Ash’s POV

When I woke up the morning after the party I was surprised by the lack of people. Everybody was gone, except for Alex who was passed out in the living room. The place wasn’t a big mess, but I decided to clean up anyway. You could say I was a bit OCD about these things. When my mother got sick I had a serious case of OCD. I would think that if I didn’t keep my room clean enough, she would die. Or if my dad didn’t keep the bookcase organised alphabetically, the doctors would forget about her. I went crazy for a while after she died; my tricks hadn’t worked. But then I got help and I realised that I couldn’t let this happen to myself anymore. However, somewhere in the back of my mind, it was always there.

When I was about halfway done with throwing away all the red solo cups, I heard a groan behind me. Alex was awake and staring at his phone like it was the only life supply he had. But then he suddenly threw it at the wall and let out another groan. He probably didn’t know I was here.

“Umm, are you ok?” I asked carefully while I was staring at him.

He froze up, but then relaxed and moaned again, “everybody got laid and I passed out on my own living room floor.”

“Sucks to be you,” I rolled my eyes and continued cleaning up, a large bin bag in one of my hands.

I could feel Alex’s eyes on me as I was throwing things away, “you shouldn’t be doing that.”

“But I want to,” I tried ignoring the fact that he was looking me up and down.

“I’ll help you as soon as this headache stops trying to make me throw up when I move.”

“That will be never,” I muttered under my breath and moved the couch back in place.

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” I put on a fake smile.

“You really hate me, don’t you?” Alex rolled over so he was facing me, only turning green for a couple of seconds.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Hmmm, let me see,” I pretended to think, “you disrespect me, you keep looking at me like I’m an object, and you keep trying to embarrass me. Then afterwards you always apologize, but you start again immediately. I don’t know, you tell me.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know why I do it. I really want to be friends,” he tried getting up, but thought better of it, and lied back down.

“Why do you want to be friends? If you would have wanted that you could have been nice to me from the beginning.”

“Do you really want to know why I acted like a fucking douchebag and why I want to be friends now?”

“Yes.”

“Because-”

Alex was cut off by his parents coming through the front door. They looked around and nodded at how clean it was, but there was still some to clean up. Hopefully there wasn’t a big mess downstairs, because that would be really annoying to clean up. But we were first going to start here. When I say we, I meant Alex and I, but it was most likely just going to be me.

“You guys have fun?” Isobel asked as while she took off her Jacket and hung it up in the hallway.

“He just woke up on the floor, so I’m guessing he had a good time,” I pointed at Alex, who still hadn’t moved much.

“What about you?”

“Umm, I just stayed upstairs…”

“Alex, did you tell her to stay upstairs?” Isobel glared at him.

“Oh, no, it was my choice, he asked me to come,” I told her before she got mad at Alex. I did not need that. Alex was already annoying enough, I didn’t need it getting any worse.

“What she said,” Alex groaned as he tried standing up. He clutched his head and swayed before he ran out, probably heading to the bathroom.

“Need me to hold your hair?” I called out after him.

“Shut up!”

I shrugged and started to clean up again. Isobel tried to get me to stop and let Alex do everything, but I insisted on making sure this place looked as good as it did before. Their house was a nice place, it would have been a shame if Alex would only do a mediocre job. Speaking of him, he walked back out in just some sweatpants, no shirt. I’ll be honest and say he really didn’t look bad.

Come on, I was also just human. I was allowed to think these things. At least I wasn’t freaking out like most girls would do. I just glanced at him, I didn’t stare; I was used to seeing half naked boys. And that sounds really weird and pedophilic. It was just because of my younger brothers, ok! Don’t take it in the wrong way!

Alex’s parents left to go grocery shopping to let us clean up. We had a couple of hours to make sure everything was, I quote, ‘good enough’. They were so relaxed about all this. I’m pretty sure there were tonnes of parents that would go ballistic.

“I think it’s very unfair for me to be the only one without shirt on,” Alex smirked before going over what he said, “oh, sorry, umm…”

I shrugged and took of my pajama shirt, leaving me in a sport’s bra. Why would I care? I often went out and worked out in just a sports bra and people would see me all the time. This was no different. It was hot in here anyways.

----
Alex’s POV

I thought I had made a terrible mistake by joking around by saying Ash should also take of her shirt. But she actually took it off! Like, what the actual fuck! She took off her freaking shirt! Her body was so amazing. Holy fucking shit! Wait. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Now I was going to have to keep myself under control. Oh shit. No, no, no, no, no. This was no good. Luckily she wasn’t wearing something that revealed her chest. I wouldn’t have been able to do this if it was like that.

“What are you staring at?” Ash took me out of my daydreaming phase.

“You- you took off your shirt,” I blubbered. Not only was she hot, but she was beautiful as well. Everything about her was perfect!

“Yes,” she gave me a look as if this was really normal, “never seen a girl in a sport bra before?”

“Well, yes, but-”

“Keep that thought to yourself. This wasn’t a good idea,” she put on her shirt again, but I couldn’t take the image out of my head.

“Yeah, umm, let’s get this place cleaned up,” I took a plastic bag myself to throw things in, “are we friends now, though?”

“Sure, but if you screw up one more time, like trying to kiss me while you are drunk, we will just stay what we are now,” Ash went into another room to get started there.

I tried to kiss her last night? Oh shit. That wasn’t supposed to happen! Did I tell her anything? Did anybody else see me? But most importantly, did our mouths touch?

“In case you were wondering, I pushed you away before you could even come close,” Ash added with a laugh.

Oh fuck.

Notes

Just a short sort of filler chapter. You get to learn a bit more about Ash's past and Alex is only digging himself a hole. He really doesn't know how to handle it, does he?

Just imagine Alex looking like this after seeing Ash in just her sports bra and pajama shorts:


I think I'm going to try to add a gif to every note. Should I do it? It might be annoying, so I don't want to do it if you guys think so.