The next few days followed a similar pattern to Monday, minus Luka waking up to find Xander in his bed. Whether Luka felt relief or disappointment about that depended on the day. 

In the mornings, by the time Luka woke up and got out of bed, Xander had already returned home from his morning jog and was in the kitchen making breakfast. 

“Now this is how bacon should be cooked,” Luka said, happily devouring his plate. 

Every day Xander made the same thing: toast with bacon. Luka didn't know if he couldn’t make anything else, or if he was just trying to perfect the dish after Monday's comment. Regardless, every day the two sat on the couch together and ate breakfast before work.

When it was time to leave, Xander would head out first. 

“What? No hug today?” Luka playfully teased on Tuesday.  

“Do you want a hug?” Xander quipped back in a way that Luka couldn't tell if it was a genuine offer or if he was being sarcastic. But Luka liked it. 

Although Luka was tempted by the idea of a goodbye hug every morning, he ultimately decided it was best to minimise the amount of physical contact between them. 

Since then, Luka didn't mention it to Xander again. 

“See you tonight!” Xander would yell out while leaving.  

After work, Xander would return home first and shower before cleaning up. When Luka came home, the two would cook dinner together and chat about their day. 

“So I was editing the video content for our next campaign, when my computer suddenly froze!” Luka told Xander on Wednesday, waving around one of his nacho chips. “I had to restart the computer and literally lost a whole hour's worth of work.”

“Man, that sucks,” Xander said, dipping his own share of nachos into the store-bought guacamole. 

Then, the two would head to their separate beds in their separate rooms, and the pattern would repeat the following day. 

That was, until Thursday night. 

“Can I get your help with something?” Xander asked while sitting on the couch with a bowl of tonight's dinner in his hands—steamed rice and veggies with teriyaki chicken.

“Sure, what's up?” Luka popped a piece of chicken into his mouth. 

“I need to do a load of laundry tonight, I'm out of underwear.”

Luka didn't bother holding back his laughter. “You're out of undies and you wanna do laundry at 7 pm at night? Please tell me you're joking.”

He hadn't intended to sound mean, but the redness on Xander's face and the way he tightly pursed his lips together told Luka he didn't appreciate the laughter. The latter’s smile sank, and he quickly took a deep breath to compose himself. 

“Right, sorry, I'll stop teasing,” Luka placed his bowl of leftover rice on the floor before turning back to Xander. “How can I help?”

Xander furrowed his eyebrows, obviously still annoyed.

“Just show me where the laundry is and I'll figure the rest out,” he said sharply, spooning the last of his food into his mouth. 

“Hmm.” Luka leaned back and rested his head against the backrest of the couch. “I'll show you, but you do realise that, even if you start a load of washing now, it won't be dry by tomorrow morning?” 

In summer, when the nights are warmer, perhaps it would work, but it was only early October in Melbourne and the midspring night was still cold. 

“Why not?” Xander crossed his arms. “I can just chuck it in the dryer overnight.”

Luka stared at Xander with wide purple eyes. The realisation dawned on him that he hadn't actually given Xander a complete tour of the building yet, just their apartment. 

“We don't have a dryer,” Luka informed him.

Xander's face paled. “What?”

“I probably should have told you that at the start.” It had completely slipped his mind. Luka recalled telling Xander that the laundry was downstairs, but hadn't actually taken him there yet. And now that he thought about it, Luka hadn't mentioned to Xander what day the bins go out or where to park his car in the garage. Did Xander even know he had a parking spot in the garage?

“Xander, where have you been parking your car?” he asked. 

With a raised brow, Xander responded, “On the street. Why?”

“Wow!” Luka felt embarrassed. “I am a terrible roommate. I am so sorry, Xander.”

“Wait, why?”

“You have a parking spot in the garage, you don't need to park out on the street.”

“Serious?” Xander exclaimed.

“Yeah. Oh, man.” Luka felt responsible for everything and decided to take it upon himself to fix the situation. 

“Grab your dirty clothes and your car keys, I'll give you a proper tour of the building now.” 

***

The air downstairs was cold. 

Luka pulled the front of his cream-coloured cable-knit jacket together and buttoned it up over his work clothes. He had been wearing a light grey shirt and dark grey trousers all day. His leather shoes kept his feet warm as he made his way down to the first floor of the building. 

Xander followed behind, carrying a duffle bag full of dirty laundry. But without knowing how cold it could get downstairs, he came down wearing a green T-shirt that featured a picture of a mango fruit with stick legs and a headband, and the words ‘Go Man Go!’ written above. He wore black denim pants that hadn't been washed in three days, and although that kept his legs warm, his feet were cold from only wearing flip-flops. 

“It's cold tonight!” Xander exclaimed. 

On another occasion, Luka would have offered Xander a hug—and more—to help warm him up. But on this occasion, he did not. 

“Wanna head back up and grab a jacket?” Luka asked as he exited the elevator and turned to the second door on the right. He placed his hand on the handle of a door labelled ‘LAUNDRY’ but didn't open it yet. 

“Nah, I'll be fine,” Xander insisted, the goosebumps on his bare arms suggesting otherwise. 

But it was already late, and Luka didn't want to trek back up to their apartment if Xander didn't insist. 

“Okay, then.”

Luka pushed open the heavy wooden door to reveal a small room, maybe only about the size of their kitchen, with three top-loader washing machines on the left and one front-loader in the far back right. Above the top-loader machines was a row of cabinets, each one labelled with its contents. 

“There's powder, liquid, and fabric softener supplied by the building,” Luka explained while opening one of the cabinets and stepping aside for Xander to see inside. “You can use your own, of course, but if you don't mind the cheap stuff then you can just use what's here.”

Reaching up into the cabinet, the bottom of Xander's shirt rode up just enough to expose his muscular stomach, as well as the faint snail trail of fine black hair below his belly button. Luka enjoyed the little glimpse, bringing his jacket sleeve up to his face to hide his smile. 

“I can't really be picky, now can I?” Xander said as he pulled down an open box of laundry powder, and just like that the peep show was over. He inspected the half-empty pink box with yellow flowers on the side, the scent of frangipani wafting through the air. 

“Lana and I would usually buy what's on sale,” Luka said, lifting open the lid to the machine beside him. “So we'd only use the communal stuff when we ran out and forgot to buy more.”

Xander began loading the machine with clothes from his duffle bag-turned-laundry bag. 

“Do you have your own detergent upstairs?” he asked, adding a scoop of powder in. 

“Nah, I keep forgetting to buy some so I've been using the stuff down here,” Luka replied. 

“I guess we should add laundry detergent to our shopping list for Sunday,” Xander said with a smile. 

It seemed like Xander was looking forward to their shopping trip. The initial plan to buy a coffee table somehow snowballed into a trip to also buy tea towels, coat hangers, a bedside table, a coat rack, and now laundry powder. And although it made sense to buy the furniture items together, neither of the men commented about the obvious fact that either of them could have already bought tea towels and coat hangers from Woolies whenever they went grocery shopping throughout the week. Luka suspected that Xander just liked adding stuff to their shopping list. 

He waited for Xander to finish setting the washing so they could move his car into the garage. But instead of starting the machine, Xander just stared at the buttons for a while. He raised an eyebrow and returned to inspecting the writing on the detergent box. Luka wondered why Xander wasn't starting the machine, but decided not to say anything and instead watch in mild bemusement. 

The little crease between Xander's eyebrows as he furrowed was interesting. 

After another minute or so, Xander finally turned to Luka with an embarrassed smile. 

“So, funny thing,” he started. “I've never actually done laundry by myself before.”

Luka grinned and remained silent. 

“And before you start judging me,” Xander continued. “I did do it a couple of times with my mum before my parents got divorced, but that was when I was a kid so I don't remember what we did.”

A lock of blue hair fell over Luka's smug face as he continued to silently smile—and yes, judge—at Xander. 

“I can see the buttons and I know how to read,” Xander carried on. “But I don't want to press the wrong thing, alright?” 

Luka bit his lip to stop from laughing, for some weird reason, he found Xander's flustered rambling adorably amusing. 

“Want my help?” Luka eventually asked. 

“... Yes, please.”

Luka stepped closer to Xander and leaned over the machine. He turned the dial to ‘quick wash’ and pressed a few more buttons to get the time down to 35 minutes. 

“We're gonna want to hang your clothes up before we go to bed, it's not a good idea to leave them in the machine overnight. So it's better to run a fast cycle since all the other settings take longer than an hour.” he explained. “You can also set the rinse cycle to eco if you wanna save time, otherwise, leave it on deep.” 

Luka would've liked Xander to go deep in him, but he kept that thought to himself. 

When Luka finally turned towards Xander, he found himself barely an inch apart from his roommate's handsome face. Those beautiful, thick black lashes, sharp chiselled jawline, and oh so kissable lips—Luka missed kissing those lips. If Xander placed both hands on the machine, he could've pinned Luka against it, caging him in. He could've easily leaned a little bit closer and pressed their lips together; the idea excited Luka. Heck, just being around Xander excited Luka. But sadly—or perhaps fortunately—Xander had both hands in his pockets and his eyes glued to the washing machine’s screen. 

‘What a shame,’ he thought to himself as he slowly stepped away, putting distance between himself and Xander. It was probably for the best. 

“Make sense?” Luka asked in regards to his suggestion. 

“Yeah, makes sense,” Xander replied, reaching forward and starting the machine. “Thanks, Luka.” 

“Great.” Luka turned and walked towards the door, letting the heat in his body subside as he continued to put a greater distance between himself and his friend. “Let's go move your car now.”