Sweater Guy and Cubicle Girl

A Freezing Fall

This autumn was particularly freezing, especially since our heater broke. Corey and I were in the house trying to get cozy on this absolutely freezing Monday Morning. Corey was in the kitchen making hot cocoa and warm cookies while I was in my room huddled under the blankets.

"Ellaaa come warm up!" He said when he was finished. I went into the kitchen and we sat on the couch with a blanket drinking cocoa and eating cookies at 9am. We watched The Office and talked about random times. "What was your childhood like?" He asked me.

"Oh I just watched a lot of TV. When I wasn't watching TV I was getting in trouble though, I used to sneak out and be a little rule breaker."

"Oh? What about when you were younger?" He asked.

"Still watched TV all the time. I used to love Kenan and Kel. Remember that show? I was so upset when it went off the air."

"No, what is that? I've never heard of it." He said.

"You don't know what that is?? Oh my gosh did you live under a rock??"

"When did it stop showing?"

"2000"

"Ella I was born in 2000. Not to mention I was across on the other side of the Earth, in Russia my whole childhood."

"Oh yeaaaa... I forget you're a young foreigner."

"Not that young!!" He complained. "I'm hungry. Are you hungry? I want to go out and get food."

"We just had a million cookies, why don't we wait? I can cook something later." I said. I had already planned to anyway.

"You can cook??" He said like it was the craziest thing he's ever heard.

"Yes, I can, I learned recipes from my grandmother like samosas, tandoori chicken, I can even make naan from scratch." I said, feeling proud of myself.

"I don't know what any of those are but as long as you make a lot of it, I don't care." He said, visibly excited.

"Okay, let's go to the store then, there's an Indian market right around the corner."

We both needed to get out of the freezing house and go somewhere with heat. We blasted the heat in the car as far as it would go. When we got to the store we prayed they'd have heat too.

"I'm so glad its toasty in here." Said Corey. "Okay what do we need?"

"We need all of these ingredients for samosas." I said, handing him a list.

"What is Maida??" He asked. "And 'ga-ram-ma-sah-la"

"Maida is a type of flour and garam masala is a spice"

"Okay..." He said, still confused at the list.

"Why don't you go get everything you know and I'll get the other stuff." I said.

"Cool!"

We gathered all of our stuff and got back in the car. On the way home we bought a space heater, I planned on hogging it.

When we got to the house we immediately started cooking. We decided on making rajma, samosas, and a tea called masala chai. Corey was an adorable little helper and I could tell he loved cooking as much as he liked eating. We had so much fun together in that freezing house. When the food was done Corey wolfed it down so fast he didn't even let it cool. He ended up burning his whole mouth and complaining all day about it. After that, it was back to the freezing cold house. The stove and hot food had kept us warm for a bit but that was only for a few hours. Corey took the space heater before I could get to it and was in his room wrapped in a big blanket, sitting bed watching Spongebob. I went to his room too since it was toasty in there now. "Corey can I borrow one of your hoodies?" I said, shivering.

"Yeah go ahead." He said, concentrated on Spongebob.

"Thanks." I said, rushing to put on a big sky blue hoodie with a pink donut on the front. It was so big it fit me like a dress.

I sat on the end of the bed still shivering, getting somewhat heat. Then Corey looked at me, he looked like he felt bad for me. I looked at him confused. He told me "Come, sit." and motioned to the spot right in front of him. I didn't know what he was doing but I went anyway. Then he opened his arms holding the blanket in each hand and wrapped them around me, holding me close. I blushed so hard but I couldn't figure out why. 'Corey is so kind but unpredictable.' I thought to myself. 'Why am I blushing so much, I don't have a crush on him or anything...wait... maybe I do. He's so tall and cute and so incredibly kind. Look at him! He's holding me so close!' I blushed even harder. I relaxed and enjoyed the moment. He was so warm and soft I actually fell asleep in his arms. He was so sweet, he didn't even move until I woke up.

When I did wake up, Corey giggled at me and said its like when KitKat falls asleep on him and he doesn't wanna move. It was getting a bit late by then so we decided to make our tea and relax by the heater. We were snuggled in blankets on the couch when I brought up our previous conversation. "Hey Corey? You never told me about your childhood. What was it like?"

"Oh cold, boring. Mostly just me running around outside doing little boy things. And then at home it was just my always mother yelling at me and my siblings for not eating all our food or not practicing our studies enough. That's about it."

"Oh, hm, what about in high school? Were you like the cool kid with all the friends?"

Corey sarcastically laughed and said "I like how you just asked the guy who works in IT if he was cool in high school."

"So....so no?" I asked, genuinely.

"No! Well... not until senior year. Then everybody knew me and I was... I guess you'd say...'cool." He said.

"Well what about before that?"

"I don't wanna talk about it."

"Oh cmonnn please? what about just freshman year, what were you like freshman year?"

"Weird foreign kid"

"Oh?"

"Didn't speak one bit of English. Only friends I had were in my music and math classes because they'd copy my notes and steal my sheet music." He said, cringing.

I started laughing and said "Ah, I see."

"It's late and I'm tired." Said Corey, fed up with the conversation.

"Fine but I want the heater!" I said, sprinting before he got to it.

"NO I WANT IT!" He yelled, snatching it from my arms.

"But Coreyyy, you're bigger you have more body heat!"

Corey gasped and said "Did you just call me fat?"

"COREY NO! I didn't mean it like that!"

"There's an easy fix to this situation, lets just sleep in the same room?"

I was stunned, "wut"

"Yes, you will sleep with me in my bed."

Again, I was still stunned. "wut"

"What? Is there a problem? It seems like a good idea, we'll stay warm." He said, confused.

I certainly didn't object, and since Corey didn't think it was weird, I agreed. We slept in the same bed and I was definitely cozy. It ended up being a very good idea, but I barely slept because of the butterflies I felt all night. Maybe I really do have a crush on Corey.