened. “Oh you should really get back to work! I don’t wanna get you in trouble or anything.”
“Oh! Oh, yeah, I should. Um, have a good night, enjoy the pizza.”
“I will! Get some rest.”
“Will do.” He waved goodbye and walked from her door. He shoved his hands into his pockets. cursed himself under his breath, and swore that if he delivered to her again he’d be less awkward.
The next week, Glenn got to deliver to Abbie again. This time, he checked his hair in the rearview mirror and told himself not to fuck it up. His tendency to fuck things up seemed to rear it’s ugly head most often around women, especially gorgeous women like Abbie… with round brown eyes… and bright smiles…
He shook himself out of that and walked up to her door with the pizza. She answered, and this time she had a guest over, another pretty woman with long curly hair. They were watching a romcom and sipping glasses of wine.
“I was hoping it would be you, Glenn.” Abbie told him.
His cheeks turned pink, and he already felt this going south. Why, God, did she have to be so pretty? “Hi, Abbie, it’s $16 again.”
“Mmhm…” She grinned. “Was this week better than the last?” He shook his head. “What happened?”
Glenn sighed and took the money, which had an even bigger tip with it, he quickly thanked for that. “I was delivering to my friends’ place, and my friend Noah tried to get me to play video games with them, and I lost track of time. Then I got yelled at again.”
“You get yelled at a lot?”
“Only every day of my life.”
Abbie pouted. “You seem pretty positive, regardless."
"Yeah, well, it's not all bad, you have to stay hopeful."
"Wise words from a wise man." She tucked her hair behind her ear and looked back at Jenny, who had an arched eyebrow raised at their conversation. "So, if you got in trouble for losing track of time, I guess we shouldn’t be talking then…”
He rolled out the smoothest line he’d ever managed to in his life. “I haven’t gotten the chance to ask how your week was yet, Lieutenant Mills.”
“It was nothing special. All routine calls.”
“Nice. So, like, ‘Help, my purse was stolen’?”
She giggled. “More like, ‘Help, I found a body behind the pub’. Only for it to be a very alive homeless man.” They laughed and Abbie’s guest snuck up behind her. “Jesus, Jenny, you scared me!”
“Sorry, who’s this?”
“This is Glenn, the pizza delivery guy,” she said. “We met last week.”
Jenny smirked. “You’re on a conversational basis with the pizza guy?”
Abbie smiled at him. If his cheeks got any redder, he’d turn into an actual tomato. “Yeah, he’s really sweet.”
He realized that he was still holding the pizza and handed it over to Abbie, before it was promptly snatched by Jenny. “Sorry about that.”
“It’s fine.”
“Is drinking wine with pizza a thing that girls typically do? I mean I, like, have sisters but... You can tell me to shut up at any time.”
She shrugged. “I don't know if it's a thing girls do, it's definitely a thing these girls do.”
“It's just such a unique combination.”
“Unique is code for weird, right?”
“Unique is… code for unique.”
“I'm a cop, Glenn, you can't lie to me.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I can’t really lie to anyone.”
Abbie probably picked that up already, he didn’t seem like the lying type. No, Glenn was all genuine heart and that basically radiated from him. “Honesty’s good, it’s rare.”
“Yeah, but not everyone likes the truth.”
“Not everyone has to.”
He caught himself staring at her again and realized that they’d been talking for some time. “I should probably get back, I don’t want to get yelled at twice in a week.”
“I assume I’ll see you next week?” she asked, her eyes hopeful.
He nodded. “Probably. I’ll see you then, Abbie.”
“Goodnight, Glenn.”
“You know you’re the highlight of my week, right?”
Abbie grinned. “I’m always happy to see you.”
It’d been about a month and a half since she’d first met Glenn, and it was becoming hard to hide the fact that she was probably ordering from the same place every week just to talk to him. He was such a sweetheart, and so handsome. He had such a gentle smile that could warm someone up from the inside out. It was just a shame he could never stick around for too long, and she didn’t want to flirt with him while he was working, she hated it when men did that to her.
But talking couldn't hurt anyone, right?
“Got any plans for the weekend, Abbie?”
“Catching up on sleep, you?”
“Netflix.”
“Of course, what’s on your watchlist?”
He shrugged. “Lately I’ve been kinda into zombies, one of my sisters got me into it. It just kinda sucks how all those survival shows have everyone dying except white guys, y’know?”
Abbie nodded and yawned. “I can dig it. Fantasy has the same white guy problems.”
“I think you’d survive the zombie apocalypse.”
She giggled. “Why’s that?”
“Well, you’re smart, and you’re probably fast and good with a gun…”
“All true. How about you?” she asked. "You have a vehicle, that's something. You're also friendly, you could probably talk hostile strangers down."
Glenn stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I’m pretty fast. I think that might be it. Plus, I wouldn’t want to kill other people, so that's a problem.”
“We could be a team.”
It was a rather interesting idea; Glenn and Abbie vs. The World. He always thought the first thing he’d do in the zombie apocalypse is try to find good people and get somewhere secure. Abbie was definitely good people. He wouldn’t mind fighting for survival with her. “When the dead start to walk, I’ll come get you.”
“I appreciate that.”
Glenn took a deep breath. “Um, are you doing anything next Saturday?”
“No, why?”
Even though he began boldly, he froze for some reason. He knew he’d kick himself for it later, but he really didn’t want Abbie to find him creepy. “Oh, uh, no reason…”
“Okay…”
“I’ll see you next week, alright?”
“Alright. See you then.”
“See you.”
Another week passed and Abbie ordered again. She waited patiently to get that call from Glenn. She wanted to ask him about last week, and if he meant to ask her out and became nervous. But then he was late. Glenn had never been late before, and she called right before the end of his shift. After forty minutes passed, she worried that he’d never show up or that he got in trouble for taking so long every time he delivered to her.
When her cell phone finally rang, she couldn’t answer quickly enough.
“Hey, Glenn, where have you been?”
“Answer the door and I’ll tell you.”
Abbie walked to the door and Glenn was there in casual clothes holding a large pizza box. She smiled.
“It’s free, right? It’s been over thirty minutes.”
“Yeah, this one’s on me, I called in a favor.” He opened the box and inside was a pizza shaped like a heart with ‘Sorry For Being Weird’ written on it in pepperoni. Abbie was practically beaming at the gesture. “Not trying to be cliche but life is short. I don’t usually eat our pizza, but I’ll make an exception if you eat it with me.”
She bit her lip and took the box. “One second…” She ran in and set the pizza down on her coffee table, then walked back outside and stood in front of him.
His brows knitted together. "What's happening?"
“I was really hoping you’d kiss me.”
His face lit up. “Really?”
“Glenn, you can’t just bring me a heart-shaped pizza and not kiss me. Especially since you’ve had a crush on me since the first time you saw me.”
“Heh, was it that obvious?”
“Yeah, you’re an open book,” she told him. “You’re also adorable.”
He started leaning in slowly, a little nervously. “You’re so beautiful...”
She rolled her eyes. “C’mon, Glenn...”
She stood up on her toes and kissed him first. He quickly calmed his nerves and held her waist, pulling her closer. She could feel him smiling against her lips, and the smile stayed when she pulled away from him.
“Was that so hard?”
He shook his head. “Not at all.”
She turned and walked inside. “You should come in before the pizza gets cold. Unless you have somewhere better to be..."
Glenn was so happy that he had all the time in the world, and there was nowhere he'd rather be.