maybe + a.i [slow updates]

[two]

February 2014

Sophie

-

It had been around two hours before Sophie had the courage to look over in their direction. She distracted herself by helping Olivia set up the decks and doing anything else: tea runs, photocopying, even filling out paperwork to get her out of the room. It's not like she wasn't bad at meeting new people, Sophie had always prided herself on being extremely outgoing. But something was different today, and she didn't like it.

Jake had managed to not make himself faint and was actually talking to them on the other side of the studio. She caught snippets of their conversation every so often, nothing more than small-talk, but it was more than what she managed to achieve. By lunch time she had no other choice than to make herself known because it was her and Jake's day to get lunch for the office. She grabbed her list of orders and wallet, along with her phone and made her way over to Jake and the two boys sat with him; one with perfectly quiffed hair and one with bleached blond hair with a black stripe running through the middle.

"Hey, sorry, Jake we gotta go do the lunch run." He looked up at her, and then back over to his two new friends.

"Sophie, this is Luke and Michael. Sophie's the other intern that works here, and your producer, Olivia, is her sister." Sophie shot him a look of disgust. He knew she hated it when people associated her with Olivia; she wanted to make a name for herself here, not just through Olivia. Sophie gave them both a half-hearted smile.

"What do you guys want for lunch? Where's the other two?" Sophie didn't see anyone in the booth and she was almost certain there were another two members (unless Jake had joined temporarily).

"Oh, Cal and Ash? I think they went out to get something I don't know. Where are you going to get lunch from?" the blue-eyed, lip ring one asked. She was certain this was the boy she told Jake she liked.

"Uh, different places I guess. Just say what you want anyway, we don't mind walking a bit, do we Jake?" Jake was snapped out of his daydream and quickly agreed with her. He rattled off some places they would normally go to before Luke suggested McDonalds, with his band-member agreeing.

Jake and Sophie left Universal five minutes later with a long list of lunches and anxieties.

-

"So, what do you think of them?" Jake asked Sophie as they stood in line at Pizza Hut waiting to collect their order. Sophie was constantly looking at her phone looking for updates from Olivia to demand them back, but there was no such word yet.

"From the two words I spoke to them? They seem cool. I'm glad you've made friends." Sophie replied coldly, but not on purpose.

"Fuck off, you've been avoiding them since they came in! Why? You're normally so talkative?"

"I don't know, Jake. I just don't feel, comfortable or something? I'll make more of an effort when we go back, I promise." They collected their pizza and headed back towards Universal with 6 bags of food and 3 boxes of pizza. Jake promised that he would include her in conversation more, but somehow she didn't really trust him.

-

Conversation between them seemed to flow quite naturally as soon as the pizzas and McDonald's had been devoured by everyone. Sophie joined Jake at the small, black table they had all been sitting around and fit so easily into the group without feeling awkward. With Sophie doing the majority of the work in the morning, Olivia had called upon Jake to assist her while Luke and Calum were in the booth. Sophie sat sipping on her strawberry milkshake as Michael explained the story of their last night out.