R U S S O 18+

R U S S O 13

R U S S O 13

Anastasia stood at the door with her tote bag on her shoulder, tapping her foot.

Her body language spoke of an attitude. Her face did as well, and Mateo saw the signs clearly when he opened his front door. If her hand on her hip wasn't enough for him to catch the hint, then her next move would.

Anastasia tosses his hoodie at him and says, "here," watching him catch it before it could hit his face. She kissed her teeth.

"Don't toss nothing at me," he grinned, paying attention to her as she walked past him. As she avoided looking at him, he remarked, "you're lucky I'm letting you in my house."

"Whatever, Mateo," she said, making her way to his bedroom.

He watched her walk with her hips swaying, trailing behind her like a hypnotized dog, "most people would keep a guy's hoodie."

"Why would I want to keep your hoodie?" she asks with a twisted face, even though he can't see her expression.

She had this nonchalant thing going on, but in reality, Anastasia wanted to keep it.

She only brought it to toss it in his face. Literally. Anastasia thought of doing it all day today. But when she wasn't plotting to hit him in the face with the hoodie, she inhaled his scent. The cologne he wore made an appearance in her tote bag that she carried it around in, and every time she pulled a notebook out, she got a whiff of the sweet fragrance.

It felt like she was back in the same room with him.

Last night, she didn't take off the hoodie when she got inside her apartment. She walked around in it, getting comfortable as she pulled out her laptop and did some homework. This could've been the start of her stealing his hoodies, but she wanted to be petty instead, and yet, her plan didn't work out.

She should've known he'd catch it. He's a wide receiver; of course he would.

"You're still upset with me?" Mateo asks as he enters his room, seeing her claim his chair.

"Not at all," she says.

"I think you are," Mateo goes on to refresh her memory, "it's so unfair that I can't make a friend, but you can still mess with whoever you want. Those were your exact words. What made you say that?"

Anastasia tucks her hair behind her ear and says, "because...."

Mateo sets his hoodie down onto his bed before claiming the other seat beside her, "because what?"

"You know what?" she sighs. "It's not important," she says, hoping to dismiss it. She didn't want to admit she saw him with that girl, possibly watching him smirk that she got jealous like he did with Cole.

Mateo still grinned anyway, moving side to side in the chair as it moved smoothly, "you sure? We could talk about it."

"No, we don't. You don't owe me anything," Anastasia sighs, pulling out her math book, "I have four pages to get done by tomorrow night," and it was the one with questions within the questions, so it'll take a little more time.

Mateo watches her flip to the page that had sticky notes hanging out of it: "you wanna get it all done today or split it into two days?"

"Two days. I still have tons of homework to get done from my other classes," she says. She finds the page with no trouble, asking Mateo, "do you mind if I try this on my own first? I wanna see if I got the hang of it."

Mateo nods, "Yeah, sure."

This air around them was slowly growing less intense as she made her homework her priority. Mateo hoped that the attitude she had didn't return, as it was cute in the beginning but not something he'd deal with for long. The way he dealt with attitudes might not fit into their relationship as of yet, so he would've had to stick to his words.