Work Text:
gabby didn't necessarily hate working the closing shift at sgt. peps. she just knew that the drive back to her apartment was longer than she'd like it to be and she had 8 am classes the next morning. so really, she hated her scheduling more than she hated her job.
she worked with most of her friends, so there were little complaints on that end. they were pretty nice, funny, overall just good people to be around. usually on weeknights, there wouldn't be a ton of delivery orders and few students made the drive to dine in, so they'd have fun chatting it up until it was time to close.
she was tight with her manager, so it's not like she was scheduled weekend night shifts. those were terrible, especially friday nights. there'd be a ton of delivery orders to the frats on campus and they would be swamped all night long.
she was wiping down tables when their delivery ipad chimed. all of her coworkers looked over at it like they had just been caught doing something illegal.
"not it!" paige immediately put a finger to her nose, and her other coworkers followed suit. gabby sighed as she walked over, printing the ticket.
"you guys are children, it's only one pizza." she said as she read the ticket.
Medium Pepperoni Pizza
Cheesy Crust
Special Requests: extra xtra pepperoni (load that shit up pls) + can u make them like rly rly crispy! also send ur cutest delivery driver, my friend needs to get laidlsndfnwkmdn
Delivering To: MJ
gabby raised her eyebrows at the special request. she let out a small laugh, showing the ticket to paige.
"oh, do i really have to deliver? it's so late," she complained. stewie, sarah, and their manager dt came over, reading the note, all laughing.
"you are not the cutest delivery driver we have," sarah deadpanned. paige side eyed her while gabby began making the pizza.
"oh then who is? azzi?" paige wanted to know, but sarah only held back a laugh.
"isn't it funny that's the first person that came to your mind?" paige shoved sarah playfully.
they kept bickering back and forth about who would deliver the pizza, but ultimately, dt just told gabby to deliver it because she lived the closest and they were closing anyways.
gabby had never delivered a pizza before, so knocking on the apartment door, she was nervous. after working at sgt. peps since her freshman year, this was probably something she should know.
"one pepperoni pizza for 'mj'?" she asked as someone opened the door.
"yeah, that's me. how much do i owe you?"
gabby was pleasantly surprised to see it wasn't a frat guy who used the initials mj, but a girl. her cheeks were flushed a bright pink and blonde hair pulled back into a tight, but messy bun. she was beautiful, and gabby was starstruck.
"um, hi? are you like, okay?" she waved her hand in front of gabby's face. gabby blinked. she didn't realize the girl had an accent too.
a very alluring one at that.
"oh, yeah. sorry. it's gonna be seven dollars." the blonde nodded, reaching for her wallet. gabby didn't know what to do. she didn't want to stand there awkwardly waiting for the girl to search for a five and two ones. so she filled the silence.
"sorry about your special request, we couldn't fulfill the last part. phee and jake are usually our competent delivery drivers but they left early, stewie and dt are in committed relationships, sarah can't drive, and we all agreed paige was too young to be finding dates through our delivery system."
i spoke too much.
the blonde stares at her in amusement, listening patiently as gabby unnecessarily explained why she was the one who showed up delivering a pizza at 10:35 at night. it wasn't like the girl knew she wasn't a typical delivery person. well, she probably could have guessed given the fact that gabby was an absolute train wreck right now.
"i only have a twenty," she pulled out a crisp bill. "keep the change." she exchanged the money for the pizza. gabby stared at the money longer than she'd like to admit. she almost didn't catch what the girl said before she closed her door.
"for what it's worth, i think you fulfilled the request perfectly."
gabby saw a ghost of a smirk before the door slammed in her face. it was safe to say gabby slept pretty well that night.
the next morning in her sport management class, she told phee about her shift the previous night.
"she tipped you thirteen dollars for a seven dollar pizza!? in this economy!?" phee asked a little too loudly. heads turned their way and they had to act like they were paying attention to their professor.
phee had a point. maybe gabby should start delivering. on top of a bigger share of the tips, she'd also get to meet cute girls.
when everyone stopped looking and the lecture continued in the background, gabby turned over again, whispering this time.
"that's not the point, she called me cute. and she was like, actually my type too."
"so, did you get her number?"
gabby shook her head, then she frowned.
where had all her game gone?
"the note said her friend needed to get laid, not her. if anything, she's probably already taken," gabby sighed.
"well, if she lives in the apartments, she's probably a student. maybe you'll see her around."
the advice that phee gives her and the advice that azura gives her are drastically different.
"you have her address, why don't you just, i don't know..."
she does know, that's the worst part. gabby knows azura likes to be dramatic for humorous effect. she knows that azura is about to say something diabolical.
"why don't you just show up at her door?"
and there it is.
"ooh, good idea," paige chimed in.
stewie is by the register, having just finished with a customer when she hears azura's suggestion.
"do not even think about doing that, it's borderline stalker behavior." she reprimanded the both of them.
gabby sighs. she was never going to, and she probably shouldn't have told azura the story anyways, but paige wanted to know and azura wasn’t working the previous night. so she explained it to both of them as she recalled her story. it wasn't that funny to gabby, but apparently it was to them. she had to pause numerous times to allow them to laugh their amusement out.
meanwhile, marine was in her five pm history class. she did not have much choice in the class, having to fulfill an elective requirement and her counselor had suggested taking this one. it was terrible, filled with freshman and way too late in the day, but marine didn’t want to get anything less than an A. it was easy, just tedious work.
“i can’t believe you didn’t get that delivery girl’s number jojo,” pauline sighed, doodling in her notebook. “i set you up and everything. you even said she was cute! i heard you.”
marine rolled her eyes. “you were drunk. i should have never let you near my phone in the first place.” she had to wrestle the phone out of her hands, but not before pauline had managed to press submit on the delivery request.
to be clear, she was also a bit tipsy the previous night; she would never have been so bold to say such things, but pauline wasn’t wrong. the delivery girl was cute, and marine definitely should have gotten her number.
it slipped her mind though, especially after her long explanation about fulfilling the request. marine was paying too much attention to the tattoos on her hand, and not enough attention on actually paying for the pizzas. totally unnecessary in marine’s opinion, because they knocked it out of the park with that specific request. with the other requests however, marine had opinions.
the pepperonis could have been crispier.
gabby doesn’t know how, but by the end of the week, apparently all of her coworkers know about her delivery to that mystery girl, and they’ve been overly nosy about it too.
kk is usually so talkative with the customers and the other people working in the front that she barely has time to talk to gabby when they do work together, but in the one hour overlap right before her shift ends and gabby arrives for her thursday night shift, she manages to ask a dozen questions about the aforementioned delivery.
she isn't casual about bringing it up either, directly saying that paige had texted her because she thought it was funny, but also complaining that the blonde wouldn't give her much details.
"did you get her number?" no, i did not.
"why didn't you get her number?" i forgot to get it.
"did you at least get her name?" no.
"what happened to you man?" shut up.
"brunette?" no.
"i thought brunettes were your type." they are not.
"so she was blonde?" yes.
"and she's a student here?" yeah, probably.
"was she hot?" that is none of your business.
"okay, so that's a yes." shut up.
"did you think she was into you?" she did call me cute. i think.
"what if she's taken already?" she probably is.
"that down bad, huh?" shut up.
"so if she makes the same request, can i deliver it instead?" most definitely not.
kk laughed, "man, you're no fun." gabby only shook her head as another order rang in. kk was fun to be around, but in small doses. she was fresh into college and gabby needed to be surrounded by adults her age or else she'd go crazy having to deal with her, jana, kelis and all of those kids for extended periods of time.
thankfully, kaitlyn comes in to her shift fifteen minutes early, and gabby is more than happy to let the younger girl clock out early and talk with kaitlyn instead.
unfortunately for her, kaitlyn also knows about her delivery, and instead of making fun of her failed attempt to get the girl's number, she makes fun of her attempt to deliver a pizza.
"i mean, it didn't exactly surprise me to hear that you failed to get the girl's number." kaitlyn leaned on the counter top with her hands crossed casually.
"what is that supposed to mean!?"
kaitlyn ignores her question to continue talking.
"i mean, all you had to do was give the girl her pizza, collect the money and leave. then i hear from azzi that you started yapping like paige does when she delivers."
gabby turned to her with an exasperated look on her face. she was going to ask how azzi knew, but the better question to ask would have been to ask who didn't know at this point.
the teasing lasts throughout the weekend, but gabby doesn't have many shifts then so she sees very few of them. she gets mentioned a couple of times in the group chat, but she's never paid that much attention to it before to start caring about it now. it evidently dies down when gabby doesn't engage with it. she hopes that it blows over now that a week has passed.
she's supposed to have another shift tonight, but she's passed it off to stef because she hasn't studied for a test that she should have definitely been studying for over the weekend. she's in her shared apartment with phee, laptop and books spread all over their dining room table as they're quizzing each other when a sharp knock to their door interrupts them.
gabby and phee stare at each other for half a second before phee sighs, getting up to see who it is.
"yo!" gabby hears who it is as soon as phee opens the door and her head hits the table in disbelief.
"we have a midterm tomorrow. eight am." phee deadpans, then checks her watch. "i thought you were working tonight anyways."
"i just made a delivery and you won't believe who it was to!" paige grins. she doesn't wait for phee or gabby's reply. "it was to your girl gabby," she singsongs. gabby should have known paige wouldn't have forgot about her disastrous attempt of delivering a pizza.
phee actually manages to smile and look back at gabby, who raises her head in intrigue.
"did she ask for the cute delivery girl again?" phee asks. gabby wants to smack her for entertaining paige's antics but is also curious herself.
maybe she should have worked tonight. getting a chance to see the mystery girl would be way better than sifting through books all night.
"yep! same request and everything. she actually looked disappointed when she saw me." paige leaned against their door frame. "i can't believe i had to apologize for not being you. i basically admitted i wasn't cute," she frowned. "which isn't true might i add-"
"anything else you want to add? we kind of have a lot to get through," gabby sarcastically motioned over to all of their books.
"oh yeah, i really only came over to tell you that i let her know when your next shifts are," paige winked. "you're welcome for that."
gabby buried her hands in her face. it was way too late for this; she hadn't mentally prepared herself to deal with paige today.
"thanks for the assist paige, gabby appreciates it greatly." phee smiled sarcastically, hand on the door.
"anytime!" paige laughed as the door slammed in her face.
alexia takes the pizza from marine's hand as soon as she closes the door, opening the box before she even reaches the couch.
"did you ask for extra pepperoni?" she asks, examining the pizza.
"yeah, i always do." marine replied, putting her wallet away.
"are they extra crispy?" janelle asks perking up from her phone.
"they better be," marine mumbled to herself.
"so that wasn't the cute delivery driver?" dom asks as she takes a slice of pizza from the box.
"no, you could see jojo's face fall when she opened the door," pauline laughed.
marine should have never agreed to let dom order the pizza. pauline was always going to get her hands on her phone one way or another.
"why must we always order on my phone?"
"because," pauline shrugged. "it's fun." so essentially, no particular reason whatsoever.
marine shook her head. she needed to hang around less with her french buddies and more with her other friends.
gabby stays up until two am that morning, studying until she finally felt like she learned the material. she wakes up an hour before her 8 am only because phee is burning something in the kitchen. phee claims that she should be thanked for waking her up.
"you slept through four alarms already. i had to do something drastic."
it's a chaotic morning.
somehow, some way, she feels good as she leaves the lecture hall. despite her lack of sleep and last minute studying, she feels better about her midterm than phee does as they leave together to go to the student union.
paige is waiting for them outside, talking with azzi and kk.
"we want mac and cheese, and you owe us extra swipes for interrupting our study sesh last night," phee says in lieu of greeting paige properly. gabby waves hello to the both of them, while staring at paige with mock offense.
paige waves them off, but ultimately swipes them in. the five of them engage in easy conversation as they eat, when something blonde catches gabby's eyes, behind the three underclassmen. paige is chatting phee's ear off, but azzi notices her trailing eyes and follows her line of sight.
"is that the mystery girl?" she interrupts paige mid-story. if it were anyone else, paige would have immediately called it out, but instead, she's craning her neck to look at what gabby and azzi are looking at now.
once she finally sees who gabby has her eyes set on, she starts laughing, which leads kk and phee to also look over.
"yeah, i think that's her," gabby replies after a long pause.
kk whistled, "she is hot!" gabby glared at her briefly.
"kk, what is wrong with you?" azzi asked monotonously. kk had the audacity to look offended.
"isn't that one of stewie's friends?" phee asks. gabby turned curiously to her roommate.
"you're saying stewie knows who that is?"
phee nodded, then explained that she recalled seeing the blonde somewhere before, most likely at stewie's apartment a few weeks ago.
"i think they're on the same course, childcare development or something like that. i forgot her name though."
gabby fought the urge to roll her eyes. she was so close, yet so far. if only she had got her number the first time she saw her.
the next shift she has with stewie is the next night. before she can even bring up the mystery girl, paige beats her to it, shoving her phone in the older girl's face.
"do you know who this is?"
leaning back instinctively, stewie takes paige's phone from her, squinting her eyes as she examines the photo. gabby is about to ask why paige even took a photo of her, but stewie replies before she gets the chance to.
"your camera quality is horrible." she states calmly. but she hands the phone back to paige with a simple nod, "yeah, that's marine. we've been friends for a while. why?"
gabby blinks. so that was her name. marine.
"she's gabby's delivery recipient." paige pockets her phone.
"oh. the one she has a crush on?" stewie asks as she folds another box.
"yep," paige pops the p at the end.
gabby looks between the two of them defeatedly. everyone seemed to be out to get her recently, but she couldn't even argue back because they were right. she then asks stewie if she's single, to which the taller girl nods.
"yeah, you're probably her type as well now that i think about it." she offers casually. stewie then goes on to say that if she had known marine was the mystery girl, she would have just told gabby to go for it from the beginning because by her words, it was pretty obvious when marine was into somebody, "marine will find anything they do funny. she starts laughing at anything they're saying, even if it's stupid."
"oh! so like most of your jokes gabby!" paige offers helpfully.
gabby flips the bird at her.
it's a little busier than normal. it's midterm season so everyone is ordering delivery instead of going out and eating. sgt. peps was known to be the good fuel food on their campus, so the kitchen's crowded and the front of house is chaotic, trying to organize different orders and send out delivery drivers with the correct boxes.
nika is fun to work with. whenever she's without paige, she's pretty normal. gabby likes working with her when she's without paige. but the twin telepathy thing that the two of them have sometimes freaks gabby out, so she's happy nika is usually working in the front and paige has been out all shift doing deliveries.
miraculously though, the one ten minute break in deliveries during their shared shift is when a specific delivery order comes in. nika reads the ticket aloud because she has to; there's so many orders that gabby, kiah and katie have been swamped and unable to really take their time and read each order, relying on mostly memory.
she gets to a particular line in the special requests part of the order that absolutely does not have to be read aloud, but she reads it anyways just to poke fun at paige.
Large Pepperoni Pizza
Special Requests: Could you add extra pepperoni and make sure they are extra crispy? Thank you.
heyyyy send your cutest delivery driver pls, don't send the blonde again (sorry you seemed pretty nice, my friend just wants the girl with the tattoos :) thx!
Delivering To: MJ
"they asked us to not send you again!" she points at paige who's sitting in the corner, and starts laughing at her. they start having their own conversation/argument thing that gabby still can't understand to this day. one minute they're laughing at the other and the other minute they're hurling insults which are then quickly forgiven. usually she'd be annoyed with it and ask stewie to tell them to cut it out because they were swamped and could probably use nika's help in the back, but her mind is still catching up to the fact that marine had asked for her specifically.
before paige goes out for her next delivery, she gives gabby a few words of wisdom.
"just don't fumble it this time."
gabby rolled her eyes playfully, but thanked paige nonetheless.
marine was usually never this nervous. she had great people skills, so accepting a delivery order was usually never a problem.
however, she let janelle and pauline order for her, which was a mistake. she knew it was as soon as she saw janelle giggling over pauline's shoulder as they were typing on her phone.
janelle is in the middle of defending her actions when a sharp knock on her door interrupts her. everyone in the room freezes, but pauline begins to shove marine towards the door.
"don't say i never did anything for you jojo!" she looks through the peep hole and opens the door; staying behind it as marine is face to face with the cute delivery driver.
she's glad to see it's not the blonde again. pauline would be thanked for that eventually.
"hey!" marine says as the girl smiles at her.
"hey pretty girl, i never got your name the first time around."
marine stares for a few seconds, then tells the delivery girl her name. she wasn't expecting her to be so confident, especially after she had been so adorably nervous the last time she delivered her pizza.
"that's a pretty name. it suits you." she pauses with a smile growing on her face. "you know marine, if you wanted to see me again, you could just text me instead of ordering through our pizza delivery system."
marine can hear her friends snicker in the background, and pauline stifle a laugh behind the door. if it didn't look so out of place, marine would have slammed the door back to teach her a lesson.
"it's really good pizza?" marine offers with a weak laugh. the girl laughs, pulling the pizza out of its carrier. marine begins to pull out her wallet, but the girl shoves the box into her hands.
"it's okay, just promise you'll text me?" she asks. marine blinks at her, but nods. the girl's smile widens as she steps back.
they kind of just stare at each other for a while. marine doesn't know what to say, the girl is just standing there grinning.
"great, then i'll talk to you soon marine." she waves goodbye, practically skipping away. marine laughs as she sees her retreat, but when she closes her door, she realizes that she didn't get the girl's name or her number.
damn it.
"now that you're done eye fucking each other, can i finally get some pizza?" alexia takes the box out of marine's hand.
"we were not doing that." marine replies after swallowing her disappointment.
leila opens the box, then starts laughing. all of marine's friends crowd around the box, giggling at it as they take pictures.
"what?" marine asks, walking over.
dom flips the box over, showing the inside to marine. in bold black lettering are a set of digits written in scrawny handwriting.
TEXT ME - gabby (cutest delivery driver/the girl with the tattoos)