Ariadne: Almost an Alpha | ✓

Chapter 23 - Cleaning

Chapter 23 - Cleaning 

After dinner, I sit on the living room couch in order to inspect the amount of dust on the side table when Dylan walks in.

He plops into the spot next to me. "What are you over here looking at so intensely?"

"The dust," I respond. "I didn't realize how long it's been since we cleaned."

He leans over me, invading my personal space as usual, and swipes his pointer finger over the surface.

"Yuck!" He wipes it off on my cami.

I glare at him and he winks in response. "Looks like we need a cleaning day, huh Ari?"

"Yep," I agree, popping the "p."

Dylan hops up off the couch, grinning from ear to ear, and then runs upstairs yelling, "I'll find the aux cord!"

While Dylan plugs his phone into the downstairs stereo, filling the house with the sound of our cleaning playlist, I pull the beer out of the bottom drawer of the fridge and place it on the counter.

"Hell yes!" I hear Dylan shouting from the living room as Beyonce's "Crazy in Love" starts.

I use an opener to pop the caps off our first beers as Dylan fishes for the cleaning supplies in the supply closet, trying hard to pop his butt in the air as he leans over for the dust pan.

"Start with the living room?" he asks.

I nod, we grab our beers and our supplies and head to the living room. We take our first few swigs, place them on a coaster, and head to work.

By the time we're almost to the end of our first beer, Dylan's halfway through sweeping the room, and I'm wiping dust off the tv stand.

"Baby, give me it!" Dylan sings, spinning the broom around. "You're dangerous..."

We both spin our heads to look at each other and sing the next line together, wiggling our eyebrows, "I'm loving it."

"Too high, can't come down," I grab the beer, downing the rest of it, before twirling my hips around to the next line, "losing my head, spinning round and round."

"Do you feel me now?" Dylan yells, wiggling his fingers suggestively, coming over to empty his beer too.

"Whoa there, now," Sterling yells over the music upon entering the room. "What are you two doing in here?"

"Cleaning," Dylan answers nonchalantly.

"This makes it more fun," I explain our tradition loudly. Years ago, Dylan and I found that if we cleaned like this we were less reluctant, even happy, to clean.

"And there's beer?" Sterling clarifies as Nathan comes up behind him, looking confused.

Dylan nods, before belting out his favorite part. "With a taste of your lips I'm on a ride. You're toxic, I'm slipping under." He drops down, coming back up and dragging his broom to the kitchen, leaving a neat dirt pile in his wake.

"Alright, I'm in," Sterling says.

"Come on," I grab Nathan as Sterling follows me to the kitchen. "You're staying here too. You have to do your part."

I throw the dirty paper towels in my hands away and open a beer for Sterling. Then, I hand him a dustpan. "Get Dylan's dirt pile up and then help him mop the living room."

I hand a beer to Nathan as Dylan opens his second one. "Nathan, you can sweep the kitchen."

After grabbing my second beer, I raise it into the air. "Cheers!"