Chapter 29: Chapter 29

"Isn't it not so hard now?" I try to hide and get away from him because he makes fun of me. He has him bent over at the waist and is still tickling him nonstop, so I wait for the right moment to nudge his leg with my foot, which throws him off balance. It wasn't a very big bathroom. It only had a toilet, a small sink, a washer and dryer, and nothing else. Kent was taller than six feet, and his wet clothes were still in this room in a basket.

He lands hard next to me, and the two of us take up the rest of the floor space. As I try to catch my breath, my chest is heaving, and he laughs in a short, wheezing way.

"Julia, that was a cheap shot." When he tells me, I laugh.

"Don't you dare tickle me!" I tap him on the shoulder and ask. "Asshole."

"You must have laughed, right?" When he gives me an answer, I turn my head to the side to look at him. When he looks back at me, my throat gets tight and I take a deep breath.

"Um, Julianna?" I immediately wake up when I hear Chase's voice in the dining room. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah!" When I call him back, Kent gets himself back up and off the floor. "Didn't hurt you, did I?" I ask him, and he laughs and offers to help me stand up. I think so because I find it odd that he would do something so nice.

"Oh, honey, just my pride." He talks back, and as he pulls me back up, sparks fly through my chest. While he held my hand for a second, I stood there and wondered why he kept calling me that. What did it all mean? I didn't think that was something that people often said.

I don't know why, but he won't let go of his hand. Nothing in my mind tells me to get rid of mine. I could hear my heart beating in my ears as his eyes got darker.

"I should-"

"Yeah." He clears his throat before he speaks. We quickly took our hands off each other. I drew mine back and wiped it on my pants. "Oh, well, I guess I'll have to wash this again." As he looks at his basket, he murmurs something, and I nod.

"I'll come back to get my laundry when it's done."

"Cool." He says this while he scratches the back of his neck and clears his throat.

"Please just let it dry. I know it was rude of you to ruin your laundry, but please don't do anything to mine." When I tell him, he just nods and quietly opens the washer.

As he puts clothes in the washer, he says quietly, "I won't touch it."

I clear my throat and walk out of the bathroom, which feels weird. There didn't seem to be any reason for how bad it was.

I just shake it off and go back to the table, where I sit back in my chair and feel my cheeks turning red.

"Is everything okay?" Chase asks, and he sounds too worried, so I nod at him.

"Yeah, things are going well." I tell him without thinking about it. "It was just a fight over the laundry, but it's over now."

"That sounds strange, are you sure everything is fine?"

"Yes, it did happen while you were here. I apologize." I shrug my shoulders and open my essay again. "How's your paper coming along?" I ask, trying to get the strange thing that happened in the bathroom out of my head. Kent and I had never been that close, and putting us in the smallest room in the apartment was too strange to be comfortable.

"I'm not doing an essay." I close my eyes when he laughs.

"Okay, I'm sorry." He gives me a shrug when I mumble and shake my head. "Written thoughts."

"I understand you." He gives me a smile and turns his computer around to show me the reading he was annotating.

After a few hours, Chase had finished his class reading, and I had finished my essay. He was good to study with, but I didn't think we had much in common or much to talk about, so we didn't hang out much outside of school. But he was nice, friendly, and not a bad friend at all.

"Are you coming on Tuesday?" As he gets his things together and puts on his coat, he asks.

"I believe so." As I turn off my computer and take off my blue-light glasses, I tell him this. "What's next?"

"For sure." He gives me a smile and picks up his bag. "Would you like a cup of coffee before we start?" I blink and feel confused when he asks. Was he trying to set up a date? "You know, just before the study group? Meet up like five minutes before?"

"Sure." I give a small shrug and try to ignore the voice in my head that tells me otherwise. I knew I could take care of it because he was a friend. "Message me."

"Cool, Julianna," he said. As he opens my door and waves, he tells me this. I smile and wave back.

I get my things and walk back to my room, leaving the pile on my desk and going to my basket of clean clothes. I got it when the dryer went off, but I just threw it in here until I could fold it properly.

I put on some quiet music and start folding the clothes, putting them in piles as I go. I felt good after I finished that essay, and I wanted to keep feeling good for as long as I could.

The doorbell rings just as I finish putting my socks on, and when I turn around, Kent is standing in the doorframe.

I say "Hello" softly and put my hands down by my sides.

I hope this doesn't make him too mad at me. I don't want what I did to his clothes to start a war of jokes. I think he looks red and maybe a little embarrassed, and my eyebrows go up.

"How do you feel?"

"Oh no, you left these in the dryer." When he walks into my room, he says quietly and opens his hand to show me one of my thongs hanging from his fingers. "Their clothes got mixed up with mine." When he mumbles, my cheeks get hot.

This wasn't the type of underwear you wear every day. When I bought underwear like this, my mom used to make fun of me. The kind that were so fancy and fragile that I couldn't wash them with my regular clothes or dry them in a dryer. But who has time for that?

I take the black lace underwear from his hand and clear my throat. "T-thanks." As I mumble, we both turn away. "I can't always get to the back of the dryer because it's so high."

"I like that." He shrugs at me, and I nod and look down at my feet.

"Not all of my underwear looks like that."

"Stop." When he says this with his hands up, I immediately stop. I shouldn't have said that in the first place, and thank God he was smarter than me. "It doesn't matter much. Just give back what you took."

"I really appreciate it." Before I put them on my bed, I mumble and clear my throat. I never tried to fold them because I couldn't.

"Are you coming out with us tonight?" After he clears his throat, he asks, and I nod.

He said, "That was my plan." I shrug. I can't believe this guy just gave me my underwear. Julianna, what are you doing? I could have paid a little more attention to the dryer, couldn't I?

"I guess that means we'll have to meet up."

He said, "I guess so." I nod, and my cheeks are starting to get very hot. Why do I always feel so ashamed?

As he walks out of my room and back to his, he gives me a half smile and a nod. He closes his door, and I groan and lie face down next to my laundry. That was just awful. I can't think of anything worse than having something personal held by someone you don't like.

I hope tonight doesn't turn out to be too awkward, because doing all this laundry really ruined my day.

I think about how he helped me get up from the bathroom floor and how my hand felt in his. His hand was so much bigger. What the heck had happened?

Nothing. I should try to forget about all of this and just shrug it off. I already have too much to think about, so I can't let Kent take over my thoughts.