Compelled (a Hat Films Fanfic)

Snow Day

        I gave an involuntary groan as the alarm on my phone went off, and I swung my arm in an arch to stop the noise as I clawed out of the fog of sleep. I was momentarily confused as to why I was still in jeans, since I normally only slept in boxers, but then memories began flooding back of the girl that had occupied my bed with me last night. I panicked a bit when I realized she wasn't in the room, but I quickly swallowed it down and stumbled down the hallway.

        I saw a figure in the living area, and it made me smile as I crossed my arms over my bare chest and leaned against the cool wall of the threshold. "H... hey," I croaked, my voice gravel from sleep. Amanda was sitting cross-legged on the sofa with my laptop in front of her. She had tied up her hair and apparently found her trousers from last and one of my blizzard tee shirts that she currently wore. She was swallowed by it a bit, since most of my tee shirts ran large because of how tall I was, but it gave her a cute, playful look.

        She looked over her shoulder when she heard my voice. "Morning," she said quietly, giving me the tiniest smile. Something seemed off, but I wrote it off as both of us being over tired from lack of sleep. I made my way around the couch, completely comfortable with my state of dress, and fell down on the couch next to her. "Campus is closed today," she muttered, returning her gaze to my laptop which looked to have her email open.

        "Because of the snow?" I asked, sitting up and trying to look out the window. I didn't think the storm had been that bad last night, but upon further investigation I could see about three or four inches blanketing the streets below. "Oh, wow..." I observed, "I guess we did get a ton of snow."

        Amanda grunted her disapproval. "You babies, I used to brush this much off my car every morning back in New York," she scoffed, still staring intently at the computer screen.

        I let the curtain fall back to cover the window as I rejoined her back on the sofa. "Oh excuse me," I laughed, "I'm sorry we only have the infrastructure for the foot of snow we usually get over the accumulation of a year." I threw my arm around the back of the couch and quickly leaned in to plant a kiss on her cheek, still feeling flirty from last night.

        I felt my stomach churn when she only gave me a despondent smile, and I leaned into her to see what she was so fixated with. It looked like a regular email, and there wasn't anything special about it until I noticed a small icon attached to the email. "What's that?" I asked, pointing at it.

        She slammed the laptop closed as soon as she realized I was looking over her shoulder, and announced that she was going to take a shower. She placed my computer beside her and jumped up, hair swinging with every slight turn of her head. As I watched her quickly disappear through the dim hallway, I felt my heart rate jump up. I tried to go over everything that had happened last night and come up with any explanation to the way she was acting. I didn't really do anything too suggestive, and even as we progressed physically, I always gave her time to stop me before proceeding.

        I leaned my head into my hands, completely shaken at the thought of pushing our relationship too far; I didn't even know what to consider her, yet I was taking her clothes off last night. Were we still considering each other just friend? It terrified me to think she didn't want any of it yet allowing it to happen anyway to spare my feelings or, even worse, she was afraid of repercussions. I had nearly worried myself sick, almost convincing myself that she didn't even like me and I was actually just a chauvinist pig who took advantage of women when I noticed the laptop in front of me.

        Pushing the irrational thoughts out of my head, I reopened the computer and gave a silent cheer as Amanda's Gmail account appeared on screen. I knew it was so wrong (and illegal) to look through her messages, but I couldn't help myself as I searched for the email that I had seen earlier. It was her school email, so there was a lot of exchanges between professors, as well as quiet a few different chains between her and Nick, which caused my blood to boil. There wasn't anything personal, just business things about editing and channel uploads, but the fact that she was still talking to him made me green with envy.