Read The Delivery for Free Online Page A

got here at seven. Pedro and Amir let me in. I already finished restocking the creative spaces.”
    I nod my head at him as I turn on the lights and hang up my jacket.
    “You could wear the jade piece if you’d like it, Lana. It matches your eyes.”
    I look at him and feel weak at his offer and his sincerity.
    “What did you need to see me about?” He looks surprised because I don’t acknowledge his offer. There are a million papers on my desk to look at so there’s no need to make eye contact with him.
    “I brought you a painting like I said I would. It’s a new one. I did this especially for you.”
    I stand behind my desk and blankly stare at him. No one’s ever made me any art before. I’m so touched I can’t move. I can’t act normal. I can’t even breathe with him in here. It makes me want to cry that he’s made something with me in mind.
    “Let’s see it,” I say, my face revealing nothing. I try to quickly reference how my parents reacted when I was a kid and my brother or I made them art. That would be the correct response here, to meet it with pride and approval. Not throw my arms around his neck and kiss him passionately like I want to.
    He tears away the brown wrapping with emotion I can’t define as either anger or excitement. I hand him scissors, and he cuts the string and the paper falls away.
    “It’s a—I don’t know how you call them in English. We call them Tunas like the fish, but it’s actually a fruit.”
    I wonder who we is. Is Mozey an orphan, or is he part of a large Mexican family?
    “Prickly Pear,” I say and the words feel sticky on my tongue. I’m fighting with all I am to hold the emotions at bay. There’s pressure in my face, from the weight of tears building, eager for release. “It’s beautiful,” I say and sniff to keep my nose from running.
    “Yeah?” Mozey says, his face blossoming with light. “The skin is thick and is covered in cactus spikes. You have to be careful and wear special gloves when you pick them, but even then sometimes you get stuck and those things fucking hurt and make you seriously bleed.”
    The painting is a cactus in the desert, the sky is heavy with impending rain. The plant is in full bloom offering multiple prickly pears. The pears range from green like the color of their mother ship to a shockingly bright pinky-purple like the one in the forefront. If I look closely they look as if they’re covered in long silver hairs that glint off of the sun. But those are the spikes—the ones that draw blood. It’s stunning and simple and already means so much to me.
    “Is it done in spray paint?”
    “Yeah. Almost always, sometimes I do detail in oil. But I’m most used to the can.”
    “Are you sure you want me to have it?” No one has ever painted me a real painting before.
    “Are you kidding? I made it for you.”
    “Is it supposed to be me?” This is his idea of a metaphor for Doc Finch, his prickly pear social worker.
    “What? Naw! It’s my favorite fruit. Look, I brought some for you to try,” he says, opening his backpack. He pulls out a plastic bag containing eight or so tunas.
    He disappears into Janey’s office, and I hear him rummaging through the silverware that sits in a mug by the microwave and coffee filters.
    He comes back into the room with a plastic knife, paper towels and a smile on his face. He chops off both ends of the fruit and tosses them in the garbage. Then he presses the knife in to make one long cut along the side. The skin is indeed thick and the juice runs down his hand. He brings his hand up and licks the drip from his wrist. Is it just me or is Mozey always licking things?
    He unwraps the skin from the fruit, which is an almost transparent green. He hands it to me, and it’s wet, cold and dripping everywhere.
    “Just take a bite?”
    “Actually, no. You can bite it but you can’t bite down all the way. Here, let me show you.”
    He grabs the fruit back and takes a large bite, but he doesn’t