Everything Better Plan

After a couple of hours of scrolling through her emails, broken up by frequent checks of her Twitter and Instagram feed, Olivia decided that sitting in her hotel room all day would lead to insanity, so she threw on an olive trench coat and a pair of black, suede pumps and headed out. She gave a wave to the teenage bellboy on her way out and he blushed heavily before waving back, causing her to laugh.

Although she'd enjoyed the nostalgia of the coffee shop she ran into Alex at, the coffee itself just made her miss her ride or die; Starbucks. Back in high school she wouldn't be caught dead at a Starbucks; supporting big corporations and all that liberal crap, but now all she cared about was the quality of her hot cocoa, and unfortunately Starbucks had that on lock.

Once she'd managed to sniff one out and order her beverage, she took a seat and pulled out her Macbook. Classic I'm-alone-and-feel-very-uncomfortable-sitting-by-myself-doing-nothing move.

“Livvy?!” a raspy voice yelled. Olivia wouldn't usually respond to any name other than 'Olivia' – no one currently in her life called her by any nickname – but for some reason she recognised the voice and her head snapped up to meet whoever it belonged to. Instantly a smile spread across her face as she realised it was none other than Jack Barakat, another boy she'd been very close with in high school. He was the guitarist of Alex's band back in the day and Olivia's partner in crime.

“Oh my God, Jack!” Olivia exclaimed, getting to her feet and quickly embracing him. His arms flung around her and she was in the air before she could even register what he was doing. “Put me down,” she giggled and he complied.

“What the fuck?!” the boy yelled, attracting disapproving looks from surrounding customers. Olivia would usually be one of those customers, but instead she laughed. Running into Jack was so much easier, her initial feeling was happiness, excitement, whereas running into Alex was so heavy and almost scary, like she had no idea how to react – were they friends, exes, nothing? “What are you doing here?!” the boy yelled, only attracting more attention.

“Shhh,” Olivia laughed, pulling him to sit in a seat across from her and shutting the her laptop closed to look at him, “I'm here for the holidays.”

“What?! Dude, what?!” Jack continued, his volume not decreasing at all, “Dude, it's been so long! What the fuck?!” Olivia couldn't help but laugh.

“I know, I know,” she paused and took a good look at him. His hair was no long a shaggy mess covering his eyes, it was now pushed up almost into a quiff, but a lot less polished. She remembered he had a huge stripe of blonde through his fringe when he was in school, but now he had a little portion of red sticking out. Despite that, he was still extremely tall and lanky, “You look great,” she smiled; he looked so similar to how she remembered and he acted the same too. The feeling was so comforting.

“I look great?! Look at you!” he exclaimed, his eyes still wide in shock, “I can't believe Olivia Summers is sat in front of me right now drinking – what? A fucking lame Starbucks hot chocolate?! Damn,” he shook his head in fake disapproval and Olivia laughed loudly, “Nah, that's actually what I'm here to order, don't tell Alex,” as soon as the words left his mouth guilt or confusion or something flashes across his eyes. It had just slipped out, like they'd both time travelled back 4 years ago and nothing had changed; but a lot had changed. “Uhhh...” Jack pulled a silly face and tugged at his collar as if to emulate awkwardness.

Olivia laughed again, but for whatever reason her chest ached, she felt hurt, but she wasn't exactly sure why, “I ran into Alex yesterday actually,” she responded, making the subject less uncomfortable.

“Oh, yeah?” Jack replied, interested. Whatever emotion he had been feeling was quickly washed away.

“Yeah, we spoke about maybe meeting up again whilst I'm in town.”

“Oh, did he tell you about tonight?” Jack questioned.

“Nope, what's tonight?” Olivia furrowed her eyebrows, intrigued.

“Oh, we're having like an open mic thing at the bar I work at, it's super fun, anyone can get up there and do whatever; comedy, singing, poetry – you should come!” Jack exclaimed, smiling, his eyes excited.

“That sounds really fun, will you guys be performing?” Olivia asked jokingly, taking a sip of her coffee but not leaving his gaze.

“Yeah actually, we'll all be there,” Jack responded, his face completely serious. Olivia just stared at him. What?! They still performed?!

“Uhhh,” Olivia paused, seriously taken aback, “yeah no definitely I would loooove to come.” It had been so long since she'd seen the boys perform that should could barely remember if they were even good or whether they were just good because she was their friend and she had to pretend.

“Cool, gimme your number, I'll get Alex to pick you up,” Jack said pushing his iPhone into her hand. She quickly typed in her number, “Oh and please don't wear that,” he gestured to her outfit.

“What? Jeans and a t-shirt?” she looked at him confused, “is it a classy place?”

“No, but that 'jeans and a t-shirt' look,” he began, air quotations around 'jeans and a t-shirt, “is not actually just jeans and a t-shirt, please don't wear anything over $20 or the amount of money you come with might not end up being the amount of money you leave with,” he smiled awkwardly.

“Okay, note taken,” she nodded, slightly scared.

“But everyone there's super cool, ok I gotta get my cocoa and get going, see ya,” Jack reeled off before grabbing his coffee and dashing off, but not before waving wildly to Olivia until he was completely out of sight. Olivia took a deep inhale and breathed out. Tonight was going to be fun, or awkward, or maybe even dangerous? She shook her head and laughed it off, trying not to focus on the fluttery feeling in her stomach.

Notes