you’re doing all the heavy lifting
title from here.
Riley does her laundry at one in the morning on Saturdays. She lives in the freshman-only dorm, and everyone is either out partying on Greek Row or studying or asleep in their rooms. There’s no risk of anyone grabbing her dry clothes and leaving them strewn around the laundry room because they couldn’t be bothered to use one of the empty ones.
She was better about it at home, but she doesn’t like people touching her stuff. Or her food. Or her.
(She’s working on it.)
One in the morning is quiet, and she likes the ritual of reading for class while she waits for her clothes to finish in the machines. She likes the process of separating her clothes into different piles to fold them, handling the fabric as it’s still soft and warm, making neat creases in her t-shirts and legging, making order out of chaos.
She’s never been disturbed before, but on one Saturday that’s no different from any other, the laundry room door opens behind her, and she startles hard. She twists around, heart slamming against her ribs and a yelp jumping through her teeth, and she finds Athelstan hesitating at the threshold with a laundry bag in his hands, eyes wary but gentle, and it flays her open. Other than her family, no one has looked at her and seen her like he sees her right now.
“Hey,” she says, and she surprises herself by laughing. “You scared the shit out of me.”
Athelstan chuckles, and maybe it’s not intentional, but she notices that he crosses the threshold only after the startle starts to fade from her gut. “Sorry. I didn’t think anyone else would be down here.”
She also notices he goes to the washing machine furthest from the door of the one right next to her that would put him between her and the door.
“It’s usually just me,” she says as she turns back to her folding. “The one time I did my laundry at a regular time, more than one person helped themselves to my detergent without asking, and I decided I was over it.”
He laughs, and her cheeks turn pink as butterflies surge in her stomach.
“Yeah, last time I did laundry, I lost a full box of dryer sheets, so I’m experimenting with a new routine.”
She hesitates. Then she clears her throat and looks over to him. “I usually do mine around this time most weeks. I’d be okay if you did, too. I promise not to steal your dryer sheets.”
Riley’s knees wobble when he smiles at her this time. It’s a revelation – he’s a revelation.
“I’d like that,” he says.
It becomes a routine.
But slowly, gently, the routine changes. They change. Her pink cheeks, the product of soft fluttering feelings, turn into a full-body flush, and she aches.
The ache, the restless heat under her skin, the excitement that hums through her brain when she sees him in the soft hours of the morning – at some point, it becomes unbearable.
One morning, in the throes of midterms, she is about to leave to grab something she had forgotten in her room when he comes in, and for whatever reason, neither of them say hi. There’s something about the way he looks at her. He steps back to let her pass, but she crosses into his space to move around him, their chests almost brushing.
When she comes back, he looks up, and he’s looking at her again, and words fail to form in her head, but suddenly, she’s completely certain about what she wants. She approaches him, and she almost loses her courage in the last few strides, and she hovers uncertainly when he’s just out of reach.
She doesn’t know what changes, but something in his posture shifts, and she’s as certain of her welcome as she is of what she wants.
She closes the distance between them, and she touches the back of his neck as she leans in to kiss him softly. He sighs, and her heart swells with the intensity of what she feels, and somehow, he ends up with his back against the wall, but his hands are so certain on her waist. It’s just a long kiss under stark fluorescent lights, but she aches when they finally part for breath. The pause doesn’t last for long because he aches for her, too, and he kisses her again just as desperately as she kisses him back.
(alternate title: i’ve been longing for daisies to push through the floor)
@the-captains-table @canspotatimeagent @secondchancesmagneto
