flower | sebastian stan

019.

CURRENTLY, Maria, Julia and Evelyn were dancing around the small kitchen that was in Evelyn's apartment. Evelyn was making pancakes and singing at the top of her lungs to old throwback songs with Julia and Maria joining in. Today was Maria's birthday and she was the youngest in the trio. Many people mistake her for being the oldest because of her maturity.  Troy was on alcohol duty and was out picking up any sort of alcohol the group could drink. None of them cared that it was only 9 am. In Maria's words ' it's my birthday so I don't care if it's " too early " to drink.'

This was their tradition whenever someone's birthday came up. They would all stay at someone's apartment, which was always Evelyns, and make pancakes the morning of said birthday then if Tom and Harrison were back home they would meet up with them to spend the day doing whatever the birthday girl or guy wanted to do and no one was allowed to complain. Even if it was something they really hated, they had to do it. And then the best part was what they did the evening of the birthday, I guess it is a cliche but it was something they all managed to stick to, and it's obvious for them all to get blackout drunk.

This has been happening since they all became friends and with Troy being a newish member of this group, he had joined the girls a couple of months after they met. Troy managed to get close with all the girls quickly due to them all having mutual friends and some common interests but he had always been closer with Maria. They were the type of friends who would secretly have feelings for each other but wouldn't want to confess out of fear that it would ruin the whole group and how close everyone was.

This had its consequences though, social media was a big thing nowadays and everyone in this friendship group had a rather large following so whatever they posted would get spread around fast. Tom and Evelyn were the most cautious with this; they both knew what could happen and what it could mean for their careers so they always locked their phones away in a different room. But then there are the other four participants who say they won't get super drunk and by the end of the night, they are the ones who sleep on the couch all cuddled up together because they were too drunk to get back to their rooms.

There have been a few slip-ups with what gets posted on social media but then by the morning, it gets cleared up due to it not being anything too soul-crushing. Though when things do get posted people know that it is a joke and it gets laughed about then forgotten.

Harrison and Tom would normally spend the night with the girls the day before a birthday but this year Tom had an interview the day before and couldn't make it. With Harrison having the job of keeping Tom sane while being sat around for hours and being his personal assistant he too was hung up and couldn't make it.

—

The aquarium, that's where the small group of friends found themselves. Maria loved the ocean and she loved to sit and watch fish but sadly growing up she had never actually gone to an aquarium, in her apartment she had a medium-sized fish tank custom built into a cabinet filled with tropical fish of all different colours. No two fish looked the same and due to her strong liking for these animals she has names for every single one and she never forgets them. They were like her children. It's the same with Evelyn and her plants, she too saw them as her children and she was a plant mum to them.

Evelyn was walking behind the group watching how Maria pulled Troy over to every glass viewing window to take in as much as she could. Troy wasn't that interested in what the tank held, he didn't even look into it, he just stood there and looked down at Maria watching how her face lit up every time something swam close to the glass. Her index finger pointed at all the tiny details while his eyes took in every small detail of the girl who stood in front of him. In her other hand was her phone which captured the same picture a million times but Maria didn't care. She was happy and that's all anyone cared about.

Evelyn's train of thoughts drifted away from the aquarium and the fish and ended up thinking about Matheo and how much time they were now spending together. She too was finally happy but she didn't get that special feeling when with him though, the one everyone says is the one that you get when you are with 'the one'.

Evelyn didn't really have a specific career she did a few things, for example, she models sometimes when things come up and when different magazines or brands need her to do specific things, she also takes photographs professionally for celebrities and also for her friends, and lastly, she paints but this is a rare thing that she gets paid for due to not many people knowing so only a small hand full of people ask her to commission certain paintings from her. Painting is more of a hobby to her than it is a job, she feels like if it became a full-time thing she would lose interest in it and not find it fun and relaxing anymore.

Slowly her train of thought led her to all the amazing people she has had the opportunity to speak to in these last few days. Meeting some of the people she has grown up watching like Robert Downey Jr and Chris Evans and then Sebastian Stan, maybe she hasn't really grown up watching his things but she has rewatched all the Marvel movies just to see Bucky and she religiously rewatches Gossip Girl to see Carter Baizen.

Never in a million years did she think she would have his number in her phone and consider him a friend. He was someone she wanted to keep in her life. Whenever she was with him she never felt like she was out of place in the sense of him being this famous actor and she was just the French girl who ran a company, none of that mattered when they were together. He has been on her mind a lot more these days, ever since he picked her up from the restaurant.

Evelyn decided not to talk to anyone about what happened while the two were out and driving about, she knew that whatever she said would get twisted and people would start assuming that something was going on between them. Well, that was already happening and now that Matheo was in the mix it made her confused about what she was feeling. Yes, she obviously likes Matheo a lot but she thinks that deep down she has a soft spot for Sebastian.

"Are you ready to head back to your apartment?" Harrison was now standing by Evelyn's side speaking in a soft tone but it was still loud enough to snap her out of her train of thoughts. Subconsciously Evelyn had been trailing behind the group while snapping a few pictures of anything interesting she saw.

"Wait, how long have we even been here for? It feels like hours" she looked up at him with a questioning look on her face.

"Evie, we've been here all day. It has been hours" he let out a small chuckle and draped his arm around Evelyn's shoulders causing her to wrap her much smaller arms around his torso while walking out of the building. The difference between the brightness of the aquarium and outside was like someone had got the sun and placed it directly in front of their eyes. Evelyn turned so her face was closer to Harrison's body hoping it would shield the sun but it didn't work at all.

"Ugh, it feels like my eyes are going to burn to ash" Evelyn was now behind the group again but this time she was still with Harrison still in the same position they were in as they left.

"Evie, your eyes won't burn. I promise you" at this point Harrison was laughing at Evelyn trying to shield her from the sun until her eyes readjusted. "Did you not bring your sunglasses?"

"They're in my car, it was raining when we went into the aquarium and this is England so I figured that it would still be raining." She moved her head so she was now looking up at Harrison, who was wearing sunglasses laughing at her. They had a weird friendship, they were extremely close and many people assumed they were just together because apparently a guy and girl can't be friends without people assuming they're together.

They both just stopped denying it all because it was constant. But their friendship was weird mainly because they both once admitted feelings but then those feelings got swept under the carpet and forgotten about.