Notes: Trent Baretta posted a picture on Twitter earlier today. I don't think this site will let me link to it, so I'll describe it for you. It shows Caylen Croft sitting at a hotel room desk, wearing jeans and no shirt, the sun falling over him from the window next to him. He had a calculator under one hand and a checkbook under the other. It just seemed to have some kind of quality to it... it looked like a Moment, in other words. I thought about it... and then I wrote this. It's exactly a thousand words long =] I'm very pleased with it.
He stepped out of the bathroom in a cloud of steam, clutching the corners of a generic white towel to his hip; he'd forgotten to bring clean clothes into the bathroom again. His duffel was on the end of the bed and he pawed through it, muttering to himself. A pair of boxers that were probably clean and a shirt that didn't smell too funny joined the jeans he'd worn last night in a haphazard pile next to his bag. He grabbed his clothes and happened to glance up and across the room, his gaze finding Caylen and holding steady there.
Caylen was sitting at the desk, clad in only the jeans he'd thrown on after his shower earlier, strong early morning sunlight falling over his back and shoulders. The remnants of their room-service breakfast were beside him and as Trent watched, Caylen grabbed a piece of bacon that was probably cold and nasty, popping it into his mouth and enjoying it with pleasure obvious even from across the room. His attention didn't falter from… whatever he was doing.
Trent felt in his jeans pocket for his phone, but his pockets were empty. (Of his phone, at least; he'd found a great quantity of lint, a wintergreen Life Saver, a couple of beer caps, 17 cents in change, and the keycard to the hotel room.) He surveyed the room, hoping he hadn't lost his phone again, and then saw it on the nightstand between the two beds. Shooting another glance at Caylen, he hurried towards his phone, hoping Caylen wouldn't move, or notice him, or do anything other than whatever he was doing at the desk.
He grabbed the phone and pulled up the camera app, completely ignoring the six new texts and two voicemails awaiting his attention. He mustered all his ninja skills – as best one could while clad only in a towel – and crossed the room towards Caylen. He paused beside him and raised the phone, hurriedly framing the picture. Before he could press the button to take the picture, Caylen spoke.
"Dude, I know you're standing right there with the phone in your hand."
Trent gaped. Before he could stop himself he blurted out "But I'm a ninja!"
"In your mind, maybe." Caylen replied. He glanced up at Trent and smiled at his surprised expression. "Go ahead and take your picture."
His attention refocused on the desk in front of him, one hand on a calculator and the other writing in a checkbook. Trent raised the phone again and quickly snapped a picture. Before he could think about it, he sent it to his Twitter account.
"So… what exactly are you doing?" He peered down at Caylen, absently setting his phone on the desk, precariously close to both the leftover breakfast and the edge of the desk.
"I'm balancing your checkbook."
"I have a checkbook?" Trent leaned over, almost pressing into Caylen's bare shoulder with his own. Caylen raised the book and held it out in front of Trent's face. "Oh, how about that."
Caylen dropped the checkbook back to the desk but didn't go back to working on it. Instead he turned his head and then craned his neck to look up at Trent. His gaze dropped and moved back up, meeting Trent's eyes with a smirk.
"Why're you standing there in a towel?"
"Why are you balancing my checkbook? I'm perfectly capable of doing that myself." Trent felt a little flustered under the dark-eyed gaze Caylen was giving him.
"I asked you first."
"I forgot to grab clothes before I went into the shower." Caylen shook his head, still smirking.
"You didn't even know you had a checkbook. How can you be expected to balance it?" He stood up and stretched, his spine crackling. "Besides, I already did my own. I thought it'd be nice."
"Oh." Both common courtesy and a witty response deserted him as he struggled not to ogle the half-naked Croft standing less than six inches away. It didn't help with the way Caylen was smirking at him. "Um. Thank you."
"You're welcome." The kind smile Caylen gave him was nearly enough to make him want to curl his toes. They stood there staring at each other for a moment and Trent could feel his face growing warm.
"Um. I'm gonna go get dressed now." He took a few steps back and struggled to regain what remained of his composure.
Caylen waved a magnanimous hand towards the bathroom and Trent hurried off, wondering absently if his face was as red as it felt. He grabbed his clothes off the bed as he passed, without stopping. He had his hand on the bathroom doorknob when Caylen called his name from across the room. He turned hurriedly, almost losing his clothes and his towel in the process.
"Did you send that picture you just took to Twitter?"
"Um." He couldn't help but grin. "Yeah, guess I did."
Caylen crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the desk, strong sunlight again falling over him in a sharp diagonal.
"You sent a picture you took of your half-naked tag team partner to Twitter for all the world to see. How do you plan on explaining that?"
"Oh. Um. I guess I'll think of something."
Caylen just shook his head and chuckled under his breath. "Go get dressed. We gotta be out of here in like an hour."
Trent nodded and slid into the bathroom, pulling the door shut behind him. Caylen stared at the closed door for a minute and then glanced at the checkbook on the desk. It would take Trent thirty minutes just to pack; he had no idea why it took so long. He just crammed all his stuff into the bag. Folding was a concept completely unknown to Trent Baretta.
Caylen settled back down into the easy chair and absently moved Trent's phone to the other side of the desk where it wouldn't fall off, and went back to balancing.