He was out in less than 10 minutes, squeaky clean and less traumatized that he thought he'd be. Dom quickly got dressed and fussed with his hair on his way out before leaning against the wall of the building nearby the girl's locker room. He was still there when Travis came up to him, practically red in the face.
"Damn you, Styles," he said, glaring. Dominic could only blink back his confusion as he stared his friend in the face. "You better talk me up, man. That's ******** up." After a pause, another glare, and a glance back toward the locker room doors, Travis huffed and stormed off. It reminded him of the scene in most chick-flicks when the boyfriend tells the close guy friend to "back off."
He was hardly intimidated. At least not by Travis.
So he shrugged it off, instead pulling out the Cube in his bag and messing it up before working to solve it again. It was always a good way to pass a bit of time, after all.
Phedra emerged from the girls locker room with her hair still tied up into a high ponytail the ends of which were still damp from her shower. Modesty was not something she was overly concerned about, she knew she had a good body otherwise she wouldn’t offer up to help out the fashion designers with their spring show.
With her side bag slung over one shoulder she approached Dominic who was leaning against the wall on the other side of the hallway messing with a classic rubix cube quite intently. In all honesty it was quite cute seeing him so focussed on solving the puzzle that it seemed the world was just a passing thing and he paid it no mind.
“Hi!” she spoke up finally with a wide smile on her face she leaned sideways and ducked her head; looking up at him with the whole ‘you there?’ kind of anticipated expression.
Righting herself once she had his attention Phedra readjusted her bag and flung her hair back over her shoulder so it was out of the way, “I’m sorry I made you wait.”
“One way to surely have your volunteer application rejected is to walk in smelling like gym sweat socks.” She jested with him, nudging his arm playfully.
He really hadn't noticed that she'd walked out of the locker and over to him as he worked through the layers with ease for the second time already. He was just getting past layer two when she ducked her head a bit to get his attention; good thing she did, else he might have kept right on working without even knowing she was standing there.
"Ah, hey, no problem. Gimme just a second..." he answered briefly, his eyes only leaving the cube for a second before he hurriedly finished the last layer. Her comment still got a smirk out of him though, and made him glad that he did take that shower even while slightly uncomfortable. Not even a minute later and he was finished, his smile slightly wider as he stared at the completed puzzle. "Ta-da," he said as he held it out to her. "Sorry. Can never leave it unfinished, to be honest."
The expression on his face turned sheepish for a moment as he looked her over. Certainly, he thought, she had more business trying to be a model than he did. Still, he nodded in the direction they were suppose to be headed. "Anyway, since neither of us smell like gym socks," and he paused for a little laugh, "let's go? They might not need us anymore if we get there late or something."
“Sounds good!” Phedra nodded then fell in step beside him. Sure his stride was a bit longer but she was able to keep up just fine.
As they exited the gym to head across campus to the art and design building she hugged her coat around her. Any warmth she retained from the shower was almost immediately pulled from her as the cool breeze whipped around the corner. I can’t wait for it to be spring.
“It seems well used,” Her blue eyes flicked downward to the multi colored cube in his hand verbally noting the slightly peeled edges to a few of the stickers from being twisted so many times. ”So tell me, what’s your quickest time solving one of those.”
It was pretty cold out as they walked through the campus. When he caught sight of the building they were headed for he felt slightly relieved; it wasn't too much further, thankfully, so he pulled his jacket on a little tighter, slipping the cube into a pocket just as she asked her question. His smile was back despite the cold, and he thought about it for barely a second.
"I'm down to 45 seconds with a standard one," came his answer, a tinge of pride in his tone of voice. To see his record dwindle down from minutes to seconds was exciting for him, and the more he practiced--and yes, he still practiced--the better it got. He wasn't always practicing though, and sometimes he would solve it just for fun. "It's still fun, so I've never really stopped trying to get better. Can you believe the world record is about half that time? I mean..." and he went on for a little bit about world records and Cubing in general. By the end of his spiel he was back to smiling sheepishly and offering a small apology, head down as they ducked into the building.
The warmth was welcome and helped ebb a bit of his embarrassment away, but not enough that he could look the redhead in the eye just yet. Thankfully, the halls were bustling for some reason or another so he didn't really have to, so instead he looked about for signs of where volunteers might wanna head. He'd done this a couple of times before, but each time had been different so he assumed it would be the same now. When he found none, he finally looked back at Phedre with expectant eyes.
"So...where to?"
“Room 206 on the second floor. There should be a clipboard with a form to fill out then we take it back downstairs to the teachers office and they will assign us to a designer if not today then later this week.” It really just depended if the teacher was there or not.
"To room 206!" he said aloud then, taking the lead once again. He did at least know his way around the building, having done this before, so he could take her there if she didn't already know how. His eyes moved from room to room, always curious about what these art students were up to. Being one who was only taking general studies, all his classrooms were boring as all hell. At least here there were doodads and bobbles that the students got to use, and it was interesting to see.
"So," he started, eyes finally focused forward once they reached the stairs. "What's got you interested in volunteering, anyway? If it were me I might have run the other way." Dom glanced back, showing the smirk that played at his face. Another small joke, though based on a true story that he didn't really like to share.
Phedra removed one of the volunteer sheets from the clipboard then fished around her side bag for a pen to fill out the paperwork. “Honestly… it’s something to do between classes. There’s a two and a half hour break between my classes on Thursdays that I don’t really have anything to do so I figured why not.” She shrugged her shoulders
“Otherwise I usually volunteer at a soup kitchen once a week.” The only times she had ever missed showing up was if she was 1) on vacation; 2) sick, or 3) finals week.
“What about you?” she asked as she stood up now offering him the pen she had been using. “You can’t tell me you’re doing this just because I asked.” There was a playful twinkle in her eyes as she winked jokingly.
He took the pen with a quick "thanks" and took a form for himself, skimming the page briefly before starting to fill it out. Her question came just as he was writing out his last name, so he scratched out the misspelled "Because" and wrote out the proper "Styles" as he grumbled a curse.
"Ah, well this time I sort of am? And I guess only because I've done it before." He got about halfway down the form before continuing. "I have a personal connection with one of the designer students…" he said slowly, just as he finished the rest of the form, signing his name at the bottom before handing her back the pen.
And his blue eyes caught sight of a familiar raven-haired designer as she passed by the door. She seemed busy so he didn't call out to her, and he resisted the strongest urge to cat call and see if she came back to give him a good sock in the shoulder. The thought got a chuckle out of him, though, and he slowly moved his attention back to Phedre.
"But even if I hadn't done this before I probably would have offered to come with you. I like volunteering and trying new things, so this is right up my alley." With the exception, of course, of the "fashion" part of it. Dominic had never been a fan of being dressed up.
“Well, who knows, perhaps you’ll get lucky enough and be assigned to help your friend. Or maybe you can request to be paired with them directly?” It would be worth the shot anyway. Maybe it would decrease the probability of him bailing if he worked with someone he knew wouldn’t make him look like a fool.
After he had finished filling out his paper she took a step back away from the table and turned towards the stairs they had come up from, “Shall we go turn these in?” Phedra pulled out her phone to check the time 9:45. Assuming the teacher had class at 10 they should be in their office still since the rooms were just one or two floors above them.
He nodded and started for the door, planning on making the trip quick and uneventful.
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I will format this in a bit and tell you your word count
