Page 20 of The Drop

“Sweetie, I love you, but come on, this is excessive.” She looks at me pityingly.

“Um, Cami, by the looks of this, it’s her whole life.” Grant scratches the back of his neck. “Maybe give her time to process.”

“Sure, sure, would you like to process next to those piles of boxes or maybe these piles?” she asks, motioning towards spaces that don’t exist between boxes. “The ones already in your room? Or hang on, just leave it here for the rest of the semester. We can use all the boxes as coffee tables.”

“I get it, thanks.” I gave her while looking around again. Puffing out my cheeks and letting the breath I was holding out, “I’m mentally not prepared for this.”

“Okay, game plan, you boys bring the furniture up and we will start going through boxes,” she instructs like the military sergeant she should have been. “There is a party at the basketball house tonight that I know we all want to go to, so we work together, and we aim to get as much done before we leave and then we drink off all this shittiness?”

“I don’t know why you posed that as a question.” Adam shakes his head. “That’s the only plan you will accept.”

“I’m sorry, Adam, that didn’t sound like a yes, ma’am,” she shouts at him while he moves towards the door.

“Yes, Cami, ma’am.” He mock salutes to her as he walks out the door, giving her the finger as he goes, and I laugh.

“He’s getting too big for his boots recently,” she mutters as the other guys make some more space for the furniture and head to the door. I hear Grant mutter, “You notice neither of them carried more than the first box they brought up.”

“What was that?” I shout at his back, placing my hands on my hips.

“Nothing,” he shouts back, rushing out the door and down the stairs to the moving truck.

“Hey, that is fun.” I laugh at Cami.

“Right?!” I hear Cami say as she opens the fridge, coming back with hard seltzers and a roll of trash bags. “Okay, keep stuff, stay out, donate goes back in boxes, and throw away in bags.” She drops down next to me, crossing her legs, and we both crack open the seltzer and cheer.

“Let’s do this,” I say.

“Let’s quit doing this now.” I sigh with exhaustion. I’m lying on my back; we are two hours in, and the boys have rearranged my bedroom and their living room to accommodate as much of my stuff as possible. They are currently all spread around the room where they’ve found space.

“You’re doing so well,” Cami encourages, holding up another item of clothing. “Sports sweater. Keep or donate?”

“Ew, that’s Josh’s, burn it,” I say, scrunching my face up, sitting up and chugging my seltzer, I stand to grab another. Gunnar extends his can as a signal for a refill, and I grab it as I walk past him and his pile of schoolwork from the age of six that he’s dutifully putting through the shredder.

“Woah, hold on, that’s a vintage Knicks sweatshirt.” Adam pipes up as I walk back over. “Lemme see it.”

Cami throws it over to him as Grant holds up his phone, showing us all a screen of the same sweatshirt on eBay.

“That sweater is going for like two hundred bucks online,” he states while turning it back to himself, and I lean over his shoulder from the back of the couch to get a better look.

“What? I used to sleep in that.” I snort, shaking my head. “That’s crazy.”

“That’s a hot image.” He turns his head to the side and whispers into my ear, making me shiver. I suddenly realise how close we are to one another, and I blink back, surprised by the flirty comment.

“That image isn’t for you.” I stick my tongue out childishly, not knowing how else to respond since I'm so thrown off by it

Walking around the couch to sit in front of it, crossing my legs and cracking my new seltzer open. He moves his legs to spread out on either side of me, and I hear him whisper, “trouble” to himself, and I can’t help but smile to myself.

“Can I have it?” Adam asks with puppy eyes, dragging me back into the conversation, he’s clutching it to his chest like a child. “Please”

“Um, sure.” I don’t want it back. As memories of Josh and me lounging around mine and his old dorm rooms fill my brain, I say without hesitation, “Keep it.”

“Hot image replaced by Adam sleeping in it.” Grant leans down to whisper again, and my breathing hitches slightly.

Subtly looking around the room, but no one’s paying attention to us, so I turn and stare up at him and give him my best innocent eyes before saying. “I mean, whatever you’re into.” Giving him a wink.

He scrunches his face in disgust, and I giggle, turning back to look at the boxes. We’ve made a decent dent in it, for now; the donation piles are full of clothes. Who knew I was such a hoarder? “Can we please just go to the party now?” I beg, not wanting to lose my buzz, and I'm sick of digging through my childhood and relationship.

“Great work so far, team. Let's step back, hydrate, reset, we'll hit it again fresh.” Grant puts on his captain’s voice

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