Page 8 of Icebreaker
“Then you’ll have plenty to clean up. Problem solved.” I began moving Ellie’s scattered books from the table into his bag. “C’mon, we need to get the boxes and start packing up all your stuff.” Once again, Ellie looked concerned.
“Where do you get boxes from? Because…” Ellie looked down at the ground and mumbled in the direction of his feet. “I can’t really afford to buy boxes. Things are tight for me until the first.”
“No worries. We can go to the liquor store next to campus. They always have a bunch of empty ones stacked in the back. We can take those and make more than one trip if needed. It’s not a big deal.” Something was bugging me, and then I snapped my fingers when I remembered. “And Dean left some in our garage too. Do you have a lot of stuff?”
“No, I mean, not really. Average, I guess.”
“Then it’s gonna be fine. You’re moving in with me, right?”
“It kind of feels like I don’t have a choice.”
“Oh, you always have a choice. I just don’t think the alternative of staying and dealing with your roommate… What’s his name?”
“Landon.”
“Yeah, I don’t think you wanna deal with Landon, so I’m offering you a fix. You don’t have to, but it’s not gonna cost you anything. I get some help around my house, plus I’d have company at night. I don’t like to be alone.”
“Stop, now you’re just lying to me.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. You’re gonna have to move in and find out.”
“Does that line ever actually work for you?”
“You’d be surprised how well that line works.”
“I’m ashamed of my generation.”
“All right, boxes and tape are here,” I announced as I walked into Ellie’s dorm room. To save time, I’d dropped him off at the dorm for him to start sorting out his stuff. What I walked into was a tornado in progress.
Tornado was being kind. A bomb cyclone was a better description of the chaos. As best I could tell, he’d started off with stacks of clothes and books. At some point, they got all jumbled together and were now haphazardly spread out. For whatever reason, Ellie had decided to throw his desk items into the mix, so they were spread out too. He’d stripped the bed, but now the blanket and sheets were a messy pile on the bed, along with some towels. At some point in the confusion, a plant had gotten knocked over. The grainy dirt was now scattered across the desk and spilled onto the floor. In the middle of it all was Ellie, looking defeated.
“Do I want to ask what happened?”
“Ugh. This is what always happens. I start one thing, but then I think of something else. When I go back to the other thing, Iforget what I was doing, and then it’s just a mess. I’m not sure where to even start.” Ellie rambled on while he flapped his hands helplessly around the room.
“That’s what the boxes are for. We’ll set them up, and then we can sort everything into them. It’ll be easier than trying to sort it all on the floor. Did the plant get knocked over or something?”
“Yeah, I was about to clean it up, and in a shock to no one, I got distracted.
“No worries. We can get it cleaned up before the guys get here.”
Ellie and I spent the next hour sorting and packing up his stuff. Compared to how much crap had been in my first dorm room, it really wasn’t that much. Unfortunately, Ellie kept getting distracted, which made it a little more difficult.
Asking, “Do you want to go through this pile?”left me with an unsorted mess that Ellie flitted around without actually addressing.On the other hand,“Ellie, please go through this pile,”got the job completed. I set aside everything I’d learned about how to talk to people and went with the version that got it done the quickest. Short, direct orders was the winner on that score by a mile.
“Ellie, have we gone through this box?” I pulled a plastic tote from under the bed and unlatched the lid. When Ellie glanced over to look at the box in question, he dove for the container.
“No! Everything in there is a keep.” He snatched it out of my hands and twisted so I couldn’t reach it anymore. He snapped the side locks back in place.
“This one too?” I pulled a second container out but made sure he saw the latches were still locked.
“Yeah, it’s just my stuff from home.” I smiled and nodded, but I didn’t believe for one fucking second that whatever was in that first box was just whatever. Unfortunately, that meant itwould bug me until I figured it out. I hated being out of the loop, and Ellie was endlessly fascinating to me.
His reactions when he found something he’d lost forced me to hide my grin in case he thought I was laughing at him. Hishuzzahwith every finished pile and box was adorable. Best of all was how he puffed and preened when I told him he was doing a good job. He’d blush, but he also looked away so I wouldn’t see his proud grin.
“It kinda seemed like it was important,” I prodded because I couldn’t help myself. “I don’t mind helping you go through it.”
“No one needs to go through the boxes because I know exactly what’s in there.” Ellie looked a little panicked, and I wasn’t going for that.
