Chapter 60: The Awkward Confrontation
Creak
The door swung open and she found... no one?
She frowned at this sight have expecting someone to jump out from the corner. But she saw no one.
"Eh...? Where is the guy?" Natalia asked, hoping it wasn’t just her imagination and she hadn’t done all that for nothing.
"You done?" she heard, then turned to find Asher leaning casually beside the door. He had his arms folded, one leg raised and placed against the wall, while his eyes remained closed as he faced upward in a picture of studied nonchalance.
"Um... sorry about that," she said with an awkward giggle, really finding this whole atmosphere uncomfortable, there was just something about the young man that set her off.
"Are you done?" he asked instead of acknowledging her apology, and somehow his calm tone made the atmosphere ten times more unbearable.
She noticed immediately that the approachable young man from her first door-opening had vanished completely. In his place stood someone who radiated the kind of controlled irritation that suggested her panicked door-slamming had not been well-received.
Petty, she thought, her own annoyance beginning to rise in response. So what if she’d slammed the door on him? It wasn’t her fault he’d caught her completely off guard! Any reasonable person would understand that girls don’t appreciate unexpected intrusions into their private spaces. If she’d been warned about this beforehand and still reacted badly, then maybe—maybe—it would have been her fault. But this time? Definitely not.