She gets some company in the laundry room

The next half hour or so passed quite uneventfully for the redhead, despite her lackluster clothing situation. In that time she was almost able to forget that she was out in public wearing just a bath towel. Almost. But she was at least able to make some good headway in her book. Though she was distraught to find (on a reading break) that she’d forgotten to bring her phone downstairs with her. It wasn’t the end of the world, but it did mean Mackenzie had only the book to alleviate her boredom. The redhead glanced up at the washing machine. 13 minutes left. She gave a small sigh and was about to return her attention to the book, when she heard someone else enter the laundry room.

Her head snapped up in time to see a boy walk in, holding a laundry bag of his own (though his was quite more heavily laden than hers had been). He had wavy, short, dark brown hair, tan skin, and a healthy amount of stubble on his (admittedly cute) face. Mackenzie couldn’t help but tense up as any level of comfort she'd had instantly evaporated. She reflexively pulled her free hand to her chest, making sure her towel was still secure. The boy walked further into the room.

“Oh!” he said a moment later, spotting the towel clad girl sitting on the bench. “Uh… hi there.”

“…Hi,” Mackenzie quietly responded a moment later. Then, she looked back down at the pages of her book, trying and failing to put her new laundry companion out of her mind.

The towel-clad beauty kept her unreading focus locked on the words of the pages as she heard the boy begin using a washing machine of his own. She didn’t dare look up, simply praying that the young man wasn’t looking at her too much as she sat there, barely decent. She should have known her lucky streak wouldn’t have continued indefinitely. It had only been a matter of time before someone else happened to do some late weeknight laundry! Still, she had to remind herself that it could have been much worse. At least she had the towel, plus the boy would likely head back upstairs once his washing cycle began.

Sure enough, once the second machine whirred to life, Mackenzie heard the boy’s footsteps retreating from the machine and… instead of exiting the room, he sat down on the same bench as her!

What is he doing?! Mackenzie wondered, mind beginning to race, Why is he sticking around?! Okay, well, dumb question. He’s probably sticking around because there’s a barely dressed girl here he can look at. But why does he have to sit on the same bench as me?!

Although, as she thought about it, Mackenzie reasoned that it was perhaps the better of the two options. The other bench was on the opposite side of the room, meaning if he sat there, he’d have a great chance to stare directly at her. Here, sitting about four feet to her left, he at least could only kind of look at her from the side.

Wanting to see if he was doing so, Mackenzie casually glanced to her left. The boy was staring off into the distance, not at her. Although, he did notice Mackenzie’s slight head movement out of his peripheral vision and turned to look back at her. The two suddenly found themselves locked in awkward eye contact. They both blushed, though Mackenzie’s was far deeper than his, and both hastily glanced away at the same moment.

She tried to keep her cool, despite the embarrassment running through her body. She didn’t think that the boy was looking at her, or at least not more than an occasional side glance. But she couldn’t be sure without looking at him in turn. And so went the next 10 minutes of Mackenzie’s life, trying to notice if the boy was checking her out without actually moving her head enough to let him know. Hoping that she wasn't being leered at, all while knowing that she had no way of knowing for sure. Without turning to check, that was. Her mind continued reeling. Was the stranger ogling her right now? Taking in her generous curves and pale skin, concealed by nothing but a little rectangle of white fabric? She couldn't help but blush a little deeper at the mere possibility.

It was almost a relief when the buzzer came from the washing machine. Mackenzie cleared her throat and set her book down. She slowly and cautiously rose from the bench, making extra sure her towel was still covering everything.

“Th-that’s me,” she muttered aloud as she walked over to the washing machine. As she crossed the room, she felt a renewed sense of embarrassment in knowing that a boy was undoubtedly watching her barely decent form from just a scant few feet away. Trying not to think about her embarrassing situation, Mackenzie opened the metal flap and peered down into the machine. Sure enough, there at the bottom of it, were her completely soaked but now clean clothes. Mackenzie gulped, dreading what she needed to do next.

Since the machine was top loaded, she had to bend over and reach down to the bottom of it to retrieve everything. Her towel left almost all of her slender legs on display. And if she bent over, well, she wasn't entirely sure if it was going to keep her ass completely covered! Reluctantly, the blushing young woman bent at the waist, feeling the fabric slide up the tops of her thighs. She reached down into the machine, grabbing up about half of the clothes, and quickly rose back to a standing position, letting the towel drop down to its original level.

Mackenzie cast a quick glance back at the boy just in time to see him look away. Shit! He had been watching her. But how much had he seen? With nothing else to do, Mackenzie simply carried her drenched clothes across the room, hastily shoving them into an open dryer. She returned to the dryer, double checking her towel’s position on the way, and once again stuck her torso into the washing machine. Mackenzie had to bend over a bit farther this time, and she was all but certain that part of her butt had peeked into view. This time, she was able to grab the remainder of her clothes at least. Once again she hustled over to the dryer, crouched down, and chucked everything into the front-loaded machine.

“Um!” the boy suddenly interjected from the bench. Mackenzie froze in front of the dryer, and glanced over at him. “You, uh, you…” he trailed off after locking eyes with her.

“W-what?” Mackenzie asked, once again triple checking that her towel was still in place on her otherwise nude body. She was still awkwardly crouching in front of the dryer, genuinely unsure why the boy had spoken up for the first time in their awkward time together.

After a few more awkward moments of being tongue tied, the young man hastily stood up and walked over towards the washing machines. He picked something up from the floor and shyly held it out towards Mackenzie.

“You, uh, dropped this,” he said, glancing away.

Mackenzie reached out to accept what he was holding, only to realize that it was a pair of her panties! The redhead blushed furiously as she snatched them back, figuring she must have dropped them when pulling her things out of the washing machine.

“Oh, haha! Ah, thanks!” she blurted out, trying not to let the embarrassment override her brain. “I-I’ll just add these in then!” she forcefully laughed, trying to play the humiliating moment off as no big deal. She tossed the damp underwear into the dryer as well.

“Mhm!” the boy shyly replied, before heading right back to his earlier seat.

Mackenzie hastily turned the machine on and got it going. 00:45 the display read, though sometimes it took more than one cycle to get everything properly dried. Then, Mackenzie returned to her own seat a few feet away from the boy, trying not to think about he’d just handled her underwear. It had been a helpful gesture, of course, but it was still mortifying!

“Uh, I’m Peter, by the way,” the boy said quietly, shocking Mackenzie out of her slight stupor.

“Oh, uh, nice to meet you Peter,” she mumbled, turning sideways enough to meet his gaze. “I’m Mackenzie.”

He hadn’t offered to shake her hand and, given the situation, Mackenzie appreciated that. Apparently, her **** grip on the towel was strong enough for it to be blatantly obvious that she had no desire whatsoever of letting go of it. Still, he had helped her. It would have been pretty easy for someone to surreptitiously snatch her fallen panties while she’d been loading the dryer. But Peter had opted to help instead. So, instead of following her instincts of clamming up, Mackenzie kept the awkward conversation going.

“And, thanks again,” she continued, still a significant blush on her face, “for letting me know I dropped my underwear.” The last word came out softer than the others.

“Oh, yeah of course!” he practically spat out. He chuckled nervously, “Not the type of thing you want to leave lying around for people to see, right?”

Peter seemed to be quite the bundle of nerves himself. Mackenzie assumed that had more to do with sitting beside a nearly naked girl than anything else though…

“Right…” Mackenzie **** herself to politely chuckle as she replied. In truth, she’d had people see quite a bit more of her than just her underwear in the past couple months. Repeatedly.

And with that, the two college freshmen settled into an uneasy silence.