All Damn Day | Post Malone

Chapter 1

~ SOPHIE ~

Sophie hates nights like this.

The music is too loud, the people are too loud, and the atmosphere is chaos dunked in a little bit of catastrophe. Beer cans litter the floor. Red solo cups are scattered amongst the blue aluminum carcasses. Cigarette butts lay abandoned in ashtrays and various other surfaces that are all unsuitable to house something that had previously been on fire. Worst of all, the backs of her thighs are sticking to the leather of the couch she's sitting on because the hot California summer night has created a thin sheet of sweat along her skin.

It feels like she's at a frat party—or what she would assume a frat party to be, anyway—and she's never been more uncomfortable in her life.

People are ignoring her, thankfully, as they usually did. She hasn't gotten to know any of her new co workers well—or at all, really—and she doesn't get the sense that that will change anytime soon. She's not exactly their type, with her shy demeanor and introverted nature, and she's just thankful none of them are cruel to her. They pay her no mind at all, really, simply sparing her a glance if she's managed to retain her visibility on that day.

She supposes it's her own fault for not initiating some type of acquaintanceship with any of them, but they always seem to be in a large group and large groups tend to activate her shyness even more. She can't handle more than two pairs of eyes on her at a time, and even then she'd prefer only one.

That's why she's infinitely glad to have found a tiny nook to hunker down in for the night.

She'd much rather be in her bed, of course, but the party has overflowed into the pool and across to the guest house on the other side of it, so that isn't exactly an option.

This Air BnB is much nicer than the others they've been staying in for the past few months. She's usually roomed with Cathy or Josephine—the only other females on the PostyCo team—but this time she's blessed with her own room, thanks in part to Cathy living nearby and Josephine having recently become involved with Adam.

He seemed nice enough—he was the only one on the team to have ever spoken to her for any considerable length of time—and Josephine was a decent girl herself. She just hoped it was genuine interest and not the next step in a series of chess moves to get closer to the guy everyone wanted to get closer to.

Well, everyone except her.

She doesn't know much about him. She only knows what she sees, which is an intimidatingly outgoing man that's on a personal mission to replace his blood with BudLight and breathes in nicotine like it's his favored brand of oxygen. He gave her a cursory wave and polite introductory sentence on her first day, but he hasn't spoken a word to her since.

They always seem to be in different orbits, and so she only knows him from afar, despite taking his measurements every so often when he goes up and down a size. It happens more frequently than she would have thought, and so it's become a decent percentage of her job description. He's always talking to Dre, or Smitty, or Cathy, though, so he doesn't pay attention to the girl measuring his inseam or running the tape measure along his arm, even though she's standing right in front of him as she does so. It's like she's on a parallel plane, she feels-- one that allows her to be aware of his world but not him of hers, and she often feels like she's looking through a one-way mirror.

She's relieved about that, though, because it means he doesn't see the pink tint on her cheeks that appears when he's around.

She doesn't see him much other than those few instances. She wouldn't say she's been avoiding him on purpose, but then again she's never been one to admit to her own foolishness. He's so intimidating to her, though—so effortlessly the center of attention that she feels like she might crumble if he were ever to give her any amount of his.

Her thoughts are disrupted when she hears a loud cheer over the thumping music, and she turns her head just long enough to determine that he's won the game of beer pong he's been playing with Smitty and some of the other boys. She can't help but feel the corner of her lips tug up in a small smile, his own so genuinely happy and wide that it was infectious. She watches as he pats Smitty on the back, the crowd around the table hollering congratulations and praise like he's won the World Cup. He raises a red solo cup in the air, and his toast is as ridiculous as it is heartfelt. He brings the cups to his lips and it's only when his eyes catch hers over the crowd that she realizes she's been staring at him. She immediately looks away, their eye contact lasting for only a fraction of a second, because even from this far away it was too much.

She's not sure if it's her mind is playing tricks on her or if it's an illusion granted by all the smoke in the air, but she gets the feeling he continues looking at her over the rim of his cup.

Part of her wants to look back at him, wants to see if she can determine the uniquely beautiful shade of blue from this far away. It's the same part that wishes she could cross this strange divide and become part of the celebrating crowd. She thinks they might like her, if she could shape herself to be more like them, or at least climb out of her shell long enough to show them who she really was.

But bravery has never been an attribute of hers, so she stays in her corner, daydreaming of a different self and keeping her eyes on the moon outside instead.