Hooked up | B×B

Hooked Up 02: First Encounter

|FIRST ENCOUNTER|

Jared and Olivia spent the rest of the weekend together. The evening after school was let out for the weekend, one and half feet of snow fell on the ground to suprise many residence the next morning. Like any couple would do in winter, Olivia and Jared frolicked around in the snow with their friends and staged a monumental snowball war.

Calling it a snowball fight would have been severe understatement. People were tackled left and right, snow was snoved mercilessly down under people’s jacket, and hats and mittens were snatched and hidden from owners’ views. Jared was one of the major culprits in these mischievous acts, but without the help of his best friend Nick, the stereotypical bad-ass French friend. About an hour into the snowball bar, Jared pulled him to the side of the giant field they were fighting in to talk about Olivia.

“Hey, Nick?” Jared asked, calling his friend from a few feet away. They were both hiding in some bushes around the outskirts of the field, and were waiting to pounce on their next victim.

“Why?” Nick asked. From the tone of his voice, it was obvious he was engrossed in the war at hand — maybe even a little too much. Jared figured that when Jared was distracted would be the best time to tell him about the intimacy with Olivia... to lessen the blow, of course. Jared, Nick and Olivia had been friends since high school, and when Jared and Olivia started going out, Nick got a little freaky around them for a few months... he still acted weird around the two of them to this day. Although Jared knew it would be weird to tell Nick that he was dating with Olivia, Nick was his best friend. If Jared didn’t tell him now, the consequences would be severer than acting weird.

“Olivia and I slept together a months ago...” Jared sighed in relief as he practically word-vomited his confession. Unfortunately, Nick didn’t understand a word he said.

“Jared, you didn’t drink any coffee this morning, did you?” Nick said, looking at him in an exasperated manner. Jared meekly nodded at him guiltily. He actually had coffee that morning because he thought it would calm him down. Nick rolled his eyes. “We’ve been over this. You can’t have coffee because it makes you incomprehensible when you talk. Now, come again?” He looked at Jared expectantly.

Jared sighed again and watched his words carefully. “It’s not the coffee that is making me talk fast, I was just nervous because I wanted to tell you that Olivia and I finally slept together about a months ago...” He looked cautiously at Nick. He wasn’t generally this meek or scared, but when it came to Nick and their friendship with Olivia, his confidence became... hesitant.

Nick stared at him for a full minute thinking and let Jared squirm under the suspense of what he was going to say next. Then just as Jared was convinced Nick would hate him and Olivia forever, Nick started cracking up.

“That was what you were afraid to tell me?” Nick practically in tears at this point laughing. “You couldn’t possibly think that after all of those dropped plans that I would think otherwise, right? I mean, seriously, the number of times you’ve asked for a rain check... over the past month is a dead giveaway... that you two... have been going at it... like rabbits!” He kept laughing after every few words near the end of his speech and was practicall rolling around on the ground by the time he was finished talking. Seeing his best friend laughing so hard triggered Jared’s laugher too, and so enough they were both laughing their butts off on the ground like there was no tomorrow.

After a few minutes of sheer laughters, they finally calmed down to reasonable degree of normalcy. Jared was the first to speak up.

“I’m so glad you don’t mind Nick, I thought for sure you would hate us both after I told you,” Jared confessed. He truly was relieved that he could keep both of his best friends around when he couldn’t live without them either.

Nick snorted. “Did you think you needed my permission or something? Just because I’m weirded out by my two best friends dating doesn’t mean I’m going to hate them. That’s what people in movies do.” He laughed a little at the last sentence’s irony. A year ago, he had been in pretty big Hollywood movie as a small character, and eversince he couldn’t resist making hypocritical comments about the film industry. For some reason, he thought it was hilarious.

Jared smiled crookedly, and tapped his best friend’s shoulder blade. Since he was facing the snowy field, he was the first to notice Olivia sidling over to them from some foliage further away from outskirts. Jared whispered into Nick’s ear, feeling as if they were secret agents.

“Don’t look now, but an enemy is slowly approaching us at twelve o’clock.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Nick replied. “I’ve had my peripherals on close watch the entire time.” He pulled away from Jared and winked. “Now let’s kick her scrawny butt and no, don’t deny it. Her butt is scawny and you know it.” Jared went to protest, but Nick pulled him quickly behind the foliage before he could muster a reply. As Olivia drew closer, they hastened to make as many snowballs before ambushing is arrival and giving her what for.

When she was just three yards away, the two boys jumped out of the bushes screaming and started assailing her with snowballs and forced her to the ground in submission. Convinced that they had whooped her good, they both sat on her negotiate their prize.

“Get off me!” Olivia cried while trying to wiggle out from underneath them. Her attempts were rather feeble, mainly because her face was planted in the snow.

“Nope!” Nick said nonchalantly. “Not until you agree to take us out for coffee...” He cast a sideways glance at Jared. “...and hot chocolate for Jared. Now agree before we let your face freeze off!” He wriggled around a bit to emphasize his point that they were the ones in control of the situation.

Feeling out of negotiations, Jared wriggled around too. “Yeah! Now agree or no cuddling tonight!”

Olivia gave up fighting at his threat. “Fine! Hot chocolate for everyone.” At her confession, Jared and Nick high-fived in triumph and let her up. She brushed off her clothes and looked at them expectantly. “When do you want to go?”

Jared shivered as a cold breeze blew by, and Nick spoke up. “How about now? It looks like the snowball was is over and I wouldn’t mind getting some nice warm coffee.”

Jared nodded his head enthusiastically in agreement and the three of them went to say goodbye to their friends Steve, Coleen, Rachel, Jade and Lemuel. As it turned out, they wanted to grab some coffee too, and so the entire group went to the nearby Starbucks in separate cars.

When they got into the cafe, they found a table near the back with a good view of the register and sat down to wait for Steve to oder their drinks. While they chatted people came and went, and Jared watched all the familiar passer-byes from his area give them orders and leave.

An hour or so went by inside jokes and fooling around before everyone decided it was time to head home to warm up a little more. Just as they were leaving, and as Jared reached for his fur coat, a newcomer came in.

The guy was around Jared’s age, and was practically the definition of manliness. His chocolate brown eyes surveyed the room cautiously as he walked up to the register gracefully, and his tresses cascaded perfectly down to his shoulder like a waterfall as he pushed it out of his face. Just looking at him, Jared felt out of place in his group, and felt like he wouldn’t feel satisfied until he met him and got to know him.

And he swore that as he left, the handsome guy checked him out too.