Octavia had been back in town about a day or so when she started making the rounds of texts to some of her friends in order to try to make some plans to hang out before the school year and work officially started. She’d taken a week off from starting back at her actual job so that she could have a few days to relax, chill, and catch up with what was going on in town. As much as she loved being out in the parks during the summer, she still always loved coming back home. She’d already been by her dad’s place to collect her giant mutt, and had checked in with her brother and sister to make plans for dinner later in the week.
Cooper, the giant mutt, had practically toppled her over in the doorway of her dad’s house, and was back to believing he was a lap dog every time she tried to lay down on her bed or the couch after taking him home.
Laying on the couch, Octavia had the TV on low in the background while she scrolled through her phone. The people she’d already wanted to contact about being back, her family, Danny, Clarke, Jaina, Cappie, and a handful of others had already been told, and the rest she’d see eventually once classes started back up or she saw them around town. Unable to move much because of the oversized dog laying on her legs causing them to go to sleep, Octavia stretched out her arm to place the phone on top of the coffee table next to her.
It was a few minutes later when she heard a knock at the door. Cooper turned those big, soulful eyes to her. “What? Can’t you answer it?” She asked him and started the struggle of getting up while he had no intention of moving from his spot on top of half of her body. “Don’t let me disturb you,” she said to the dog once she finally was able to get up and there was a second knock at the door.
“I’m coming!” She called out and padded across the room. One look out the little peep hole, and she smiled at the familiar face on the other side. The door opened, and she smiled at Cappie standing there. She wouldn’t trade her summers away, but she always missed her friends from home while she was gone. “Hey, Cap. Long time no see, huh?” She grinned. “Come on in.”
Cappie had realised that he would have to endure a long, long summer of waiting for Octavia to return almost as soon as she had left in May. He hadn’t clicked how soon after the semester ended that she would be heading out for Yellowstone. He’d hoped they’d get to spend a little bit of time together before her internship started but, before he’d known it, while he’d still been wrapped up in the swansong of his relationship with Rebecca, she had been gone.
They had texted over the three months that had passed since then, of course. It had sounded like she was having an amazing time on her placement and he had told her about each of the stops on the band’s tour around Colorado. Still, there had seemed to be an unspoken agreement between the pair of them that they needed to catch up properly, in person, when they were both back in Breckentale. There was only so much that you could put into a text. For example, he hadn’t mentioned, over text, that he’d worked out that this was the first time they’d both been single at the same time since they’d almost hooked up with each other two Thanksgivings ago.
When her apartment door opened and he saw her standing there, all tanned from working outside, with her hair hanging loose around her shoulders, he couldn’t help but break into a wide beam. He felt like hugging her but, instead, he lifted up a tshirt that he’d brought with him to give to her. The design on the front read, ’Crave Real Burgers, Denver: Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?’
“I won you something,” he said, following her into the apartment. “I thought you’d appreciate the effort.”
Octavia tried to suppress a grin at the sight of the t-shirt he’d won. He’d texted her around the time of the burger competition, so she knew that he’d won. She didn’t know he was bringing her back a souvenir of his victory, but she wasn’t doing a great job keeping that grin off her face as she took the shirt from him. “Impressive,” she said with a nod. “I’m actually a little surprised you didn’t wear this around for the rest of your tour.”
They started towards the living room where Cooper was still slumped over the couch, and she suddenly remembered that she had her own souvenir for him in the bedroom. “Go ahead and sit down, I’ll be right back.” Octavia rounded the corner of the short hallway of the apartment to her bedroom and found the bag of items she’d collected over the last couple of months to bring home. Once she found what she was looking for, she rolled her eyes at herself at how cheesy it probably was but went back to join in him the other room regardless.
“Here,” she said and held out a little plush bison to him. The shirt he’d given her was still tossed over her shoulder while she practically had to shove the dog off of the couch so they both had room to sit down. With a grunt, Cooper ended up laying down on the floor. “I didn’t win it, but there you go anyway.”
Once she was settled, Octavia lifted the shirt from her shoulder and laid it in her lap. Even if she was sure that they’d get together to hang out over the next day or two regardless, she was glad that he’d come over unprompted. It was really good seeing him, and she was starting to realize exactly how much she’d missed him. And he looked good. Really good.
Cappie loved seeing Octavia smile, especially when he knew that he had been the cause.
“I may have worn it a few times,” he admitted, mirroring her grin. “But I made sure I washed it, with detergent and everything.”
Cappie crossed to the couch when Octavia disappeared, crouching down beside Cooper.
“Hey boy,” he said fondly, scratching the dog behind both ears simultaneously. “You miss me?” Cooper gave a grumble of ecstasy, leaning his big head into Cappie’s palm.
Cappie looked up when Octavia came back in and chuckled when he saw what she had in her hands.
“Aww, thanks,” he said, reaching out to take the bison soft toy. He studied it for a moment then showed it to Cooper. “Look what your mom got me.” Cooper raised one drooping eyebrow, his nose twitching as he sniffed the bison. Evidently he decided that it wasn’t food, and therefore wasn’t interesting, because he turned his head away before reluctantly moving off of the couch at Octavia’s urging.
Cappie straightened up then sank down onto the couch beside O, still holding the bison in his hands. He stroked it absentmindedly as he looked over at her.
“So, Yellowstone sounded amazing,” he started, finding that his mouth was suddenly feeling unusually dry now that she was here with him and not hundreds of miles away. “Sorry again that I wasn’t around to see you off.”
Knowing that he’d worn the shirt before giving it to her surprised her a little, but not in a bad way. She mostly tried to make sure not to give any reaction away, and leaving the room for a moment had helped with that. Now that they were sitting down, she occasionally caught herself playing with the edges of the shirt between her fingers.
She turned a bit towards him, resting her elbow back on the back of the couch. Her eyes lit up when he asked about her trip, and she waved him off when he tried to apologize. “It’s fine. It was a busy time of year for everyone with school winding down, you getting ready to head out on the tour… it’s really fine.” She knew he’d been having some issues with his girlfriend at the time and that they’d eventually broken up, but she wasn’t going to bring that up right now.
“Yeah, it really was.” Yellowstone had been amazing, and even though her family had visited the park before when she was younger, she had forgotten half of it, and it was a lot different seeing it from the worker side of things. It was one of her most favorite national parks she’d ever been to just for the vastness of the park and the fact that it offered so much. Geysers, wildlife, the lake, hiking, and more. She told Cappie about a few of the things she got to do. Mostly, it was typical intern type grunt work, but they also worked on some of the trails, helped keep bears from eating the tourists, and she helped out with some of the trail riding for a couple weeks in the northern part of the park.
“So, yeah,” she said after going on way too much about what she’d been doing. “That was my summer. How was the tour? Anything happen in town I missed that I should know about?”
Cappie found that he, too, turned his body towards her, pulling a leg up under him on the couch, as he listened to her gush about her summer. A little smile played across his lips as his gaze roamed over her face and, although he nodded along with what she was saying, he realised that he was only half listening. The rest of his brain was busy thinking about how good it was to have her back and how great she was looking.
“The tour was epic,” he told her when it was his turn to speak, raising his eyebrows and settling back against the couch. “We rocked and the public adored us.” He grinned at her, knowing that she was used to his semi-serious way of boasting. The tour really had been good. The band had received a great reception at all of their venues and they’d almost sold out of copies of their EP. Besides, after the break up, it had been good to get out on the road for a while.
“There was a record label sniffing around after the Denver shows but we haven’t heard anything since we left.” He shrugged. He was disappointed that nothing had come of the encounter but, at the same time, there was a part of him that didn’t want to get signed. If they got offered a record deal, it would mean having to make some very tough decisions over what to do with his life and he didn’t like the idea of that. His life was fine the way it was. He studied linguistics by day and made music by night. He had all of his friends around him, he lived in a place he loved and he was happy. Why did any of that have to change?
“Breckentale was Breckentale,” he said, making the toy bison walk along the arm of the couch. The band had come back to town in between gigs but nothing had leapt out at him as being out of the ordinary for Breckentale in late spring and early summer. He, himself, had had a few interesting encounters, most notably with two of his ex-girlfriends and a very large bottle of tequila, but he wasn’t going to tell Octavia about those. He probably would have done, once, but something had subtly shifted between them after their close encounter of the sexy kind and he realised now that he didn’t want Octavia thinking about him being with other girls that weren’t his girlfriend. After all, the idea of her casually hooking up with other men bugged the hell out of him. He’d rather not know and he thought it was probably only fair to extend her the same courtesy.
“So what are we doing for the rest of August?” he asked, moving the conversation along and leaving those kinds of thoughts behind. They still had a couple of weeks before classes started up again and, after missing her before she left for Yellowstone, he wanted to make sure he didn’t waste what was left of their summer break. “I’m thinking lake party.”
"Cappie, that's great!" Octavia said with a huge grin. She always expected the tour to be a big success for the group, but hearing they had a record label interested in them was really great. She reached out and touched his forearm. "And you never know what might happen. The label could give you guys a call any day." She'd been to plenty of their shows and always had a great time enjoying the music. As far as local bands went, they were better than a lot of the others in town.
Breckentale being Breckentale didn't much surprise her. Full of tourists visiting and people doing their typical summery things. She'd done a lot of hiking and exploring while she'd been gone, but she wanted to get back out there to some of her favorite local spots before the weather started to cool off once they got more into the fall.
"Trying to catch up with things, mostly. Taking it easy for a while before I go back to work in a week." She didn't go back for another week, and she was starting to wonder if she should have taken more time. Her original logic had been to ease back into the swing of things with work first rather than jumping into the deep end by going back to both school and work all at the same time. She liked her job, though, and her hours weren't going to be too bad once she started back up.
"Lake party would be fun," she said, shifting herself a little on the couch to tuck her feet underneath her body. "Those always turn out to be a good time. It would be a good way to catch up with everybody too. It was only a couple months being gone, but I swear it feels like longer."
Some people she'd missed more than others, and some of those same people she'd kept up with more over texts and pictures more than others. Cappie was one of those, and she was looking forward to spending more time with him during the few days of freedom she had before life picked back up again.
"We could get lunch or dinner one day, if you want. I've been living off cafeteria food and quick and easy meals for a while." They had grilled out a few times, but stores were way too far away to stock up on a lot of meat and veggies.
“It does feel like longer,” Cappie agreed, almost too readily. He cleared his throat before saying, with a smile, “I’ll see who’s up for it.” He and Octavia shared many of the same friends, so it shouldn’t be hard to get a good group of people together to head down to the lake with them one night. Those college students that lived in Breckentale all year round often had a pre-school party of some kind, to wish farewell to the summer, and the lake was just a logical choice of location. It had been a warm July this year and August was looking like it was going to continue that trend.
Cappie felt his stomach do a little flip-flop when Octavia suggested that they get food together. He could tell, from her tone, that she hadn’t meant it to be a date, just eating food in the company of a friend, but that had been the place his brain had immediately gone to.
“That’s fine,” he said, ignoring the sensation. “As long as it’s not burgers,” he laughed. “I don’t think I want to see another burger in my life.”
“Damn. Here I was craving a big burger and fries,” she said but shook her head with a laugh. “Kidding. I'll get my burger fix later. Anything is fine.” She wasn't picky, and he knew which places were worth going to and which places to avoid. As much as she probably could spend the next week catching up on sleep and lounging around watching TV, it would be nice to get out and see people she'd missed at a party of where ever.
They sat there on the couch for a few moments quietly. The TV was still on for background noise and occasionally Cooper would grunt or shift while he laid down on the floor in front of the couch. Clearing her throat, Octavia spoke again, “So,... have you seen Rebecca since you've been back in town? I'm sorry I wasn't around when all of that was going on.”
She looked at him but didn't maintain eye contact for long, letting her gaze shift over to whatever was on television. She was trying to act casual, but, yes, she was fishing for information about Cappie and the girl he'd broken up with shortly after summer break started. Octavia had already been gone by that time, so she'd really only gotten the bare bones basics from him through texts. When she'd first found out, there had been a lot of mixed feelings. She hated it for Cappie of course because all breakups sucked, but a part of her still wondered ‘what if’ after their moment of almost a year or two ago. For all she knew, they'd gotten back together over break and were keeping it on the downlow.
“Let’s go to that little cajun I told you about,” Cappie decided. He was known, among their friendship group, for scouting out little dive bars and mom-and-pop restaurants that no one had ever heard of before but that delivered on everything except the big name. “If we go tonight before 8, it’ll be happy hour.” He pulled out his phone and spent a few minutes finding the restaurant’s table booking website. They still had plenty of space left so he didn’t bother taking it any further and locked the phone, dropping it down on the couch between them, just in time for Octavia’s question about Rebecca. He took a deep breath and slowly let it out again.
“No,” he said, laying his arm along the arm of the sofa, the other hand resting lightly on the cuddly bison in his lap. “She headed out on vacation a couple of weeks into the summer break and… well, I guess she’s due back some time about now.” He shrugged, trying to act nonchalant. “It is what it is. We tried to keep it going all last year but, in the end, it didn’t work out. We still text sometimes. Last I heard she was travelling.”
As much as they hadn’t wanted to admit it, his and Rebecca’s break up had been a long time coming. They still cared a great deal about each other as people but they’d never had that much in common and, as they both got more involved in their separate extra-curricular interests, they had found that it was becoming more and more of a chore to put effort into their relationship. Eventually, they’d both agreed to call time, before it went too far and they started to resent each other. In fact, it had all been rather civilised. It had left Cappie feeling a weird mix of emotions: relief, exhilaration, loss and loneliness. It had taken him a while to sort through them in his head. Mack and Kayla had helped with that.
“Or sometimes better known as Cappie hour,” Octavia said with a smile. They'd had plenty of good times during group dinners or at parties earlier in terms college careers. Even though they'd both grown up a lot since the early days of the more extravagant parties, they both definitely still knew how to have a good time.
“Ah.” She nodded a little as he spoke. “Yeah, I get that.” She understood exactly about what he meant about trying to make it work but the relationship not working out for a reason or another. She'd been there a couple times herself. Life often got in the way despite best efforts to make it work. She liked the other girl but didn't know Rebecca except through Cappie, so she hadn't tried reaching out over the summer. The two girls didn't really run in the same circles most of the time.
“It's nice that you guys are still able to talk sometimes,” she said but left it at that.He hadnt5 mentioned anyone else he might have been seeing over the summer, but she wasn't going to ask. She didn't want to pry too much. There had been someone she'd worked with that she'd seen off and on over the summer, but there had been an understanding it was just for the summer and the they'd gone their separate ways. It was fun, and they reminded friends, but that's all it had been.
“There's probably a movie or something on if you wanted to stick around,” she offered. ”I've got some popcorn or we could order in something.“
Cappie grinned. She knew him so well. He prides himself on knowing the times of almost all of the happy hours in town and he frequented them so regularly that they might as well be called ‘Cappie hours’.
He was glad that Octavia didn’t go on about Rebecca or, indeed, his methods of getting over her. All she needed to know was that he’d left that phase of his life behind last semester. It may have taken the summer to find his equilibrium again, and it probably didn’t help that one of the few people he had really wanted to see had been hundreds of miles away, but he was feeling more like his old self now and he was looking forward to the fall.
“Sure, I’m up for some popcorn,” he said, having to give the decision very little thought. The plans he’d had for today had already gone out of the window the moment he’d found out that Octavia was home. Hanging out with her was one of his favourite pastimes. It always had been.