BWI Airport, Portalocity Lounge [Saturday morning]

[dirtiest-skank.livejournal.com]

It had been with several bone-crushing hugs, a lucky rabbit's foot, two trashy books and an iPod that Olive had boarded the plane. If she had to guess, geographically, she had started to really miss her parents and brothers somewhere over Texas. (Texas was huge. She was probably right.) She'd pushed that away and shoved in her earbuds in an attempt to sleep, to no avail.

And...now she was supposed to meet new classmates. Okay. She found the designated loungey area thing -- and holy crap, that glittery sign was like something Marianne would make (so...not a great omen) -- and took a seat. Tempted as she was to retreat into her book and iPod again, she instead only fiddled idly with her phone, looking up every couple minutes to see if anyone relatively her age had come over. She hated being the first one anywhere. Now there was like, this onus on her.

She had maybe just won her Words With Friends game with her mom, as soon as the plane had landed, with "onus." She was pretty proud of that.

Comments

[pursuedthestars]

"You just carry around receipt paper in your back pocket?" Jim wondered, giving her hand a shake before offering the jelly beans to her. "There's a lot of things I'm learning about you really quickly."

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"Lot of good that does you when you don't even know my name," Jessica said, taking a handful before Jim could try to keep them as some kind of name-bribe. "Seven beans, by the way. I owe you eight, rounding up."

[pursuedthestars]

"Who says I don't know your name?"

He paused.

"Okay, I don't know your name but I could know your name."

Another pause.

"If you told me."

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"Shoe's on the other foot now, buddy," Jessica teased. "What's in it for me if I share?"

[pursuedthestars]

"Gratitude and interest?" Jim tried. "An exchange of knowledge, perhaps?"

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"I'm gonna need a little more than that. Especially if the knowledge you're trading is your name. I can just call you Bill if I need to," Jessica pointed out.

[pursuedthestars]

"Bill?" Jim repeated, looking pained. "What the heck kind of a name is bill? Bill's a...Bill's a dumb name."

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"We were talking about receipts and stuff. 'Bill' just came naturally," Jessica explained.

[pursuedthestars]

"You can call me Bill but I'm not gonna answer," Jim replied with a half smile. "So, you'd just be calling some random guy's name out, expecting me to wander over and then you'd be all surprised when someone else, someone without jelly beans, showed up."

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"How do you know some other guy named Bill doesn't have any jelly beans?" Jessica asked.

[pursuedthestars]

"He might but they wouldn't be my jelly beans, would they?" he asked. "There's a difference."

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

Jessica considered this for a moment, then ate one of the jelly beans. "I don't see what's so special about these."

[pursuedthestars]

"Hey, if the jelly beans aren't up to snuff, you can give 'em back," Jim said, holding out a hand. "I'd hate to give out less than stellar candy."

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"No, I'll keep them. Just don't go around thinking they're magical just because they're yours," Jessica said, closing the hand with the jelly beans tightly.

[pursuedthestars]

"While I'll be happy to consider your statement, I'm still gonna go around thinking they're magical because they're mine," Jim said. "Sorry but not really."