Nick left after a few more extra minutes of doing absolutely nothing but making it look like he had to do something in the house.

And while he was at it, I did what I'm the best at - connecting to zoom classes and throwing my phone somewhere over the room. I hope Clay gets better soon and writes all my essays.

"Can you help me?" Clay was standing infront of the mirror still with a towel, with his bruised shoulder blade on display.

"Sure." Taking the ointment from his hands, I started applying it on the discolored skin, watching the goosebumps rise cause both my fingers and the substance were cold.

I bit the inside of my cheek to not get carried away while tracing his broad shoulders and held back a frustrated groan when he purposefully flexed his back muscles.

"We get it, you're hot. Put on a shirt, for fuck's sake.." I lost it when he ran his fingers through his damp hair, knowing damn well that I found it extremely attractive.

And he had the nerve to wheeze at my suffering too, which made me want to slap his back but realize quickly that he's injured.

"You're even hotter, baby," he turned around to face me, "and you know what happens when you put two hot people in the same room?"

"Surely they don't fuck if there's a risk that one of them dies." I had fun watching his face light up and then drop immediately.

"I said it twice, and I'll say it again," he started and I already knew what was coming, "I don't mind dying like that."

Long story short, I forced Clay to peel potatoes for me to make something edible out of them. And while he was at it, I kept myself busy tidying up the bathroom cause it looked like a waterfall everytime he took a shower.

Nothing notable happened by the time Nick got back and we all had a nice dinner. And once in a while we didn't scream at each other, didn't push each other against the walls, and stayed away from the risk of killing each other. Our communication skills still weren't there at all though. We ate in silence.

Until..

"All this effort for it to taste like warm piss." I complained about my own soup, disgusted after taking a single spoon.

"Why? I like it." Clay spoke and it was already too late for him to try to avoid the consequences, "Nooo, shut up! I didn't mean it that way!"

"You're asking for it at this point." I laughed, pushing the bowl aside and eating my salad instead.

"I really like it too, actually." Nick was surprisingly genuine with his words.

"Ew." I laughed, not understanding how could someone like the starchy potato water I made.

"It's still way better than anything I make." I could see the truth in Nick's words, but the bar was really low so it was hard for me to take it as a compliment.

After we were done eating, I heard my phone ringing through the walls. Remembering that I left it in the bedroom, I went to pick it up. It was George.

I spent almost 30 minutes talking to George, and at that point my phone was almost dead. But when I tried to charge my phone, I realized that my charger wouldn't work so I tried to use Clay's charger. And after seeing that his doesn't work either, I almost freaked out thinking that my phone was broken.

However, soon realized that the power was out.

"Clay?" I yelled, realizing that both him and Nick were quiet.

"Are you gonna complain about the power?" He yelled back and I could tell that the voice was coming from the living room.

Instead of answering I just made my way there to see what was going on. And surely enough I found him doing something stupid and dangerous.

He was kneeling infront of the power outlet that stopped working a day ago, with some tools sprawled over the floor and the wires coming out of the wall.

"What the hell are you doing?" I hurried to see what was going on and saw him concentrated on cutting and connecting the wires, "Where's Nick?"

Clay couldn't even draw his attention to me. He just answered without even looking up from the wires.

"He's in the garage, at the electrical panel."

With a few seconds of thinking I figured that Nick shut off the power in the house so Clay could work safely. But that rose a few more questions.

"You trust him enough to let him near the panel? He's gonna flip the switches any second out of curiosity and kill you."

Clay didn't pay attention to my words at all. He was really busy cutting wires.

"Clay, you're not even allowed to do that!" I complained, understanding how much stress and focus that activity required, "Please stop, you're making me anxious."

He nodded. But not because of my words. He was just done fixing the outlet and was putting it back together already. And after he was done with all of it, he made me call Nick and tell him to turn the power back on.

Subconsciously I slowly backed away, pulling Clay with me. And when Nick flipped the switches, the outlet sparked. I knew it was coming.

"Motherfucker." Clay mumbled, groaning aggressively when smoke started to come out from the burnt plastic.

"Told you.." I rolled my eyes, hurrying to open the windows cause the whole room smelled burnt.

Seconds later Nick came back, looking at the smoking outlet and then back to Clay. The first thing he did was check the living room lights, which surely weren't working. And then he checked the kitchen, the bathroom, the bedroom. Yeah, the power was out in the whole house.

"I'm so glad I only flipped a single switch." Nick spoke, relieved that the blame wasn't on him this time.

I had no intentions to say anything at all. I just chose to stand and judge both of them. But then I remembered something.

"I'm borrowing your power bank." I tapped on Clay's chest, but he disappointed me once again.

"It's not even charged.."

I knew it was going to be a long process for them to find and bring someone who could get this fixed. And I also knew that 3% wasn't enough battery for me to survive the night with.

Nick's phone was almost dead as well, and the only person with a functional phone at the moment was Clay, simply because he hasn't been using his phone recently.