Match Made in Quarantine

8. Quarantine Friends

The good news: we now had toilet paper.

The bad news: I'd almost jumped on Maddox in my excitement.

Even worse news: I think he noticed.

Let me set the scene. We opened the bag, saw the toilet paper, read the note... then I turned toward him with my hands slowly rising up. His eyes went wide and I realized what I was about to do. So, instead I threw one hand in the air like you would for a high-five and jumped a few times. Super awkwardly. He laughed and high-fived me but by the smirk on his lips I was pretty sure he'd realized high-fiving was not my body's initial plan. That's who I blamed. My body. Definitely my body, just acting on impulse because my mind was repulsed.

Today might not have been that bad so far but the day was young, and Maddox was still the most annoying man I'd had the displeasure of meeting.

"I never thought I'd be this happy over toilet paper!" I also never thought I'd be bartering and trading items for it, but here we were.

I made my way to the kitchen cabinet to check whether one of the bags of Cheetos was the flaming hot type they'd asked for. As soon as I started shuffling with the bags I heard Maddox groan.

"Or that it would be such a high-priced commodity." He muttered and I couldn't help but chuckle at how salty he sounded. He clearly disliked having to give up his Cheetos. I was guessing his plan involved enjoying those with some of the many cans of beer he bought.

"Yeah, well, would have been regular priced had someone remembered to buy it on time." I spoke loud enough to be heard over the rustling and heard him mumble something incoherently.

I salvaged a bag of flaming hot Cheetos, one bag with cheese flavor and one regular pack, wrote them a little note back, and placed it all into the plastic bag.

"Alrighty, now one of us needs to—"

"I can take it." His offer was immediate and I narrowed my eyes, sceptical about his sudden spark of volunteerism. He cleared his throat and continued, "Er, I've seen the hot girl from 3E around a few times, like the hallway, in passing."

"Ah, oka—" I'd almost handed him the bag when I realized what he meant, "What? NO! What's wrong with you?! Do you understand what a quarantine is?"

"I wasn't going to do anything..." He sounded about zero percent honest when he said that and I felt a wave of rage course through my body.

"Is sex literally all you're capable of thinking about?" My voice was ice cold, a sudden change from the previously lighthearted mood of the morning.

"I mean, no, but I do like sex. So what?" The way his voice was tinged with annoyance made his words sound even worse.

"So what?!" I pinched the bridge of my nose, taking a deep breath, "Great, well, I like to be virus-free, so maybe you can try to keep it in your pants for like five fucking seconds."

His eyebrows shot up in surprise, probably shocked by the fact that he'd just heard me swear. To be fair, it was one of the rare times I actually swore — out loud at least. 

Before he could say anything else, I stormed out of the apartment with the bag of goods in my hand.

Unbelievable. The nerve of him, the audacity! He was freaking unbelievable.

I froze before reaching our neighbours door. Was he though? 

What Maddox had said was very believable in terms of things that Maddox would say. It's not like I didn't know how much he liked hooking up with women. I'd even filled out a 'sex addicts anonymous' form for him about two weeks ago, that I then later heard him laughing about with his friends.