𝚂𝙴𝚅𝙴𝙽 𝚈𝙴𝙰𝚁𝚂 𝙰𝙶𝙾
𝙹𝚄𝙽𝙸𝙾𝚁 𝚈𝚁. - 𝙵𝙰𝙻𝙻 𝙼𝙸𝙳𝚃𝙴𝚁𝙼𝚂
"...And really, I should be charging 'yo ass for all this manual labor work you got me doing, Derek." Soriyah huffed as she stood in Derek's dorm, putting together the air fryer he'd just bought. Derek was tired of spending all his hard-earned money, working as a waiter at Wingstop and having it all go to takeout food, ironically.
So after seeing so many Tiktoks about how life changing and cost efficient they are, he jumped on the airfryer bandwagon, hoping he'd be able to save some money finally.
"Mmcht, this ain't even manual labor, 'Riyah. You trippin'."
"Yeah whatever, nigga. And watch, Jada 'gone laugh her ass off when I tell her what you had me up here doing... I only came over here 'cause we supposed to be studying for our Psych midterm next week, big head. And where's the drip tray? It's supposed to come with a fucking drip tray."
Confused and checking the setup manual once again, Soriyah continued ranting while her back was turned to him, unaware that Derek was smirking and laughing quietly.
Derek walks away from her, moving towards the bed to sit and rest from the long day he had. Then he leans back into his original spot from their study session.
With the way Soriyah looked hard at work, he compared her to one of those Keebler elves from the cookie commercials he used to see growing up, and he found that hilarious.
Then Derek looks over, seeing his phone next to her phone, her cute mechanical pencils and pastel-colored sharpies next to his old school sharpened number two pencils and highlighters.
He also noticed her iPad, the same iPad he almost pawned off at the beginning of Freshman year next, was placed on top of his laptop.
Glancing at the open black box of wings he'd brought back from work that they shared... on his bed... studying... at damn near midnight past curfew, Derek realizes that this is probably the closest he'd ever get to being next to Soriyah... without fighting, at least.
Because after all, this is the girl he secretly admired more than he cared to admit and the girl that he wishes he could watch go to sleep and wake up every morning.
Then he's brought back from his thoughts when he hears her throwing plastic and paper around the room, muttering something about "damn companies that can't even package their products right." She turns around then, with her hands on her hips and a frown on her face.
"What you smiling for?" she asks, her eyebrows drawing together as she studies him.
"Cause 'yo ass needs to calm down." Derek says, finally getting up to see what she was fussing about.
Soriyah turns back around and already, it didn't take him long to find the missing drip pan she'd been looking for. "Blind ass was checking everywhere but the damn box it came in."
"Whatever, at least I can put an airfryer together, nigga. And how come 'yo ass—" Soriyah stopped talking when she saw Derek's hand, coming from behind her to reach inside the Hamilton Beach box, his cold chain hitting the back of her neck.
Derek was acutely aware of her personal space, which he was intentionally invading, but decided to take a chance anyway, allowing her some room to turn around.
She realized just how close he was and once she turned around and looked up, her face was met with his.
It was quiet, too quiet.
And then he spoke up. "So what was 'yo ass saying 'bout me not knowing how to put together an air fryer?" Derek teased, his voice low and slightly husky.
