The feeling of being crushed in between different warm bodies made Ryan cringe. The blaring bass coming from the big black speakers pounded in her ears as she trudged through the crowd of people. She needed to sit down, or better yet: sleep. She tried to find somewhere where she could place her bright green solo cup on, but got pushed in the process. She finally found a little mahogany coffee table in the middle of a separate room thankfully far enough away from the swarm of teenage drunks.
She rested her cup on the table and scrunched her nose. She always did that when she was anxious. Ryan all of the sudden felt a huge weight being dropped onto her shoulders. She grunted and rubbed circles on her temples. She stummbled to the nearby navy blue couch and looked down at the ground. I need to relax. she thought to herself. She laid down on the couch and tried to find a way to block out the clobbering music coming from the next room. She closed her hazel eyes and dozed off after a while.
()()()()()()()()()()()()
"Give me therapy, I'm a walking travesty," Ryan groggily opened her eyes to the sound of distant voice. She squinted her eyes at the sunlight beaming through the partially covered window. She slowly sat up and looked around. "but I'm smiling at everything..." she blinked a few times before pushing herself off of the couch. Why am I still here?
She tried to find where she had put her jacket, but she ended up stumbling on a cup. "Jesus Christ." she mumbled to herself while catching herself from falling. The singing voice stopped and Ryan's head snapped in the direction at the sound of footsteps. She froze as a tall, blonde headed boy stepped out of a room with a bright orange toothbrush hanging out of his mouth. He was also wearing big sweatpants and a t-shirt with some sort of logo that Ryan couldn't seem to identify. "Oh my God, I'm so sorry. I was just about to find my jacket and l-"
"No problem. I actually need help around here with tidying this place up a bit. Do you mind helping?" he motioned towards the stray solo cups and miscellaneous plates that were scattered all over the floor and tables.
Ryan sighed and shrugged limply. "Well, it's the least I can do after spending the night at your, well, this is your house I'm assuming," she shook her head. "Oh my God obviously it's your-" she got cut off my the unidentified boy's laughter. "I'm obviously not a morning person." she laughed under her breath and blushed a bit.
"Well either way, you're helping me clean because my parents are going to be home in like," he flipped out his phone. "Shit. They are going to be home in like 45 minutes." she shrugged again and started picking up stepped-on cups from the floor. The boy ran his hand through his messy hair and started to pick up the cocktail plates off of the mahogany table. She slightly looked over her shoulder and smirked. She had to admit that he was cute, even in the morning, and not a lot of people look that cute in the morning.
She looked back down at the floor and grabbed more cups. "So do you do this every time your parents are gone?" she tried to spark up a conversation with him, but not flirtatiously. Only because it was awkward as fuck.
"Um," he looked around for more plates. "not every time, but usually. I like to take advantage of it." he smiled a bit.
"Ah." she simply said. He seemed innocent. No tattoos, no sign of sexually harassing her. Although, he did have a black lip ring, which Ryan just so happened to love on guys. Especially on cuties like he was.
"So are you from around here?" Ryan found it amusing that he found it normal to have a girl in his house that he doesn't even know, but she answered anyway.
"I'm from the area. I go to Norwest Christian." she sighed.
"Oh, I go there. How haven't I seen you?" he looked in her direction. He soon walked across to the kitchen and got a big black Hefty bag.
"Well, what grade are you in?" she asked. She now had an armful of green cups that could fall out of her hold at any moment. He ran over to her side and she dumped the cups into the bag. He looked down at her and smirked a bit, but then looked right back down when she looked back up at him.
"12th. You?" Ryan noticed how he blinked fast when he went to grab a plate off of the floor, and it only made him cuter.
"11th." she stated simply.
"That's probably why. We aren't in the same corridor." she nodded slightly and went back to pick cups off of the ground.
"Yeah." she tried to think of another conversation starter. She moved to the other side of the room, where it was even more of a mess. She couldn't think of anything, so she let him do it for himself.
He looked back at her while she wasn't looking. Wow, she's actually adorable. He noticed how whenever her brown wavy hair would fall from behind her ear, she would instantly sweep it back into place. He smiled and went back to trying to come up with something to say without sounding weird. "So how exactly did you, like, get into my house?" he tried to sound funny, but it failed.
She laughed. "Well," she turned in his direction to see him biting his lip and smirking. God damn it he was so fucking adorable. "well I had nothing to do and my friend has a mutual friend with you I guess. Then he invited her and she invited me and yeah." she shrugged.
"Oh, well, thank God you're here because we now have approximately," Ryan bit her lip and looked down at her converse. He whipped out his phone from his pocket."25 minutes. Wow that went by fast."
"Oh, yeah it did. Wow." she quickly scooped up all of the cups and plates off of the floor. She had yet another armful full of trash. When the boy saw that she was struggling with keeping the trash in her arms, he ran over with the bag to her assistance. She looked up at him for a split second before letting the garbage fall out of her arms.
"Okay now I think all we've got to do is put the food away and wipe down the furniture and I can get past my parents." he said running his long fingers through his hair and looking around.
"I'll wipe the tables," she ran to the kitchen. "you get the food." he nodded and went for the bowls of Doritos and pretzels that were sitting on the white kitchen table, where him and his family probably ate at regularly. As soon as he lifted up the two translucent red and green bowls, Ryan went in and sprayed cleaner all over the table. She quickly wiped away the crumbs and orange mystery sauce that hardened overnight. The boy walked to the trash can and dumped the two bowls over it.
He spun around to watch Ryan's movements to try and help him get away with his "secretive" party. He thought she was so cute and really pretty. She was completely his type, but he didn't want to make it obvious because he didn't know what she was thinking about him.
As soon as Ryan took the last wipe across the table, they both heard the sound of a garage door opening. They both looked at each other and started to rush. Ryan grabbed her phone from the counter and asked, "Do you have a back door?" she panicked and scrunched her nose.
"Yeah, why?" he ran to the window to see if they were getting out of the car. They were just opening the doors.
"I can take the trash bag to a neighbor's trash can outside of their house and just drop it there so your parents won't see anything suspicious." she ran over the the trash bag. He laughed.
"Wow, don't you have experience," he started running down the hallway. "follow me." she ran with the heavy black garbage bag on her hip. He looked back at her every time he heard the bag crumble. She smirked every time she caught him. They finally reached the back door. He opened it rapidly and let her through. They were inches apart. He looked down at her, which made her blush. "Thanks, um..." his voice trailed off.
"Ryan." she breathed out.
"Luke."
