Viral Summer

2 | milkshakes, duffle bags and freeloaders

2

Freeloaders. People who take advantage of others without giving anything in return. Connor Francis could shudder from how much he hated them.

Commentary channels were the ultimate form of freeloaders in his eyes. They did nothing but react and shit on his videos and he had reached his boiling point.

After the popular commentary channel 'Subjectivi-Tea' has made a video completely slamming him, he had lost over a million subscribers. Now, Connor made it his personal mission to take down their channel before the summer ended.

So, after his claim to take Subjectivi-Tea's channel was rejected and chucked right back in his face, Connor threw a major bitch fit in the middle of Newark Liberty International Airport. Not a great look, to say the least.

Connor boarded his flight to LA already pissed and annoyed, and now that this girl in front of him (which he could only assume was a stalker-fan) had taken a picture of him, he was ready to hulk it out.

Until he heard the whisper of his best friend and publicist, Jonah in his ear, "I think you've had your fair share of bitch fitting today. Please just let it go."

"Fine," Connor said through gritted teeth, aggressively grabbing his laptop and a go pro from his duffel bag. Now that there was no way he could feel at peace sleeping, he thought that he might as well stay awake and edit.

Ava slapped Kacey's thigh, "Are you done laughing at my misfortune you fucking hoe bag?"

Kacey, who was huddled over, crying from laughter, barely reacted to the hit, "My- S-stomach. Hurts. From. L-laughing."

"He's so freaking scary! Thank god I didn't eat Madeline's egg sandwich", Ava said, "If I had anything to shit out I would've shat myself right then and there."

This just sent Kacey into another fit of uncontrollable laughter.

━━━━━━

"Would you ladies like anything to drink today?"

"Some tea would be nice", Kacey requested.

Ava took another run-through of the drinks menu, there was so many to choose from, this could take her hours to decide. But the attendant was waiting and because she felt a sudden tonne of pressure being put on her, Ava said: "a chocolate milkshake please."

"Coming right up" the attendant replied, collecting their menus.

"Ava, you can't stomach dairy remember when-" Kacey began, before being interrupted.

"But please make it with almond milk", Ava added.

"No worries."

Though it looked as though Connor was focusing hard on editing his most recent video, his air pods had died half an hour ago and he had been playing crazy taxi on his laptop since. Thus, he had heard every single bit of his stalker-fan's conversations. Beside him, Jonah was fast asleep, but just for extra caution, Connor slightly poked his cheek.

No reaction.

So, like a five-year-old without any adult supervision, Connor proceeded to cause trouble.

"Taste this", Ava said, passing Kacey her milkshake, "It doesn't have that almond milk taste at all!"

Kacey's eyes widened at the taste of it, "Damn if I didn't know I would've thought it was full cream milk."

"I should ask them what almond milk they used later; this is by far the best one I've ever tasted."

Behind them, Connor winced at the bland taste of almond milk in his chocolate milkshake.

"People really drink this shit?" He muttered to himself, setting the drink aside.

━━━━━━

"Ladies and gentlemen, as we start our descent, please make sure your seat backs and tray tables are in their full upright position. Make sure your seat belt is securely fastened and all carry-on luggage is stowed underneath the seat in front of you or in the overhead bins. Thank you."

"Kacey", Ava said, grabbing her friend's arm, "I don't feel so good."

"Why are you reciting Infinity War?"

"No, Kacey I'm serious. I'm gonna spew any second now."

Instantly, Kacey jumped from her spot and huddled to the side furthest from her friend, "We're landing in five minutes, can you hold it?"

"I think so", Ava replied, feeling the taste of the vomit enter her mouth, "But the plane's shaking too much."

Jonah, noticing Connor straining his neck to get a view of the girls in front of them, asked, "You okay there?"

"Oh. Yeah, I'm Gucci man."

Connor was just slightly disappointed that he didn't see his stalker fan puke. It would have made his day.

As soon as the plane properly landed, Ava immediately jumped on her feet. That, however, was a big mistake. It felt like the entire milkshake had travelled right back up and though Ava tried her hardest to make it to the plane's bathroom in time, she did not.

So, she threw up. Not in a toilet, not on the floor, but right in the lap of the unfortunate soul sitting in the seat one behind and one to the right of her.

Not even a second after Ava had finished vomiting her guts out, Kacey had thrown her duffel bag over her shoulder, grabbed her hand and together, they ran.

━━━━━━

The two of them were huffing and puffing as though they just finished the beep test when they got into the closest taxi. Kacey reached into her dress pocket and shaved a pack of spearmint gum into Ava's chest.

"I hate gum", Ava said, spaced out from barely being able to breathe.

"I don't care, your breath fucking stinks."

Ava then took notice of the scent (and taste) in her mouth and had to agree. Wanting to wash down the gum she was chewing on, she reached into her duffel bag to grab water, only to not have one in there. In fact, nothing of her's was in there. Nor did she recognise anything in there.

"This", Ava said, rummaging through the bag of chargers and cameras, "Isn't my fucking bag."

━━━━━━

I've been sitting in this Starbucks writing for almost 5 hours now, this is so sad.