The universe, Sienna decided, had a truly wicked sense of humor.
It wasn't enough that her neighbor was a walking, talking distraction. No, fate had to engineer a scenario straight out of a rom-com montage. A bad one.
At 2:07 a.m., buried under a mountain of reading for Professor Harper's class, she realized she had nothing clean to wear for her 8 a.m. seminar. With a groan of defeat, she gathered her laundry basket and trudged down to the building's basement laundry room, praying for solitude.
The universe laughed.
Pushing the heavy door open, the humid, floral-scented air hit her first. Then, the sight. Jace Rivera was there, leaning against a rumbling dryer,scrolling on his phone. A single, overhead fluorescent light flickered, casting dramatic shadows across his face. He looked up, and a slow, familiar grin spread his features.
"We have to stop meeting like this," he said, his voice a low rumble that competed with the machine's drone.
Sienna ignored him, beelining for the only available washing machine. "Don't flatter yourself. This is a coincidence, not a clandestine meeting."
"Coincidence? I call it destiny, Cole."
The use of her surname hit her like a physical jolt. Her head snapped up from the detergent drawer. "How did you…?"
He gave a casual shrug, but his eyes were alight with triumph. "What, you think a guy can't do a little research? Sienna Cole. Art History major. Notorious for waging war on noise pollution." He pocketed his phone, his gaze unwavering. "Thecampus directory is a wonderful thing."
She stared at him, a cold trickle of unease mixing with the heat of irritation. He'd looked her up. That felt… calculated. Invasive. "That's creepy."
"That's curious," he corrected, his tone unapologetic. "When a beautiful, angry woman slams a door in your face, a guy gets curious."
Beautiful? The word, tossed out so casually, tangled with her anger, disarming her completely. She shoved her clothes into the drum with more force than necessary, just to have something to do. "The universe clearly has a vendetta against my peace and quiet." She poured in detergent, slammed the door shut, and inserted her coins. The machine whirred to life. A small victory.
She turned to leave, to wait out the cycle in her apartment, but Jace held up a hand. "Whoa, hold up. You might want to see this."
He nodded toward her machine. An ominous gurgling sound was emanating from within. Before she could respond, a plume of thick, white suds began to spill from the detergent drawer, cascading down the front of the machine and onto the floor in a rapidly expanding foam party.
"No," she whispered, horror dawning. "No, no, no."
She lunged for the machine, pressing buttons frantically. Nothing. The gurgling intensified, and the suds kept coming, creeping toward her sneakers.
A low chuckle came from behind her. "I'm guessing you're a 'more is more' kind of person when it comes to detergent?"
"It's not funny!" she snapped, spinning to face him. "This thing is broken! It's going to flood the place!"
"Easy, princess. It's just a little bubble bath for your clothes." He was trying to hide his smile, but his eyes were crinkled with open amusement. He stepped forward, carefully avoiding the suds, andpeered at the machine. "See that little line inside the drawer? That's the 'enough' line. I think you gave it the 'enough for the entire football team' amount."
Sienna's face flushed with a mixture of embarrassment and rage. "Well, if the instructions weren't written in hieroglyphics…" She trailed off, watching in dismay as the foam reached her ankles. This was a disaster. Her clothes were being suffocated, the floor was a mess, and he was witnessing all of it.
Then, something unexpected happened.
Jace shook his head, a genuine laugh escaping him. It wasn't a mocking laugh, but a warm, surprised sound. "You know, for someone who preaches quiet, you sure know how to make an entrance."
The absurdity of the situation, the two of them standing in a sea of bubbles at two in the morning,him now knowing her full name and major finally hit her. A reluctant snort of laughter burst from her lips before she could stop it. She clapped a hand over her mouth.
His eyes lit up. "Was that a laugh? Did I just witness the great Sienna Cole actually finding something funny?"
"It's not funny," she insisted, but the fight had gone out of her voice. She gestured helplessly at the foam. "It's a catastrophe."
"Nah, it's just a laundry malfunction. Here." He reached past her, his arm brushing against her shoulder. A simple, accidental touch, but it sent a jolt through her system. He firmly pressed the power button on her machine. The whirring and gurgling ceased, leaving only the hum of his dryer. The flow of suds slowed to a trickle.
"There," he said, his voice softer now. "Crisis averted. Mostly. Your clothes might smell like aflower shop for a decade, but they'll be clean."
They stood in the sudden quiet, surrounded by the evidence of her domestic failure. The air felt different, charged. The annoyance was still there, but it was now tangled with something else…a shared, unspoken acknowledgment of the weirdness of it all.
"Thanks," she muttered, unable to look at him.
"Anytime." He leaned back against the dryer, crossing his arms. "So, you're not just a master of noise complaints. You're also a pioneer in laundry science."
She finally risked a glance at him. He was watching her, his expression not mocking, but… curious. Interested. The flickering light caught the amusement in his eyes, and for a split second, she saw past the campus celebrity to just a guy stuck in a laundry room with a mess.
It was dangerously disarming.She cleared her throat, the moment stretching too long. "I should… go get a mop."
He just nodded, that small, knowing smile still playing on his lips.
She turned and fled, leaving the bubbles and the strange tension behind. As she hurried down the hall, his final words from their first meeting echoed in her mind.
He thinks it's a game.
But climbing the stairs, her heart still beating a little too fast, a new, terrifying thought whispered back.
What if you're starting to enjoy it?