Winter Air [H.S.]

Forty-Two

Jax shot Ava a large smile and handed her a bag. Inside sat a large coffee and an apple fritter. "You know me too well." She smiled and took the contents out. Once her lips touched the cup, the warm liquid poured down her throat. She hummed a happy sigh in response. 

"Now, how are your internship activities going? Learning lots?" Stevie rolled her eyes and huffed. 

"This assignment is bullshit. There are hundreds of papers that we have to go through for research. It's stupid." She ran a frustrated hand through her dark brown hair. 

"Babe, you're an intern. Don't expect anything glamours." He laughed. "I also came in to inform you beautiful ladies that Rob wants to see you both in his office in five minutes."

They walked to his office in silence. Ava and Stevie stepped in and were met with a pair of bright eyes and a kind smile. "Stevie and Ava! Perfect. Come on in ladies." He had two chairs that sat in front of his desk. They took a seat and waited to hear what he had to say. "You both have been showing me amazing work this past week. I understand that the project is tedious but it will be worth it. I need you both to stay for a few hours after and put together a newspaper draft with the ideas that you have been putting together this past week. Basically, it'll be a rough draft of the changes you think we should make to the paper for our 30th Anniversary edition."

"It will take more than a few hours to put it together." Ava explained.

"I am not working throughout the night."  Stevie exclaimed. 

"I understand that it's a lot to ask for especially for last minute. Trust me, we weren't planning on needing this tomorrow. But, the main guys at the New York office are coming in tomorrow and want to see it." 

"Fuck." Stevie whispered under her breath. Luckily, Rob didn't hear her. "Fine." 

"Ok." Ava agreed. 

"Thank you girls. We will provide you with dinner since we are asking you to do this on your own time." 

"I appreciate that." Ava smiled. 

-

Take out boxes of Chinese food were laid out across Ava's desk. She was munching on her plate of chicken fried rice and looking through the notes she wrote out for the Sports edition. Suddenly, Stevie let out an annoyed yell. "Fuck it, Ava! Can you quit chewing so loud?" 

"Okay that's it!" Ava turned around quickly so that she was facing Stevie. She was frustrated. It was evident in her eyes. She had enough of her bad attitude towards her. She hadn't done anything to her and was done with it. "I don't get what your problem with me is."

"I don't like to work with people. Especially girls who don't have to work hard for internships."

"What?"

"I know that you aren't even a full time student. I know that they basically gave you this internship on a silver platter. And honestly, that's bullshit. I bet your mommy and daddy paid them to take you on."

Tears began to rim her hazel eyes. She had never once felt so low. The mention of her parents only brought the pain that she had been working on resurface. "My parents are dead." She whispered. 

"What?" 

"My parents," She spoke louder. "They're dead." 

Stevie's eyes widened at the news. "Oh. Shit, I'm sorry." 

"Whatever." Ava wiped the tears away and began to write down some more notes. Stevie walked over to where she was sitting. She grabbed her chair and slid it across from Ava.