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During the three rings it takes her boyfriend to pick up, Alya has almost worn a trail into her floor from pacing around so much. Finally, when she has just begun to wonder if it wouldn’t have been faster to just take the metro over, the familiar green receiver symbol appears under his contact name.
“Hey, it’s nice to hear your –”
“Cut the pleasantries, Lahiffe, we’re having a crisis.”
“Oh, um – okay.” He hasn’t answered with a video call, but after how long they’ve been together she can perfectly picture the startled expression accompanying his voice. “Wait, do you mean we as in, we as humanity dealing with a major health crisis or we as in – us.”
Alya just snorts. “This isn’t funny, Nino. I’ve been looking since my family went into self quarantine, but I can’t find it. I think I’m going insane.”
“Find what?” he asks sounding almost cautious.
“My sweater,” she just short of hollers into her phone, “My very fluffy, very favourite comfy emotional support sweater. I’ve searched the whole flat about a bazillion times, I’ve even dug through Nora’s laundry pile.” She shudders at the memory while his hum of sympathy reaches her through the phone “I’ve looked literally everywhere. I can’t find it.”
“Aw that’s too bad, babe.”
Alya flops down onto her bed, staring past the Wonder Woman poster pinned over the headboard straight at the ceiling.
“Tell me about it,” she groans, covering her eyes with her free arm. “Anyway, Manman told me to retrace my steps and try and remember where I’ve last seen it and I think I last wore it when I was over at yours. You know, the day before they announced school would be closing down.”
“Ah yes, my highlight of the year. Crazy times, aren’t they?”
“Completely crazy. But that’s not why I’m calling. I wanted to ask if you had seen it.”
“Seen what?”
“Oh well, let me think, dear boyfriend, what were we literally just talking about – Oh yes. My hoodie, Nino!”Alya huffs in disbelief, wide eyes drilling into the ceiling again as she buries her fingers in her hair. “Have you seen my hoodie?”
There’s a short pause at the other end of the line.
“Noo.”
With a thud, Alya’s arm falls onto the mattres next to her.
“You’re wearing it right now, aren’t you?” she deadpans.
Nino lets out a high pitched laugh.
“Wha – no! Why would you even think that. That is ridiculous.”
“Stop lying to me!”
“I’m not!” he protests.
“Prove it!”
“What?”
“Turn your camera on, right now.”
“I can’t!” he blurts into her ear.
“And why that?”
“Because, uh –” she can practically see him squirm. “Because I just stepped out of the shower, that’s why.” He sounds entirely to pleased with his excuse. Alya frowns, propping herself up on her left elbow.
“Oh really? Lemme see!”
“Alya!”
The laugh that breaks from her chest at the scandalized squeak in his voice is enough to make her topple over on her duvet.
“Oh come on, Nino,” she eventually manages between wheezes, still trembling from suppressed giggles, “you can stop fanning yourself now. We both know you didn’t actually step out of the shower just now.”
“Yeah?” he huffs. “How would you know?”
“Easy.” A grin spreads on Alya’s face. “I hear no music. In all the time I’ve known you, you’ve always listened to music when you’re home. Can’t go without it. Especially under the shower. You keep it on when you answer the phone and it’s always loud enough to hear in the background. The only possible explanation is that you must have been listening over your headphones, which then switched to headset mode when you picked up.” She rolls onto her stomach. “I have seen you tenderly cradle those headphones into a case before you went to bed. There’s no way you’re wearing them when you just came out of the shower and risk them getting wet.” She bites her lip with glee. “Did I get that right?”
There’s another pause, long enough to make her pull the phone from her ear to check if he’s still there. But there is his contact picture, smiling up at her while making a peace sign.
“You’re good.” He finally admits, his voice not at all matching the cheerful expression glowing on her screen. Alya’s gin widens.
“I know. That’s why you like me.”
Instead of a reply he just sighs in defeat, her screen blackening as he activates the camera. A second later his face fills the frame, his right hand pulling off the treacherous headphones but something else about his appearance is still – off.
“Where is your cap?”, Alya blunders before she can stop herself.
He stares at her. “What? Alya, I haven’t left the house in three days why on earth would I wear a hat?”
“But you – it – ugh, doesn’t matter,” she tears her eyes away form his strangely naked head, “show me your upper body.”
“Getting lonely, are we?”, he grins and just for a second she wishes Hawkmoth would reakumatize her into Lady Wifi simply so that she could reach through the screen and smack that smirk right off his lips. She’s definitely irritated enough. But as no black butterfly flops into her phone, she has to settle with a death glare.
“Do it, Nino. Don’t make me do something we would both come to regret.”
“And what exactly would that –”
“Chris!” Alya shouts at the top of her lungs making Nino flinch “Could you come here for a second?”
“Alright, alright, dude,” her boyfriend interrupts in a panicked voice and Alya notes the hunted look in his eyes with grim satisfaction “No need for such drastic measures. I surrender. You win.”
He stretches his arm out in front of him before slowly tilting his wrist for a dramatic pan down his throat to his chest. Almost instinctively Alya pulls her own phone closer, nose almost poking against the display as she watches in anticipation until –
“You’re not wearing it,” she breathes, disbelieve dimming her voice to a whisper.
Nino’s face snaps back into frame, wearing a grin that can be described no differently than as shit-eating. “Nope.”
“Then h- why?” Alya stammers.
“To mess with you, of course,” he smirks, “And maybe because, well, I’ve missed you and I like hearing your voice. Even if it only slanders me. If that’s the price I have to pay, so be it.”
Alya, who just opened her mouth for a snarky reply can feel her jaw go slack. Her face and chest grow warm as all the mean words she meant to fire at him flutter away over her lips in a silent breath, leaving her with nothing but a soft sigh. “Babe – ”
“Also because your hoodie is totally lying on my bed right now and I am so about to wear it.”
She almost drops her phone, scrambling to her feet with the most undignified huff ever to leave her.
“Nino Lahiffe you little-”
“Language,” he reminds her, “we don’t want Ella and Etta to pick up bad words, do we now?” if it weren’t for his glasses, his eyes would probably be shooting sparks at this point “Besides, I’m the one who gave it to you, so I think I’m entitled.”
“It was a present!” She puffs.
“Well, I didn’t say no take backs.”
“That’s not how this works!”
“It is now. The world is chaos. There are no more rules.” He cackles like a cartoon villain. “Not to mention I look better in orange than you, don’t you agree?” He reaches behind him and there is her hoodie, right next to his smug face.
Alya can physically feel the fuses inside her brain snap one by one.
“If you don’t give it back I swear I will-”
“Stay at home like any responsible citizen and be proud that your awesome boyfriend did the same?”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
She does her best to look grumpy, but Nino just chuckles.
“It’s a very nice hoodie you know?”
Alya glares at him “Nino, I’m warning you…”
“No seriously, it’s great,” he says, a strange sincerity in his voice. “I love the colour and the print. It’s great how thick the fabric is and the lining is all warm and fuzzy and comfortable. And you know,” Alya has to resist the urge to increase the volume of the call as Nino’s voice drops to a mutter “It kind of smells like you too. I sort of like that. It’s just so you all over.”
“Nino,” she squeaks, her cheeks heating at alarming speed “you can’t just say stuff like that!”
“Well, it’s only the truth,” he flops the hoodie over his head so that it lies over his upturned face and inhales dramatically “Ah, I could do this all day.”
“Stop,” she laughs, “You’re so weird!”
His eyes glisten out from under one of the hoodie’s arms “You love it.”
“Yeah,” Alya says fondly, “I guess I do.”