He was getting really sick of walking two blocks when he finally got the time to do laundry. This cover had been going on four months already, and he could live with wearing the same dirty clothes for a while... but it was getting close to harmful to his health. He's never been under so long. Just short stints with the TO's, so this is his shot.
So he caved, put on something a little less drug dealer sketchy on, and made his way out of his apartment. Passing a hand over his jaw he wonders if maybe he should've shaved. But it gives him enough of an unapproachable look that maybe it's okay. Nobody'll bother talking to him, if there's even anyone there.
When he got there it was empty, and he only had a few loads of laundry. Better get it all done tonight so he doesn't have to go back before he's done. Doesn't have to be the guy who does his laundry... with lavender softener. It was on sale, and he's supposed to be a junkie dealer. Wouldn't they be trying to save?
He didn't notice her when she first walked in to Yings Laundromat. He was pulling his darks out of the washer and shoving them into a dryer, and she was quiet at first, he didn't even turn around. But a half hour later when the humming begins, he can't help but try to give a heated glare over his shoulder. Can't go through with it when he sees her. She's, something, and it's obviously her laundry day.
She's in men's sweatpants, and a tank top, hair up in a bun with bandana or something as a headband. She's got this fresh, airbrushed face, all most. Skin of a kid it looks so smooth. Her eyes are bare, no makeup, but they still pop with this doe eyed innocence. 'Bambi' he dubs her, silently.
She catches his eye and immediately the humming stops. But she grins widely at him. Here he was trying to look intimidating...
"Sorry, thought you were listening to something." She smiles, gesturing at her ears. Her eyes move away from his to just beyond him on the washing machine, and he follows her eye to his lavender softener. Immediately he thinks she's going to ridicule him for his feminine product taste. Thing is he'd never buy this at home, on sale or not. But when she doesn't even smirk, he just really appreciates it.
"Could I actually borrow some of that?" She asks tentatively, like he'd be doing her the 'hugest favor in the whole wide world'. And when he simply nods, and passes it over, she gets a little inexplicably giddy. "Thanks, I'm such a space case and grabbed the powder detergent instead."
She's young, he's noticing. He thinks about how close he is to campus here, and then takes a look at her pile of clothes, sees a Ryerson shirt slip out. Pins her age at about twenty or twenty one. That's not so young to his twenty eight .
"How about a trade?" He asks, finally finding his voice.
She raises her eyebrows, like it's insane to prefer powdered detergent.
"Guy like me can't be going around smelling like lavender. It'd ruin my reputation." He smiles, despite being quite serious, and she smiles shyly back at him. She moves back over to where her stuff is stationed, and hands over the emptied peanut butter jar that she was using to store it, and handed it over.
He reaches behind him, and hands her the bottled detergent, touching her fingers for only a split second. And she pulls away quickly.
"Thanks." She says, going right back to her laundry. They go back to being quiet for a while. Sharing small smiles every once and a while, until all of its loaded and changed over and they're waiting for the last of it to be finished. She walks over to where he is, and hops up onto the machine across from him.
"So. What's your name?" She says, bringing her legs up to sit cross legged.
He smiles, urging himself to remember his cover name before his heart takes over his brain. He has the odd urge to be upfront with her, tell her he's a cop. Also, she probably shouldn't try to make sketchy friends in Laundromats. But then again, he's not acting sketchy... so maybe she just doesn't judge. Seriously he's painting this picture of her in his head, of all the ways she just seems perfect.
"Shawn. I'm Shawn." He doesn't know if he should extend a hand to be shook, or just... just wait to hear who she might be. While he hopes to get her full name to search her up when he's done under, he also hopes she has the good sense to give a stranger a fake name.
"Andy." She says brightly, leaning forward a little more, elbows in the crease of her knees. "So what brings you to do late night laundry?"
He shrugs his shoulders, feeling a little interrogated. Probably just the paranoia of his case.
"Oh, you know, couldn't find the time between my day job and fighting crime as a vigilante." He's sure to pop the dimples a little.
"Cuuute." She drawls sarcastically. "You use that a lot don't you?"
He furrows his brow, but keeps his eyes wide at her.
"The dimples, the charm, the warm eyes. You use it a lot. Get things out of people." She's leaning back a little like she's summing him up, and suddenly he's never felt more naked. "Get what you want."
He clears his throat, wants to look less shocked. When his "boss" reacts this way to him, reading him, analyzing him, he expects that. He's been trained to be watched under a microscope by dangerous criminals. But, in a laundromat by a young woman, a young woman he's really attracted to, not so much.
"Does the job." He admits, studying her a little more carefully, trying to size her up. But she's not as easy a read. He would never have pegged her as a profiler. "What about you. What are your vices?"
She bites her lower lip and shakes her head, revealing nothing. And just the way she looks with that lip between her teeth... he wants a bite of it too.
"They're a woman's best kept secret. I don't think you've earned the right to know." She says, sliding off of the washer.
"How do I earn that right?" He asks, eyes following as she makes her way to the dryer she's been waiting on. She begins unloading an entire load of pink.
"Oh my god!" She yells, pulling it out more furiously, like if she digs deep enough she'll find her once white clothes. "No, no, no, no, no."
He walks over to her as she digs through the laundry not believing what had happened. Once it's all out on the floor, a red item makes its way into his peripheral vision, and he bends over to pick up the mystery item that dyed her clothes. What he picks up, is a red thong.
He raises his eyebrows, and meets her eyes just above the lacy pair he's holding out to her on his index finger. He lets out a low wolf whistle just as she snatches it away from him, shoving them into the deep pockets of her sweats.
He lets out a chuckle as her cheeks redden, and suddenly the cool and easy demeanor she'd been trying to sell him, he knows it's a scam.
"You know you're supposed to sort laundry, right?" He quips, knowing she knows that, all of her other piles were sorted meticulously by colour and fabric.
"Yes I know that!" She snaps back, harshly, picking it all up off the floor, and dumping it onto one of the open machines. "Shit."
"It's just clothes..."
"It's just all three of my work blouses. I'm a server, I have a shift tomorrow, and I could get sent home or fired looking like this." She runs a hand over her tied up her, and adjusts her headband after doing so.
She stares at the pile a little longer, and he looks around the place till something in the corner peeks his interest. Bleach.
"All you've got to do is soak them in water and a little bit of oxygen- based bleach." He says, already grabbing it for her.
"Oh, thanks Martha Stewart." She says condescendingly. The intriguing, sexy quality about her he'd seen before has basically just evaporated at her snatching the bottle away from him.
He backs up and heads over to his machine that beeped a few minutes ago. His resolve to stick around with her as long as he could slipped away with her attitude.
He swung the dryer door open hard, and grabbed his stuff from his machine, throwing it into a laundry bag. As soon as she stopped and took deep breath, she looked back over his way and watched as he'd gotten frustrated at her. Thing is, she kind of liked him. Other thing was she didn't know why. He was hot in that rough trade kind of way. Like, rugged. Not like the preppy kids in her classes.
And he didn't get defensive when she told him what she saw. He knew who he was, and he was confident in himself. She liked confidence, maybe a little cocky. He was those things without the arrogance of most men, and it was deadly when she considered he had dimples to throw in with them. Even now, watching his jaw set in his cheek, those muscles pop, she found him deadly. And not because he was trying to be intimidating.
"Shawn," She says softly, realizing she's got to apologize. When he doesn't even turn around (doesn't register that that's his name) she says it again, a little louder. "Shawn!"
He finally turns to her, looking a little embarrassed that he'd forgotten about his cover.
"I'm sorry, that was, bratty. I don't know what that was. I shouldn't have snapped, you were trying to help."
Her posture was open, his closed off. Her voice was sincere, his eyes were still a little narrowed. But he took a couple of beats before answering, trying to find the courage to admit that he was childish too.
"It's okay, I shouldn't have... I don't know, I'm just sorry too."
It occurs to her that he's not really one to admit when he's wrong. He doesn't have a lot to say he's sorry for, maybe. Maybe he's used to getting it right, saying the right things.
"I just, maybe next week you can bring me a coffee, make it up to me." He smiles, popping his dimples one last time, ironically of course.
She can't help but smile back, bites her lip a little as a pink blush sweeps over her cheeks.
"Coffee? At this time of night?" She asks, looking outside at the dark streets. He checks the clock on the wall just behind her, and realizes it's close to 11PM. He nods anyways. He'd be sleeping well into the morning anyways.
She slides on a hoodie, then a denim jacket, and fixes its collar, before letting her hands fall to her side.
"Then I guess we have a standing laundry date." She smiles, putting her folded laundry into the basket , and holding it against her hip. She gave him a once over again, shamelessly, and backed her way up toward the door, offering a small wave.
"You don't think you're walking home alone do you?" He asks, smiling still.
"I live around the corner. I'll flash my lights inside when I'm in safe and sound Dad." She teased, before slipping out the door.
A few minutes later he found himself standing on her block, watching her lights turning on and off. A moment later she appeared in the window, and waved to him again, still with the lip between her teeth. That's her vice. And he'd tell her that, next week.
