Ketchum, ID

ch 46 - alex

 I grabbed my keys and said my goodbyes to everyone. I finally made it to Jo, and she squeezed me so tight I could hardly breathe.

"I am so proud of you for putting yourself out there," she whispered in my ear, causing a small smile to break out across my face.

I made it out to the car and texted Liv to let them know that I was on my way. I turned on my most upbeat playlist and put their address in my GPS. I had 14 minutes to hype myself up, and I knew it was going to take every one of those minutes to be able to speak to Liv in a complete sentence.

The drive went by much quicker than I had thought it would, and suddenly I found myself parked in front of their apartment. I texted them to let them know that I was outside since they had told me not to come up, and I slipped my phone back in my back pocket when I saw there was someone standing outside of their building selling flowers. I quickly bought a bouquet and stood awkwardly by the entrance to their building waiting for them to come out.

"Hey!" I heard a familiar voice call out to me. "There's no way," Liv said as they approached me with their hand behind their back.

"I, uh, I got you these," I said, mentally cursing myself for being so awkward.

"Well I got you these," Liv replied with a small laugh.

They moved their hand from behind their back revealing flowers that had been bought from the same stand causing me to laugh as well. We exchanged flowers and went to get in my car. The drive to the restaurant started off in semi-awkward silence, but when we finally sat down at the table, it was as if we'd known each other our whole lives. We each decided to get one drink, and we shared an appetizer while we enjoyed our drinks.

"Okay, but I don't think we've talked enough about how you're just casually friends with boygenius," Live said as they set their drink back down on the table.

"I mean, they came into the bar on our first open mic night," I started reliving the story with a smile on my face. "Jo and I literally witnessed the birth of boygenius."

"That's fucking insane," Liv replied, bewildered.

"They came in, sat at one of the tables, and watched Jo and I sing-"

"You can SING too? What can't you do?" Liv said as their jaw dropped.

"I never said it was good, babe," I said back with a small laugh, causing them to laugh loud enough that tables around us turned their heads to look over at us.

"But they watched us sing, and I kept noticing that Julien could not keep her eyes off of Jo," I said with a smirk. "And then, they went up and sang, and I saw that Jo couldn't keep her eyes off of Julien. I knew what I had to do," I said as I leaned back further into the chair I was sitting in.

"Wingman of the year!" Liv said as they raised their glass to cheers with me.

We clinked glasses and continued to talk about our lives with each other as we ate our dinner. After we had finished eating, we continued to sit and talk for over an hour. I decided to shoot Jo a text letting her know that we were really hitting it off.

Alex : we literally finished eating over an hour ago and we're still just sitting here talking

Alex : there hasn't been a dull moment since we got out of the car

Alex : i could see myself really liking them

I set my phone back down on the table and we continued our conversation. We talked about college, how Jo and I started the bar, how Liv met Nick, how Liv and Nick had convinced Liv's parents that Nick was their boyfriend before they came out, and all sorts of embarrassing stories in between. When it finally came time for us to pay the bill and head to the bar, we both pulled our wallets out.