I get struck by karma.

“In here!” I whisper as loud as I can, spotting the nearby janitors closet open just a hair. I don’t have to tell Naomi twice; she quickly overtook me, grabbing my arm to pull me along. We were in the closet with the door closed before whoever was stepping out of that classroom even had time to poke their head out.

I pulled the cord to turn on the one, dim, exposed bulb, and quickly realized a few things. The first was that, in our rush to get out of sight, we’d left behind a few important items: both of our bags, and the remains of Naomi’s skirt. Second was that in this cramped space, shelves of chemicals to our backs and a big industrial sink on the wall beside us, it was harder to ignore the sight of Naomi without her skirt. I shuffled slightly, trying to keep things downstairs from jutting out too much, my eyes traveled slowly up my friend’s legs to her face, and saw her giving me a dirty look.

“Having a good time?!”

“Shh!” I said, “Not so loud! Sorry, seriously, I’m so sorry!”

“What are we supposed to do?” Naomi repeated.

“Look, look, calm down,” I said, “if we can get you to your P.E. kit—“

“Get my P.E. kit to me, you mean? I can’t make it all the way to the locker room like this!”

“And I can’t get into the girls locker room at all!”

“What about your P.E. shorts?” At that question, I stopped and thought for a minute, before sheepishly rubbing the back of my head.

“No luck. Brought home the other pair to clean, actually meant to bring in a clean pair today and forgot.” Naomi just let out a frustrated groan, and slumped back against the shelves. A second later her eyes opened wide.

“That’s it!” She looked me up and down. “You can walk the halls no problem, but they’re not going to let you in the girls room to get my shorts. I’m half naked right now, but if I wasn’t, I could make it there and back in no time, with that pair of trousers plus my shorts to boot!” I gave her a confused look, and as it dawned on my, I grimaced and look back and forth between my lower half and hers.

“You can’t be serious.”

“Come on!” Naomi said, smirking a little, “if you’re going to tear my clothes off, don’t get upset when I ask you politely for yours!”

I grumbled a little bit I knew she was right. Slowly I undid my trousers and started shuffling them down past my shoes. Naomi’s smirk got a little wider and I heard her giggle a bit as my emerald green, Green Lantern logo adorned boxers came into view.

“Guess we’re even?” I said, cracking a little smile of my own.

“We’ll be even once we’ve got two full outfits between us.”