Connecting the Dots (Shane Madej x OC)

2

I spend Christmas morning napping on my couch in front of the tree while my family slowly wakes up themselves. By 9am my parents are both in the kitchen making breakfast and listening to Christmas music, my older sister eventually comes downstairs and joins me on the couch, we catch up while we wait for the food to be ready.

Just in time for breakfast my younger brother, almost 21 by now, comes downstairs and sits down at the table to eat. We spend our morning eating and opening gifts. We spend the rest of the day getting ready to host dinner for some extended family.

By the end of the night my stomach is full and I'm ready to fall into a food coma. We say goodbye to our cousins and aunts and everyone and start cleaning up.

I'm standing at the sink washing some dishes when my younger brother walks over to help me put some dishes away.

"How's L.A?" He asks, we hadn't really gotten the chance to catch up with all the Christmas festivities.

"Good!" I say.

"You working on some new hit movie?" He asks and I laugh, shaking my head.

"No, but I did just get a pretty cool... job offer? I think?" I say, he quirks an eyebrow.

"I dunno something for buzzfeed, we'll see what happens." I explain and my brother nods,

"Oooh buzzfeed, didn't think you'd stoop that low." He jokes, I roll my eyes and shove him.

"Shut up. " I say and he laughs, we finish with the dishes before joining the rest of my family to watch a Christmas movie.

...

I wake up early to drive my parents to the airport, since my sister picked me up yesterday from the airport at almost 7am she convinced me to drive our parents today.

I help them with their bags and then we head off. They're going to visit some of my dads family in Virginia for a week or so. Once I get back home my brother and sister are both up already making breakfast for themselves. We spend the rest of the day mostly all just catching up, with my sister Ellie living in Hawaii now and my brother Chris getting ready to graduate we have a lot to chat about.

The next couple days are exactly the break I needed, we relax, I see some friends from home, go out for drinks, and then, admittedly a little sooner than I'd like, I'm headed back to L.A.

The flight back is not nearly as eventful as the flight to Chicago was, I sleep most of the time, having the common sense to upgrade to a non-stop flight even if it does cost a bit more. The warm weather in L.A is quite literally a warm welcome in comparison to the snow and wind of Chicago. I spend my first few days home on the hunt for a new gig, considering money is getting just a bit tight now that I've been out of work for a little while. I made a great salary working on John Mulaney's special but the rent in L.A is absurd and even though I've been saving, being out of work for just about a month now has been draining my funds pretty rapidly.

I figure I'll wait at least until Shane is back in L.A. to text him about the job, I wouldn't want to interrupt his time at home with his family.

About a week passes and, surprisingly enough, I do find some freelance work editing a couple videos, but nothing big or long term. Once the project is done I realize yet again that I'm unemployed, and decide it might be time to hit up Shane.

I smile and can't help but feel the anticipation rising. All i can do is hope that everyone at Buzzfeed likes me enough to bring me onto the team.