"What?" Her eyes moved to the pile of clothing in his hand, her brain moving too slow to realize exactly what he was talking about due to the lack of sleep and severe amount of stress that her body had been put through within the past hour. "Oh! Oh, yes. Yeah, I've got it." She got to her feet before he could protest, moving across the room to take the clothes out of his hands along with his sneakers. "I'll just throw these in the dryer, I'll put the shoes by the back door next to the radiator, they'll be dry by the time you need them. Sit, get comfortable, I'll be right back."
Upset or not, Patty couldn't control herself. This was how she made things better, she just... fixed things until everything was okay. She would fix his clothes, and fix his shoes, but she didn't know how to fix herself to the point where she wouldn't be so scared that he was lying to her and would just leave when she turned her back. She knew how ridiculous it was, logically, but a part of her refused to listen to that logic in favor of the outlandish notion that he regretted coming in the first place and was just looking for the first reason to slip out. It would fade, though, she told herself. The fear would fade, she was just on edge because of how quickly things were changing, but until it did she could fix other things. She had to know that she was useful enough to at least do that.
She left him in her living room, glancing over her shoulder once before disappearing around the corner and tossing his clothes into the dryer and tucking his shoes under the radiator so they wouldn't be banging around in the dryer for thirty minutes. She stayed back there for a moment longer than she needed to, standing in the middle of her laundry room with her head in her heads to try and clear her thoughts before sighing and returning to him in the living room. She hated how relieved she was when she first caught sight of him, and she mentally scolded herself before finally returning to her couch to sit.
She seemed shy when she glanced over at him before patting the spot beside her. "They'll take about a half an hour... they were really wet, Derek, you could have at least brought an umbrella with you so you wouldn't freeze to death..." she trailed off, nervously brushing her hair behind her ear. "...You'll stay though? It's too late for you to go home now. You'll stay?"