Can't Fight It (Heath Hussar Fic)

17 // The New Intern

| Sab POV |

The flight to LA is long but peaceful altogether. It gives Sabrina enough time to get some work done on the plane. She has yet to find a place to live. There are a lot of high end buildings, condos and even small houses way out of her budget. Instead she looks into studios, big and spacious all to herself. She browses some online and plans to visit a realtor within the next few days to check some out.

Six hours go by and she's finally on the west coast. She's booked a hotel for the next week, hopeful she'll find somewhere to live soon rather than later. She takes a cab from the airport to the hotel and enjoys the view of this new city she'll call home.

Los Angeles is a beautiful city, a lot like home but shinier and cooler air.

Sabrina settles into the hotel and is a lot more tired than she expected to be. It's still early, and she already feels the time change will take some getting used to. She texts her co-workers and they decide to meet up for late lunch before exploring the city a little more.

Later on, they visit their new work building. A round, seven story building surrounded by up and coming condos and shops. Two of the seven floors belong to them giving them more space than they ever had in the small townhouse like building back home. Sabrina feels lucky to be here in the moment taking in the space with the new office furniture.

The work ads went up a week ago and already there are hundreds of interested applicants, some more qualified than others. Sabrina and her team divide the eligible candidates amongst themselves. Sabrina decides she will interview for the internship positions and begins contacting them almost immediately to schedule interviews.

On this day in particular, she interviews a college student by the name of Kristen Mcatee whose main interest is fashion but she does writing as a hobby. Sabrina reads some of her work and is surprised she hasn't chosen journalism as a main career. Kristen is sweet, giddy and genuinely a good person with determination to work hard. Sabrina doesn't need any more time to think as she's already convinced Kristen will get the job. There are still two more rounds of interviews left for Kristen but Sabrina passes on the word of how much of a great asset Kristen will make to the team once she's hired.

The next few days, Sabrina is guided around the city to check out a few studio apartments and finally she finds a place for her. It's small, with an area for the stove and sink, and a small bathroom. The ceilings are high, giving the illusion that the place is much bigger than it actually is, but it's perfect.

Within two weeks, she moves into her new place, and while it's still empty with no furniture she can't wait to make it a place of her own and decorate it.

She's mostly excited because today is Kristen's first day of work. Kristen reminds her so much of herself when she was that age and knowing she's accepted to work with them, Sabrina is excited to see where her talents will take her.

"Good morning," Kristen walks into work with a big smile.

"Good morning, Kristen!" Sabrina attempts to measure her level of excitement. "How's everything going so far?"

"It's great! I'm really enjoying it. I think my favorite part is the coffee machine in the breakroom." She shines her big contagious smile.

"I'm really glad your'e enjoying it. Let me know if there's anything you need." Sabrina offers.

Adjusting to the new office was easy, the work was the same with more responsibilities but nothing impossible. What was taking longer was getting used to knowing Zane and Heath were a mere hours or even minutes away. Everytime she walked around the city Sabrina was aftaid she would walk right into them. Luckily, it hadn't happened, yet. But she wondered how long it would be before she did. Or before they reached out to her angrily for not telling them about her new location. 

As the weeks went by Kristen grew closer to Sabrina. They discussed everything from work stories to social issues and entertainment. Sabrina was beyond happy to have made a friend native to the city.

"Let's have dinner tonight," Kristen suggested one afternoon.

"Sure. Where were you thinking?" Sabrina asked as she rummaged through articles of their competition.

"What about ramen? I've really been craving it."

"You pregnant?" Sabrina teased.

Kristen bursted out in laughter. "That's not even funny. But no!"

That's how it always was between the two, always joking and making banter. It continued later that night as they sat over their bowls of ramen and beer.

"My boyfriend's friends are always talking about this place and I just had to come and try it."

"Oh, so you do have a boyfriend." Sabrina teases, wiggling her eyebrows toward Kristen as she takes a sip of her soup.

"Yeah, we've been dating for a few months. It's cliche but we actually met at Coachella and it was like love at first sight or something." Kristen's eyes beamed with excitement as she spoke of her beau.

"Aww, that's really sweet. It's like a hipster fairtytale," Sabrina joked.

Kristen laughed loudly having to hold a napkin over her mouth before she could spit out her food. "Really though it is. I'm not sure how long it will last, but I'm taking it day by day. What about you? Do you have a special someone one?"

Sabrina's mind froze and a rush of memories from the past years flew rapidly through her. She hadn't spoken of or really thought about Ken in so long that the thought brought forth a sting of pain.

"No one currently," Sabrina seemed hush and Kristen almost regretted asking the question.

Sabrina heard a soft 'sorry' from Kristen. "Don't apologize, girl. I mean I was engaged last year but it didn't work out."

"What happened?" Kristen asked wishing she could take it back. "I'm sorry, again. You don't have to answer that."

"Kristen quit it with the apologies!" Sabrina smiled at her. Kristen was the first real friend she'd made in LA and honestly the only friend she had at the moment. Lexie was still there, but with dance school and work she was busier plus she was still dating Zane and right now Sabrina just didn't need her information getting back to him or...

"We got engaged and planned the wedding within a month. The night before the wedding I found out he had been sleeping with our wedding planner." Sabrina shrugged. Saying the story out loud wasn't as bad she thought it would be.

Kristen dropped her spoon, causing it to clink on the rim of the bowl. "What a fucking asshole!" She exclaimed causing a few glances from the people around them. Sabrina laughed and was glad when the subject finally changed to something else. This was the first night in LA that Sabrina felt at home.