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When Troy walked into the apartment, Annie was sitting cross-legged in front of the TV, looking at something she had on the floor in front of her.
“Hi, Troy!” Annie greeted, waving at him.
“Hey, Annie! What’re you doing?” Troy asked as he took off his shoes. He walked towards her and looked quizzically at the scene in front of him. Annie was sitting on the floor, examining what looked like almost a hundred bottles of … nail polish?
“I’m going to paint my nails, but I can’t decide on a color,” Annie explained.
“Oh. Do you … want help?” Troy asked, a little unsure.
“Sure!” Annie chirped. She patted the floor next to her, and Troy sat down.
“Okay, so I’m not painting my nails for an event or anything, I’m just doing it for fun. So I’m wondering if I should just go all in and choose a wild color,” she picked up a hot pink polish to show Troy as an example, “or if I should stick with something more calm, since we have school tomorrow.” She gestured towards some polishes with more neutral colors.
“You could do both?” Troy suggested. “Like, the nails on one hand could be wild and the ones on the other hand could be less wild?”
Annie just stared at him.
“Or you could not do that,” Troy said hurriedly. “Yeah, no, I was joking. Definitely joking.”
He forced a laugh that Annie soon joined in on, both of them laughing sort of awkwardly.
“I don’t know, man,” Troy sighed when he felt like they had been laughing for a little too long. “What color do you want to use?”
“That’s the point, Troy: I don’t know.” Annie sighed in the way she did sometimes when she was annoyed, but not annoyed at Troy.
“Okay, which ones do you like? Like, which ones do you think are pretty?” He tried instead.
“Hmm.” Annie considered his question, tapping a finger to her chin. “I like this one,” she said, piking up a pink nail polish. “And this, and this. Oh! And this one!”
She continued picking her favorites out of her very impressive nail polish collection while Troy watched. When she was done, she sat back and looked proudly at the ten different nail polishes she had picked out.
“Okay…” Troy started. “We’ve at least narrowed it down, right?”
“Right,” Annie agreed, smiling. “This is a lot farther than I would’ve come by myself at this point, honestly.”
“Wow, Annie, I think you need to chill on the perfectionism a little,” Troy said in a lighthearted tone, even though he was being serious. Annie’s perfectionism was something he really liked about her, but it often meant that she put way too much pressure on herself. Troy wished Annie didn’t feel so pressured to be perfect. He thought she was pretty amazing already.
“Yeah, I know,” Annie said with a little self-deprecating laugh.
“Hey, I have an idea!” Troy said suddenly. He almost felt like a lightbulb had appeared above his head, and he was a little disappointed that he found nothing when he looked up. He shook his head and looked back at Annie. “You can use all of them! Like, a different color on each finger!”
“But Troy … that’s going to look really, really weird,” Annie protested.
“Yeah, but it’s going to be awesome! And it’ll be good for you to, you know, loosen up a bit, right?” Troy said, wiggling his shoulders in a little dance to illustrate Annie loosening up.
Annie stared at him for a minute, her eyebrows knit together. Troy could see the exact moment she gave in. It was really nice, actually, to finally be able to read Annie like that.
“Okay, fine,” Annie said, clearly fighting back a smile. “On one condition.”
“Oh?”
“I paint your nails afterwards, with the same colors I’m going to use. That way we can match tomorrow, and I won’t be the only one who looks weird.”
“Deal,” Troy said immediately. He held out his hand, and Annie shook it.
“Okay, can you get me some magazines or something that we can lay on the floor? That way we won’t make a mess,” Annie requested.
“Sure,” Troy said, standing up. “Hey, can we watch a movie or something while you paint our nails, or is that too hard?”
“We can definitely do that! I’m so good at this anyways, I could probably do it in my sleep,” Annie said, flipping her hair over her shoulder.
Troy laughed and went to go find some old magazines.
—
“And … done!” Annie straightened up as she finished Troy’s last finger — that one was a light green color that Troy thought was especially pretty. “Okay, now you just have to sit still for a while so they can dry.”
“I have to wait even longer?” Troy whined. Annie laughed.
“You can blow on them if you’re impatient. But be careful!” Annie added when Troy took a deep breath.
Troy nodded and started blowing softly at his fingernails. He could finally get a good look at them, and he honestly didn’t think they looked that bad. Annie had picked her prettiest polishes, after all, and they fit together surprisingly well. Even though it did look a little silly with a different color on each finger, Troy really liked it.
Troy glanced up to see Annie looking at her own hands.
“What’d you think?” He asked hesitantly.
“It’s … actually not as bad as I thought it would be,” she said, smiling. “Maybe loosening up a little every once in a while isn’t such a bad idea.”
Troy smiled at her.
At that moment, the apartment door opened, and Abed walked in.
“Hi, Abed!” Annie said with a happy wave.
“Hi, Annie,” Abed said, giving her a small smile. “Hi, Troy.”
“Hey, Abed,” Troy said, grinning at his best friend.
“What are you guys doing?” Abed asked as he walked towards them.
“I’m painting our nails!” Annie answered. She held out her hands with her palms down for Abed to see.
“Cool,” Abed said, nodding in approval. “Cool, cool, cool. I like the colors.”
“It was Troy’s idea to use ten different ones!” Annie offered with a big smile directed at Troy.
Abed looked over at Troy, who was still blowing carefully at his nails. He held up his hands for Abed to see.
“Cool,” Abed said again, looking at Troy’s nails. He hesitated for a moment, before he spoke again. “The nail polish suits you. You look good.”
Troy’s cheeks instantly heated up. “I— uhm— thanks, man.”
Abed smiled at him before he turned around and walked into the kitchen.
“I’m making buttered noodles. Do you guys want any?” Abed asked from the kitchen.
“No, thank you, Abed,” Annie answered.
“I want some!” Troy said hurriedly and a little too loudly, and then he immediately ducked his head in embarrassment.
When he looked up, he saw Annie watching him curiously.
“What was that about?” Annie whispered.
“Hm? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Troy tried to lie, but judging by the look on Annie’s face, she wasn’t buying it.
“Maybe— maybe I liked that Abed said I looked good, okay?” Troy whispered.
“Oh my gosh, do you like Abed?” Annie squealed, though she was still whispering. “Like, you like like him?”
“Shhhh!” Troy shushed her way more loudly than she had spoken. “Don’t tell Abed, okay? I don’t want things to get weird.”
Annie mimed zipping her mouth shut. Then she squealed again.
Troy shushed her again. She stopped squealing, but kept smiling so wide Troy that was sure her cheeks hurt. Troy smiled hesitantly back. He hadn’t really thought that him liking Abed could be anything other than a bad thing. But seeing Annie get so excited about it … it opened Troy up to a whole new world of possibilities he hadn’t even considered before.
“Are they dry now?” Annie asked after a while, gesturing towards Troy’s nails. He held them up in front of his face to see, but he couldn’t really tell if they were dry or not, so he held out his hands out for Annie. She took one of them and inspected it.
“They’re done!” She said with a smile.
“Awesome,” Troy said. He looked at them and felt a weird warm feeling in his chest. He had never really done a lot of feminine things before and it was surprisingly fun. Maybe he could let Annie show him some other stuff later. Like how to do eyeshadow or mascara or something.
Abed entered the living room again, two bowls of buttered noodles in his hands. He sat down on the floor between Troy and Annie, and handed Troy his bowl. He took it gratefully and sat it down beside him.
“Abed! Look! They’re dry now!” Troy held up his hands for Abed, proudly showing off his nails again.
“Cool,” Abed said, smiling his small, beautiful smile. “Cool, cool, cool.”
They did they handshake, and Troy could feel his cheeks heating up again.
He glanced over at Annie and saw her looking between the two of them with a warm smile that Troy had never really seen before. He liked it a lot.