The Variations by Jones M (christmas read aloud txt) 📖

himself.

"Stop!" he said, waving his hands around. "I'm going to poop!"

When he realized what he had said, his words sent him into another round of laughter, and Kate eyed him without amusement.

"Are you done now?" she asked him after a while, receiving more laughs as an answer. "I'm glad you find the situation humorous."

Kate was already regretting telling Chris the truth about her quick exit from the classroom. The whole class probably thought she had a menstruation emergency after the lie she had told Mr. Bernard. 

Between that and the truth, she did not know which one was worse.

"Oh," Chris breathed, wiping away the tears from his eyes as his laughter died down. "I mean, who eats pizza with yogurt?"

"I thought it was a good meal! It doesn't always disagree with me," Kate pointed out.

"Until today," he said as he chuckled.

"Chris!"

"Sorry!" he replied, even when he was still laughing. "And when that phone started ringing Let It Go..."

"Oh my goodness," Kate said, moving to cover her face with her hands as he continued laughing.

"Oh, Kate," Chris said as his laughter died down. "You've made my day."

"You're welcome," Kate said with sarcasm. "Now let's get back to our project."

"Give me a moment," Chris whispered, laughing again. She rolled her eyes at him.

Chris and Kate had drawn everything they needed for their project. After that was where things would get hard. They had to map the images on their 3D modeling programs. The pictures would serve as profile guides for what the objects they would turn into 3D.

"Why the hell did we pick this project?" Kate wondered as she dropped her bag on the black sofa before she settled herself on it. "And to think we'll later have to animate everything..."

Chris chuckled, wiping the tears from laughing so hard. "It's not that bad. We already know what we want to have, and we also have a vision of it."

"True," Kate shrugged. "I just feel a bit exhausted, you know? I want to push the project till next week, but I know it will cost us."

"This is what we get for wanting to model stuff in 3D," Chris mumbled under his breath.

"Okay," he said. "What if I told you that I have a surprise for our projects that I'm sure you are going to love?"

Marie narrowed her eyebrows at Chris. "What is it?"

Chris just smirked before he left to head upstairs.

"Here they are!" he announced minutes later as he made his way down the stairs with two cardboard boxes. Marie had a hard time reading what was printed on them, but once Chris was near her, she gasped.

Her project partner held two boxes that contained laptops by Alienware.

"No..." she trailed off as Chris delivered the items on the table. "Are you kidding me? Is this a joke? Are you joking?"

"This is real, Kate," Chris said with a smile. He then proceeded to remove the laptops from their boxes. The devices had polystyrene cushioning. One was black, and the other one was gray. By the looks of their sizes, the display was definitely seventeen inches.

"What are their specifications?" Kate proceeded to ask, her eyes wide as she stared at the magnificent beauties in front of her.

"Um, you know. The 17-inch display, NVIDIA 1060 6GB graphics, Intel Core i7 quad-core graphics... Was it 6700k or 7700k? I forgot."

Kate released a choked gasp, and that had Chris looking at her in concern.

"Are you okay?"

Marie knew how she currently looked like in front of Chris. She expressed the sight of someone having a hard time breathing, but honestly, it was her reaction to the laptops' specifications.

"What else is there?" she proceeded to ask in a whisper.

"Um... 32gb DDR4 RAM. I also incorporated 1 TB HDD and 500GB SSD. You know, for faster file transfers and--"

Kate released the excited scream she had been trying to hold in for quite some time.

"OMG! OMG! OMG! AAH!" she continued screaming as she clapped her hands, feeling excited.

"See? I told you that you would like your surprise," Chris said with a grin.

Kate jumped up and down in excitement, but then she stopped herself when a thought came to her mind.

"Wait. Did you buy these?"

Chris took his time to reply, and that had Kate freaking out. The laptops that he had brought were worth more than a thousand dollars. If she were to accept one of them, how would she repay him? She doubted she could use the very expensive device without Chris wanting some sort of payment.

"I didn't buy them. I actually borrowed them from someone," he said.

"Borrowed?" Kate screeched. That felt a bit worse. The owners of the laptops would throw fits if anything were to happen to them.

"Fine, they're mine," he confessed. Kate was stunned, mostly because the devices still looked new.

"I use them for 3D modeling," he added, and his words made sense. "I usually use one; the other one is for emergencies."

"Wow," commented Marie. "So I can use one of these?"

"That was why I brought them down here," Chris stated. "We need to prepare them for the projects. We also need to know the programs we will be using to model and animate our story."

Marie nodded away.

"So, what are you going to do?" she asked.

"Well, we could use Zbrush and Blender..."

She and Chris proceeded to talk about the characters and items they would model. Afterward, they switched on the laptops, much to Marie's excitement. Chris had already set up everything for her device, having installed a 64-bit Windows 7 OS with the latest updates. They proceeded to install the necessary Adobe programs and the two modeling software for their project.

"Thank you, Chris," she told him as the laptop shut down. Without thinking twice about it, she had her arms wrapped around his waist in a side hug. "I will make sure to take good care of it. You'll have it back by the end of the semester."

He went to say something, but he stopped. Instead, he smiled as he replied, "You're welcome."

The two spent the rest of the day in the apartment. They took some time to model two characters in the 3D programs installed, and they later decided to take a break by watching a movie on the TV. Kate found herself eating takeout for dinner at Chris' place, and he later drove her back to her dorm.

 

Chapter 16

 

 

The first half of November was going by quickly. It had become busy for Kate and Chris, and they could barely think about anything other than school and their project. They had already modeled some of their characters and objects for the scenes. Many more were left to go, and afterward, they would have to animate them.

Kate wanted to groan at the thought. She caught herself once again thinking about how things would have turned out if she had picked another option for her project.

"This seems ridiculous," Chris said, sighing in frustration. He was in the library with Kate, and they had brought along their Alienware laptops. They had also entered the building with their graphics tablets.

Marie turned her attention from the rock she was detailing to observe what was angering Chris. He was in the process of applying the polypaint future to a tree, and somehow, the colors had mixed themselves.

"Have you tried to undo?" Kate suggested. Chris grumbled before he did what she had proposed. Just like that, the colors on the tree were back to their original form.

"Kate, I feel exhausted. We have been spending a lot of time focusing on the project."

"Yeah," Marie agreed. "But we have to finish modeling them first. After we're done, we'll be able to focus on other things."

"We need a break," Chris stated. "I heard there's a party tonight. We should go."

Kate was shocked by the proposal.

"You know we can't do that. We are still behind with the project--"

"But we are halfway done with making the drawings into 3D," Chris interrupted. "I believe we have earned the break."

Marie thought about what he said, and she found herself agreeing. Indeed, she had spent the past two weeks thinking about her project. She couldn't even catch up with the series that had come out on TV.

"Okay," she replied. "But does it have to be a party? We could do something else."

"Kate, it's a Friday," Chris smiled. "Let's go have some fun."

"But--"

"If you agree to go with me to the party, I will agree to spend the day tomorrow watching movies with you. I will also make the popcorn and we could have a mini-pizza party."

'Damn,' Kate thought, her mouth salivating at the mention of the food.

"You drive a hard bargain," she said, but Chris grinned nonetheless. He knew he had won her over.

*********************** ************************************* *********************

"Hey, Gwen," Kate said as she opened the door to her dorm. She found her roommate lying on the sofa with a book above her.

"Hey," she greeted with a wave of her hand.

"There's a party tonight. Want to come?"

"Nope," she replied quickly, and that had Marie stop to look at her. It was then that it dawned what she was seeing.

Gwen was reading a book.

"Are you reading a book?"

"Yes. I'm studying."

Kate furrowed her eyebrows.

"Gwen, I think you missed the exam dates wrong. They are in December."

At that, Gwen rolled her eyes. Still, it bothered Kate.

"Why are you reading?"

"Well, I remembered I'm in college. I want to know stuff, you know?"

That sounded like a lie in Kate's ears.

"Is this your way of trying to impress that guy? What's his name... Ben?"

Gwen's eyes widened in shock, proving that Kate was right.

"Who told you?"

"Well, it is simple," Kate stated. "Alex saw you hanging out with a guy at the park. He knows the guy to be one of those silent yet smart types, which is weird because he was seen hanging out with you. Anyway, Alex told Chris, and then Chris told me."

"Dammit!" Gwen cursed.

"Whoa! It's okay," her roommate reassured her. "I won't say anything. What you do with him is your business."

Gwen sighed, turning to sit on the couch so she could face Kate.

"Have you noticed how I have rarely been around lately?"

"You have?" Marie was shocked. She furrowed her eyebrows as she thought about it.

"How could I have missed it?"

"He's sort of tutoring me. He's helping me with my studies," Gwen blushed, and that had Kate shrieking with excitement.

Hardly did her roommate ever blush.

"I'm so happy for you!" she said. "So are you guys dating already?"

"What? Pfft. No," Gwen turned back to her books.

"Why?" Kate wondered.

"He doesn't see me that way. Sure, he's cute and smart, but I know he wouldn't want to go for a girl like me."

"A girl like you?"

"You know. Wild, outgoing... Loud!"

"Gwen, if I were a guy, I would have been all over you," Kate said, not even bothered by her words. "You are beautiful and sexy. Who wouldn't want to be near you?"

"Aw, thank you," Gwen said. "Just don't turn lesbian on me."

"What? That's not--"

"I have to get some studying done, Kate. Can we talk later?"

Marie narrowed her eyelids at her friend. She was ignored, and that made her eye her with an unamused expression.

"Make sure to tap that," she added with a smirk. Kate knew she was talking about Chris, but Gwen quickly walked to her room before she could deny her words.

************************** ****************************************** *************

Marie had made it to the party that evening with Chris. They had been late,