Arrest Me (Mature ZM)

Chapter 18

The next morning I woke up to Zayn shaking me awake. I groaned and opened my eyes.  “F.uck off.” I sighed and rolled over. It felt like I had barely gotten any sleep.

“C’mon. You have to get up, your surprise is going to start,” He said. I rolled over to face him and slowly sat up. I was still extremely tired.

I got out of bed and Zayn handed me granola bar. I ate it as I dressed in jeans and one of Zayn’s shirts. I lazily walked to his car. I climbed into the passenger side of the car and let the heat of the car envelope me until I fell asleep.

“Ava…” I heard Zayn say sweetly. I opened my eyes and we were sitting in his car that was parked in a parking lot. I had no clue where we were. I looked around and it gave me no hint.

“What time is it?”

“Almost 11,” He smiled and kissed my lips sweetly. He handed me a piece of gum and I chewed it to get the bad breath taste out of my mouth.

“Are you going to tell me where we are?” I sighed.

“A homeless shelter,” Zayn said and got out of the car. I gave him a confused look as I watched him walk to my side of the car.

“Why are we here?” I asked as he opened my door.

“It looks good on college,” He smiled and took my hand as we started walking inside the large building. The building was fully concrete and looked completely bland on the outside.  When we made it inside, Zayn and I walked into what seemed to be a kitchen. There were a bunch of other volunteers here that were bustling around the kitchen. The entire kitchen was full of stainless steel appliances and top of the art utensils.

“Zayn, it’s so good to see you!” One of the older women smiled and walked over to him. She had short red hair and glasses perched on her nose.

“I brought a friend,” He smiled at the woman.

“Nice to meet you, I’m Wilma.”

“I’m Ava,” I smiled and shook her hand. Wilma instructed us on what to do. We washed our hands and then put on aprons. “You look like an idiot.” I whispered to Zayn as we walked over to the potatoes. We had been assigned to peel potatoes for the dinner which would take place at 6.

“Well we’re wearing the same thing, so I guess that makes you an idiot as well,” Zayn smirked and kissed my cheek. I giggled and we both set to work on peeling a shit ton of potatoes. I was lucky that I didn’t slice my hand open like I had before when helping my mom a few years back.

I don’t think I had ever seen that many potatoes in my life. It took us an hour to peel them all and then we had to cut each one into small cubes so they would cook as fast as possible. Those took us another half an hour and by then both of our hands were all pruny.

The meal we were making for the over 100 homeless people was mashed potatoes, salad, spaghetti and meatballs, rolls, and a dessert of ice cream sundae. Zayn and I went over to the salad station and started cutting up vegetables that the people would use to make their own salads.

At 5, there were people lining up to get dinner already. Zayn and I worked faster at cutting red peppers, cucumbers, and avocados. When we were done, people took our vegetables outside to the salad bar. I went over and started working on checking the spaghetti sauce while Zayn started putting the hot rolls in their places. There was still so much to do and such little time left.

People were speaking in quick and quiet voices as they rushed around the kitchen. There were lots of clanks and clangs of pots being put in the sink. You had to watch where you were going because people were rushing everywhere.