Jordan

[nola_beth]

Oh wow! This was really happening. The very cute very nice dog walker wanted to hang out with Sadie. And not because of her endlessly entertaining and winsome little dog Mouse. Well at least not just because of Mouse.

For a while now, Sadie had been working on a tendency, picked up in childhood, to be a little too shy -- not just cute shy, or smart cautious shy, but to-her-own-detriment shy. It was a big part of why moving to New Orleans for college had been so important: it had forced Sadie out of her comfortable, protected life and into something that needed her to raise her eyes from the floor and look around. And so far, surprisingly? So good. There was room for Sadie here to be exactly who she was: a little too earnest and 'cute' for 2019 standards, maybe, but still able to write and dream and survive.

And to cook a meal with a very cute, very nice dog walker.

Sadie liked having something to do with her hands, and she liked to be distracted from her own nerves, so making a beautiful salad was the perfect thing. She was in the middle of carefully shredding lettuce when Jordan arrived at the door, and she called out "Hello, it's open, please come in!"

She would have received him properly, but she had to rinse off and towel her hands dry, and also she was worried that, if they were standing across a threshold looking at each other, she might get tongue-tied.

Never mind, though: at the door, waiting with boundless excitement for their guest, was little Mouse. He greeted guests better than Sadie ever could.

Sam

[nola_quicksilver]

To make the apartment seem more attractive to roommates, Oliver had taken the smaller bedroom from the time he first moved in. It wasn't a big deal, he'd reasoned, because he spent a lot of time out anyway, and as long as he had room for his drafting desk and a queen-sized bed (in case he brought home any special guest stars), it was enough.

It wasn't enough.

Here's what his room had to hold: his bed, still unmade from the last time he'd napped there, after coming home to find Sam deeply engrossed in something on his computer and not wanting to disturb him. A chest of drawers, because the tiny closet wasn't nearly enough, the top littered with loose change and opened mail and receipts and ticket stubs, and a stack of old tattoo magazines he'd found at a second-hand shop and wanted to leaf through. A little side table with a lamp, his art tablet, a water bottle, his keys, more stickers and flyers and Mardi Gras beads and the detritus of life in a party city. Family photos and random art he found interesting, some of it his own, and not all of it framed. A clothes hamper, surprisingly not overflowing, and the related stacks of folded clean clothes, which he'd set down to take a call and forgotten to put away. An old cedar chest that seemed to mostly hold stacks of books, all on tattoos and art history and anatomy reference, assembled in no particular order. And most important, his drafting desk, because as convenient as the tablet was, he still loved dabbling with paper and paint, markers and pencils, all of which were stored in few drawers latched on to the desk's side. Earlier he'd been experimenting with charcoal, trying to figure out some tattoo designs that had the smudged effect of the real thing without looking like a complete mess. On the corner of the test paper, first in charcoal and then in pencil when he wanted to be more delicate, were little doodles of Sam's initials, mimicking the the swooping curve of a jet's wings.

So it was a lot, a mess, just like Oliver was, but he liked it and was comfortable here. Except right now he was looking at it in a slight panic, because Sam was going to come in, intent on saying something that Oliver was actually too scared to speculate on (he was Louisiana born and bred—jinxing was a thing). But Sam was going to walk in, see all this, and surely just walk back out without saying a word. What else could happen?

Katie

[nola_littlemermaid]

Maybe this was a bad idea.

There was a beignet place down the street from Phoenix Effect. It was no Cafe Du Monde or Cafe Beignet, the two great rivals for the title of best in the city (Andy would give it to the latter, hands down, any day of the week), but it was nice and inexpensive and had decent seating, which he was currently taking advantage of. It also had chickory coffee Andy himself had not brewed, which was a treat on its own, though loyally he thought the recipe at Phoenix Effect was better.

So the location part was fine, but the social interaction to come—that was the bad part. Maybe. The nervous anticipation, of course, was terrible, but he remembered his school therapist (mandated by the district, which his dad had reluctantly agreed to but scoffed about in private) saying how breaking through shyness, making friends, only got easier with a lot of practice. And he actually had gotten better, thanks to being a barista—he could make light small talk while making a drink, answer questions and chuckle politely at bad jokes.

But face-to-face, direct interaction with a potential friend? That was way more intimidating. Especially since he couldn't help but suspect Katie was just doing this because he'd offered to mention her mural services to the manager. Which was fair! He guessed! He certainly couldn't have said anything that made him seem genuinely interesting.

Maybe it would be better if she just didn't show up. Or maybe that would be much, much worse.