Empty bargains

Nine.

Five days later, I was in the worst mood I'd been in for a long time.

At that point, I'd been at Jason's for just over a week, and still had made no improvement to my situation. I had a constant pain in my neck from sleeping on Jason's floor, had had nothing to eat but Ramen noodles for six days, and ran out of clean clothes to wear. I was wearing the pair of baggy sweatpants I'd worn a few days ago and a gray tee, slouching in one of the giant beanbags, when Jason walked in from the lower level.

"Would it kill you to keep a washing machine around here?" I said, staring up at the revolving ceiling fan.

"Would it kill you to stop bitching for more than five minutes?" he grumbled, throwing open the fridge. He'd been in a bad mood since I'd slept in his bed and flipped out a few nights ago.

"Well unless you want my clothes to start getting gross, I suggest you either buy a washer or take me to a laundromat," I snapped, crossing my arms even though he couldn't see.

Jason said nothing for a long moment, but I heard him rummaging for food. The refrigerator door shut and I heard a bowl clamber onto the island. "I have to go out tonight anyway. Put whatever you want washed in your duffel, and I'll take it when I go."

My eyebrows rose. "They're my clothes. I'll wash them."

The silverware drawer in the kitchen slammed closed. "Do you want your damn clothes clean or not?" Jason growled.

His tone surprised me, but spiked my annoyance more than anything. "The real question here is do you!?" I said in very much the same tone. "I'm perfectly fine with watching you all suffer, as disgusting as that is. I've been trying to find a way out for a week now. If this is it, then so be it."

Jason laughed quietly. "You're not getting out by smelling bad. We live with Leo, you know. Can't get much worse than that."

I sat silently, throwing curses at him in my head. I probably wanted to be clean more than he cared, and knew I wasn't getting out of his house any time soon. My hands clenched at my sides and I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. I still didn't want to lose to Jason, but it seemed like I was doing that a hell of a lot lately.

I lifted myself from the bean bag and stalked up the stairs. When I reached my duffel I wrenched it open and began sifting through my clothes. I stuffed everything back in, leaving out only a pair of socks and a black tee. After throwing it on the bed I made my way back downstairs, a grimace on my face as I collapsed back into the giant bean bag.

Jason was sitting at the table now, eating leftovers of take out he'd brought back a day or two before. I wrinkled my nose at him, but he didn't see it.

"Don't wash white with red," I told him as I stared at the ceiling again. "Don't dry my sweatpants or jeans. Don't wash lights with darks. Set the temperature to thirty degrees when you wash my tees, since they're cotton. Oh, and use a good-smelling detergent - but only one that's gentle on clothes."

My goal was to be a pain-in-the-ass, hopefully to convince him to take me with. I needed a change of scenery - plus, it might've been a good opportunity to get away. But Jason said nothing. After a long silence I glanced over at him and found him typing on his phone.

"Did you take any of that in?" I snapped. My hands clenched and I sat up. "I better not have ruined clothes when you get back."

He looked up, glaring. "Would you like to see my screen?" he said through his teeth, sounding impatient. "I'm making a note of it. Stop whining and get your head out of your ass so you can realize that not everyone is out to get you."

I blinked. What he'd said had definitely shut me up. I grunted and laid back down, resuming my analysis of the ceiling fan. It was a small thing, but strange for him to do. The whole week I'd been here he'd been rude and cruel and ignorant, and he finally chose now to listen to me? I ran the conversation over in my head - he'd had every opportunity to get up and walk out, or to call me a high-maintainence brat, or whatever else could pass as an insult; but he'd just taken my comments and actually wrote something down. I was incredibly bothered by this. So bothered, in fact, that I was still brewing about it when Jason walked past me and upstairs about an hour later, returning with my duffel and heading for the garage.