Pleased to meet you... again

Five

The first week of school passed in the blink of an eye. It was already Thursday evening.

Xander was spending evenings at their desk reading up on sociology. The soccer was going to be the easy part. They'd already impressed the coach. It turned out it was better that they had not slept with Ainsley at the weekend because she was actually a complete bitch. Jonesy had already been sidelined by the captain, despite the blonde actually playing better soccer than she'd ever seen in a competitive game.

"Xan!"

"Yeah" they replied to Casey without leaving their desk.

"You any good with spiders?"

They could hear the stress in their flatmates' voice. "Yeah, just coming. Where is it?"

"In my room above the bed."

Xander strolled through barefoot in their shorts vest. Spotting Casey standing by the bathroom.

"Just like kill it."

"No." They spotted the tiny beastie, "is it okay to stand on your bed?"

"Yeah, whatever, just get it gone."

The brunette moved the floppy hair from their face as they balanced on the bed. They gently knocked the spider into their hand and put it out the window.

"Thank you."

"No worries" Xander smiled as they jumped down off the bed.

"You want tea? I'm going to make one."

"Yeah, maybe a wee caffeine hit will help."

"What are you doing anyway?"

"Learning about construct and domestication theory."

"Sounds riveting." Casey grinned.

"You?"

"Reading about the differences between civil and criminal action."

"Which is?"

"I don't know yet one costs more."

Both of the young women laugh.

Casey sets about making the tea and Xander leans over the breakfast bar and watches the blonde.

Casey is aware that the brunette's watching it doesn't phase her. In fact it felt good to be appreciated. "So what is domestic theory?"

"Well it's part of change really. So essentially it's when something happens which makes a thing imperative to life. So for example, the TV- things like the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth or the moon landings made people get a TV now it's an everyday thing. The pandemic caused loads of folks who weren't on line to get connected and meeting platforms like Teams and Zoom are now commonplace. In fact apps like messenger, WhatsApp and FaceTime are used in western society now to keep in contact with close contacts than the phone and now people are 80% more likely to use a cell than a home phone.

"It's that kind of thing so in regards to social policy it's about how we think about what the action and change maybe from the result of applying a policy. So Medicare instead of private health insurance."

"Right." The blonde smiled and handed them a cup. "You want to take a break for a bit."

"Yeah sure." They sat together on the sofa. "How's your first week going?"

"Yeah okay. Bit tougher than I thought. I thought maybe we'd have a fun get to know each other week but I have my first assignment due next Friday. You?" The blonde confessed.

"Same I've been pretty much trying to keep on top of things since Monday night. I've got to really study. I'm not one of those people where it just goes in."