Chapter Text
Lucy is halfway through rage-cleaning her apartment-- specifically, the underside of her kitchen table-- when the doorbell buzzes. She pauses, blowing a lock of hair out of her face, and glares at it until it buzzes again.
Grumbling a curse under her breath, she dodges the piles of laundry and cleaning supplies scattered across the floor between her and the door and hits the intercom button just as the buzzer goes a third time.
“What?”
“Got a delivery.”
“I didn’t order anything.”
“Lucy Lane, apartment 612?”
“What-- I mean, that’s me, but--”
“Apparently somebody likes you,” the disembodied voice says. “You wanna let me in?”
Lucy groans, dropping her forehead into the wall beside the buzzer and cursing the disaster that is her apartment. After a moment, she hits the button to buzz in the delivery person.
Two minutes later, by the time there’s a knock on the door, she’s out of breath from having shoved all of the messy piles into the bedroom and tidied the coffee table. She stops, pushes her hair out of her eyes, and takes a slow breath before opening the door.
“Are you Lucy?”
Oh, no, the delivery girl is hot.
“Yeah, I-- that’s me,” Lucy says. She glances down to the patch sewn onto the dark polo shirt. The delivery girl is really hot, all short tousled dark hair and sharp jawline and sharper collarbones visible in the neckline of her shirt, and Lucy clears her throat. “Alex.”
“Here you go.” Alex offers her a white cardboard box.
“What in the actual hell,” Lucy mutters. She opens the top and looks in at the edible arrangement sitting inside, a card reading I’m sorry. Love, Dad propped in the plastic. “Oh.”
She settles the box on the table by the door carefully and looks back up to where Alex is scribbling something on the receipt pad she’s produced from her bag. The muscles in her arm flex and release as she writes, shifting under brightly colored tattoos, and Lucy digs her hands into her own thigh. Alex offers the receipt pad to her.
“Signature, please.”
“Oh,” Lucy says. “Right.” She takes the pad and props it against the wall to sign, taking in the neat penmanship and the blocky 10:14 PM inked in the time slot. “Isn’t it a little late for a messenger service?”
Alex shrugs. “We work 24 hours, and I took the late shift.”
“Right,” Lucy says again. “Do you want some fruit?”
“What?” It’s the first real expression Alex has offered, brow creasing in question, and Lucy shrugs and points at the box with her pen.
“Apology fruit bouquet, and I don’t like pineapple. If you’re gonna be driving around all night, might as well have something to snack on.”
“Biking,” Alex says, accepting her receipt pad back and tearing Lucy’s copy off for her. “So who screwed up?”
“What?”
Alex raises an eyebrow and points at the box. “Apology bouquet?”
“Oh,” Lucy says. She huffs out a sigh. “Just my dad. He’s being-- well. My dad.” She flips the lid open and offers it to Alex, who extracts a plastic spear with a large chunk of pineapple on it.
“Thanks for the fruit, Lucy Lane,” Alex says, saluting her with the pineapple and heading back to the elevator. Lucy mumbles out a goodbye and cranes her head out the doorway, watching Alex walk away and the way her calves flex with each step-- bike messenger indeed.
Alex glances back as she hits the button on the elevator, and Lucy jerks back inside and slams the door shut, but not before she hears an amused “Real subtle,” from Alex.
“Dammit,” Lucy mumbles into the heavy wood of her door.
The second time it happens, it’s a delivery of three pounds of coffee beans from her sister, and Alex unabashedly looks Lucy-- just home from a run and having sweated through her t-shirt and the running tights that cling to her legs and, fortunately, make her ass look amazing-- up and down with a slow smile.
There’s no real conversation, but Alex winks gratuitously when Lucy offers the signed receipt back to her and lets her fingers slide over Lucy’s as she accepts the paper.
“Have a good one, Lucy Lane,” Alex says, and Lucy doesn’t even pretend that she isn’t watching Alex walk away.