I walked up to the guest room I was staying in and sat down on the floor in front of a pile of boxes. I decided I wanted to go through them and donate whatever I didn't want or wear anymore.
I was done with about two boxes when I heard someone walk in behind me.
"You don't want to help, Reggie. This is boring girly shit," I said.
"Alright, I'll let him know when I go back downstairs," Colby said.
"Oh," I said, turning around to see him standing behind me. "Sorry. Didn't really expect you of all people to come in."
He nodded in response and sat down next to me on the floor.
"So what boring girly shit are we doing?" he asked.
"Well, as you may have noticed, I have a lot of clothes. I was going through them to see what I wanted to keep and what I should donate," I said.
"You're such a good person, you know that?" Colby said.
"What? Why?" I asked.
"Everyone else in this friend group puts them on Depop to resell. You just donate them for free," said Colby.
"Well, I was thinking about taking them into Plato's Closet and they do give you money for them. I wasn't planning on taking any of that money, though. Lord knows I have plenty," I said.
"So how can I help?" he asked.
"Just grab a box and go through it. If you haven't seen me wear it more than once or not in a super long time, then set it aside and I'll go through the pile you make later," I said.
"Okay," he said. He pulled a box over in front of him and ripped the tape off, then started going through everything.
"Okay, I have never seen you wear a single thing in here," Colby said. I looked over at the box he'd grabbed, which was full of the clothes I'd decided to bring here that I'd left in Alva when I moved to LA.
"Oh. Those are what Kevin would call my hick clothes," I said.
"You want to keep them?" he asked.
"I don't know, do you think I'd look good in them?" I asked.
"Ba—er, I think you look good in anything," he said, catching himself from calling me babe. I suppressed a smile when he said that. It was just a habit for him at this point.
"Okay, then yes. Keep them. You can just go through another box," I said. He grabbed another one and opened it up.
"Okay, so like, I certainly wouldn't mind going through this box, but I think you'd make a better judgement call with these than I would," he said. I looked over to see that he'd opened the box full of all the stuff I'd gotten sent to me from Victoria's Secret.
"You're terrible at choosing boxes, sir," I said with a laugh.
"It would seem so," he said, smiling at me. God, had I missed that smile. I hadn't seen it since April.
"And go for it. I have too much of that stuff anyway, so might as well pick out what's cute," I said.
"Shouldn't you choose what you think is cute?" he asked.
"I'm not the—," I started. I was about to say that I wasn't the one who'd be seeing me in that stuff, but I stopped before saying it. "I'm not the best judge of that," I said, catching myself from revealing what I was going to say. "I'd just want to keep it all."
"Okay, I guess," he said, starting on the box.
We did that for a few hours, finishing all of the boxes, leaving one giant pile of clothes to donate and the clothes I wanted to keep shoved into a fewer amount of boxes than what they'd come in. We talked the whole time, getting used to each other again. We were laughing a lot, smiling at each other. It felt so good to talk to him again. He understood me more than anyone else I'd ever met.
"Okay, want help hanging up all of your shirts and stuff?" he asked.
"If you want," I said.
"Of course I want," he said. He went into the closet and brought out some hangers. We made it through one box when I stopped. "Everything okay?" he asked.
"Yeah, I just...um...," I said. "Can we hang them up in the other closet?"
"The one in the master bedroom?" he asked.
"Yeah. In our closet," I said. A smile flashed across his face for just a second when I called it ours.
"Of course," he said. I wasn't sure if I wanted to sleep in there with him again, though.
"I'll just go in there to get my clothes every morning," I said to let him know I still planned on sleeping in here for the time being.
"You mean every morning and afternoon and evening? You change your clothes more than anyone else I know," he laughed.
"I did not come back to LA to be bullied," I chuckled.
"Why did you come back?" he asked. The smile I'd had on my face disappeared.
"I...," I trailed off. Yeah, why exactly had I come back? I didn't need to come to LA in order to go on the trip with the guys. "I decided I needed to start living again, I guess. Alva was nice, don't get me wrong, but there's a reason I left that town as soon as I could. And I missed all of my friends."
"Oh, okay," he said.
"And you. I missed you," I added. He smiled down at the ground.
"Missed you too, smarty," he said. I bit my lip when he called me that. I'd forgotten we used to call each other smarty and dummy all of the time.
"Alright, let's bring this assload of clothes into the other room," I said, picking up a box.
"Into our room," he said.
"Yeah. Our room," I repeated with a smile.