All Damn Day | Post Malone

Chapter 3

~ SOPHIE ~

"You sure you don't want to come out with us tonight?" Cathy asks, arranging Post's outfits on the rack for tomorrow's photo shoot.

Sophie looks up from where she's steaming the suit at the other end of the rack, wondering why the woman even bothers to ask her such things anymore. "I'm sure, Cath. Thanks though."

Cathy assesses her for a moment before reluctantly nodding, turning back to the rack and replacing a white button up shirt with a black one of the same design. Sophie knows what the woman is thinking— that Sophie is "wasting her youth" on Netflix and cheap wine, but Sophie resigned herself to her homebody nature long ago and wishes her mentor would do the same. She had never been the party girl and she never would be.

And that was perfectly alright with her.

"I think he's coming back early tonight, too," Cathy says suggestively. Sophie sighs, her shoulders tensing as the subject of their last conversation is once again re-examined. She doesn't want to revisit this particular concept, and she tries to think of anything she could do to cut this conversation short.

Maybe she could accidentally stab herself with a pair of scissors.

"Empty house, just the two of you. Seems like the perfect time to ask him."

"I am not asking him that, Cathy," she says pointedly. She tosses a glance at the other woman, an expression she hopes reads as end of story but apparently reads as keep pushing the topic instead.

"Why not?"

"Because," she sighs, dropping the steamer to her side and nearly hissing in pain when the hot steam hits her skin. "Besides the fact that I have to see him somewhat frequently and it would be majorly awkward after, we're complete strangers," she reasons, a plume of steam billowing around her as she raises the device once again. "And beyond that, who even goes up to someone and says 'hey, I heard you were really good in bed. Do you mind taking my virginity?'"

"I'm sure it happens more often than you think. Especially in this town," Cathy mutters.

"I'm sure it doesn't happen at all." She goes back to steaming the suit, straightening out the pure white sleeve before dragging the device along the fabric. The wrinkles disappear as the steam clears, and she drapes it back in its proper place, letting it neatly fall against the torso of the garment.

A knock on the door interrupts their conversation—thank God—and she's incredibly grateful for it. Cathy moves to open the door since she has the least involved task at the moment, and Sophie prays that it's not the person who it most likely is.

"Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in," Cathy chuckles, and Sophie's eyes fall closed in defeat when she hears the answering throaty chuckle. She opens them to see him step through the doorway out of the corner of her eye, and she once again pretends she's too absorbed by her job to notice he's entered the room. It's the absolute converse of what's actually happening—she's much too aware of the seven steps it takes for him to sit at the table by the window, of the way he sits so casually in the chair that seems just a bit too small for him—but she's always been pretty good at masking her inner monologue.

He's once again alone, she realizes, and she curses whichever God is pulling the strings of her life at the moment, because how is he alone at the only two times she wishes for him to be enveloped by a mob of people?

She vaguely hears Cathy speaking, her blood pumping in her ears too hard as she panics about being in the same space with him, and it's only when she hears the click of the door closing that she realizes the woman had invented some excuse to leave them alone for a minute.