Page 55 of The Pocket Pair

Back to the movie studio thing—I heard they’re going to start filming before they’ve fully moved the offices out here. Someone please post if you hear about a casting call!

CHAPTER 17

Val

The distance can’t be more than ten feet. A few hops, a skip, and a jump. Five seconds there, five back.

Okay, I’m a horrible estimator. But it can’t be more than twenty feet from my bedroom door to the laundry room. Just down the short hall, through the kitchen, and bam! Laundry room.

It’s not like you’re naked, I tell myself, though the tank top and boy shorts underwear I’ve got on are pretty dang close. And socks! Let’s not forget my fuzzy, knee-high socks. These are the only clean clothes I have after I dumped everything else in the wash.

Which was before Chevy came home.

I don’t know his schedule, but had I known he’d be home so soon, I wouldn’t have thrown basically all my clothes in the wash at once, leaving me in only this. How long are his shifts? He left after breakfast, but now it’s only three. Shouldn’t he still be at work?

His door is shut when I peek into the hallway. No movement underneath that I can see. No sound.

Maybe he’s taking a nap break, and that’s why he’s in his room. Twenty feet—I can make it there and back. Then, I remember Chevy said he had a few clothes in my room. I yank open a dresser drawer, finding a row of neatly folded T-shirts. Who folds T-shirts? And is there an online course in folding that Chevy took? Or did he have a college job working at the GAP? Either way, the man knows how to fold clothes with military precision.

Plucking a big blue T-shirt from the drawer, I pull it over my head. It lands a little above mid-thigh but covers up my undies. It also smells heavenly and is really, really soft.

And it’s Chevy’s. Which makes me feel all kinds of things I shouldn’t be feeling.

Focus! Laundry! Before Chevy comes back out of his room!

Before I can rethink it, I open my door all the way and sprint for the laundry room. Chevy’s door is still shut when I make it in there. I toss all my clothes from the dryer into my basket as quickly as I can.

I’m feeling totally BOSS as I start running for my room again, which is a little awkward with the heavy basket. Twenty feet—a little slower now that I’m hefting this basket. Nineteen. Eighteen.

Seventee—

Chevy’s door opens. I try to stop running and turn back. And, like a cartoon character, my socked feet slide and shimmy on the hardwoods and then—oh no, oh NO—they fly out from under me.

The basket goes up. I go down. Right on my butt, which thankfully, was built to withstand just such an impact. Then flat on my back.

Just before the basket rains laundry down all over me.

I’ve braced myself to be hit right in the face by the basket, but a big hand knocks it away before it hits me. I watch him with one eye from between a pair of jeans and another pair of boy shorts. Which are on my face.

Chevy chuckles. “Are you under there somewhere, Tiny?”

“Yep. I’m here.”

Totally buried under the weight of so much cotton and humiliation.

“Can I help?” he asks, and then I feel him starting to pull clothes off of me.

“No!” I shout, sitting up and grabbing his hand before he reveals more of me than he means to. Or touches any of my underwear.

“Are you wearing my shirt?” he asks, and I nod slowly as he reaches out, running a thumb over the collar.

“I borrowed it from your dresser,” I whisper, trying not to react to the brush of his thumb at the base of my throat. “Hope you don’t mind.”

His eyes flash with something like … appreciation. Perhaps approval. Desire?

Don’t fall for it! I tell myself. Remember the whiplash feeling whenever he calls you friend or roommate or compares you to his sister!

But it’s too late. The avalanche and I are one, tumbling down the steep slope together, picking up speed and accumulating mass as we go.

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