𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐯

As much as I'd love to stay in my warm bed this morning, my job awaits. Despite the warmth inside of the apartment, the scenery outside tells me it's just another chilly fall morning in Jersey. Getting ready for the day I opt for just some sweats with a cozy crew neck sweater. Today's a filming and editing day for me, which are my calmest days and after the excitement from last nights game it's much appreciated. 

From outside of my room, I can hear that Em's already up and playing some music. The smell of pancakes comes through the bottom of the door causing my stomach to grumble. Picking my phone off my nightstand, I head out and head straight to the kitchen. Emilie's back is towards me, but I can tell that she's dancing along to the song currently playing. Seeing how she's in her own little world, I take a seat on one of the stools on the breakfast bar, waiting to see how long it takes her to notice I'm here. 

"Oh my god Char you scared me!" Emilie is holding her hand to her heart, not at all expecting to see me. Laughing I point towards her and her shock, "Em, you should've seen your face." Hunching over, my laugh becomes uncontrollable. Thankfully no pancakes were harmed in this scare. 

"I hate you so much." Although she says this with the most serious look on her face I know she doesn't mean it. "Oh shut up you love me." She waves off my comment before sliding a plate of pancakes, bacon, and eggs over to me.

"I shouldn't even be giving you this, but I don't want it to go to waste." I make sure to thank her before she walks over to take a seat next to me with her own plate in hand. After a few minutes of silence Emilie is the first to speak up, "How much stuff did you get last night?" 

"I got quite a lot of stuff. I'm probably gonna look through it all and put some stuff together to post over the next few days. What about you?" Looking over, I see that she's thinking about what she got last night. "I got the same amount as you I think, but I got something you didn't." Her face takes on a mischievous smile. I scrunch my eyes in confusion, having no clue what she's even talking about.

"You can't be this clueless as to what I'm referring to Charlotte." Nothing seems to click for me, so Emilie huffs a sigh. "It was the video I got of Jack not only scoring a goal, but him looking at you. You can't tell me that doesn't sound like the start of a book." She nudges my shoulder, wanting me to agree with her and as much as I don't want to, it really does sound like it could be the start of a book. 

~

We spent the next few minutes talking about our plans for the day and cracking some jokes. "Hey Char I have to head out to go film a little book shopping video, but I'll see you later, okay?" She's picking up her purse as I nod my head her way, "Yeah sounds good. Drive safe and I'll see you later." With one last wave, she heads out the door. Silence fills the apartment causing me to let out a sigh before heading back to my room. 

My to-do list is slightly packed for the day, but since I'm filming a productive day in my life, this is the perfect time to get locked in and edit my next few planned uploads. Like anyone else my age, I can sit at my desk and absolutely rot here without a single issue. As I set up my camera to film my intro, my phone pings with a notification. Deciding against looking at my phone, I turn on my camera and start filming. 

𝐣𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐩𝐨𝐯

After a nice little sleep in with no practice today, Luke and I sit on the couch with a bowl of cereal each watching TV. Seeing as it's a chillier day, Luke and I have agreed to spend our day rotting away at home. It's nice to have Luke in Jersey with me and it's one of the best things that could've ever happened since working with one of my brothers is what anyone with siblings might dream of. Not long after we both finish our cereal, Luke speaks up for the first time in a while, "Jack so after your goal last night, why did it take you so long to skate up to the guys?" 

My eyes peel away from the TV screen to see Luke's eyes already on me. "What are you talking about?" Luke gives me an 'are you kidding?' face clearly not believing that I don't know what he's talking about. "You know exactly what I'm talking about, Nico had to push you along to keep moving." I make a confused face towards Luke, still not giving in.

On our drive back home last night, I couldn't stop thinking about that girl. It's so stupid, but I was looking into the crowd after my goal and my eyes just found her. I don't really know how or why, but I just did. It sounds so cliche and I rather not get made fun of by my little brother. Even if I did tell Luke, the chances of me seeing her again are slim. 

"C'mon Jack just tell me, please." He scoots closer to me and starts poking me. I try to focus on the show on the screen, but Luke isn't giving up. Every time I scoot away, he's close behind. Getting annoyed, I just decide to tell him to get him off my back. "Fine. I was looking into the crowd after celebrating the goal, and I saw a girl. We made eye contact. I smiled at her, she smiled at me and that was that. Happy now?" I shoot Luke a look, annoyance clear on my face.

"Aww Jacky boy is that why you didn't wanna tell me? It was because of a girl?" A sheepish look replaces my annoyance as he starts teasing me. "Yeah, but it's whatever. I don't know who she is and I don't know anything about her." Turning back to the TV, I change the channel.

"We live in a world of social media and the internet, you can talk about wanting something and an offer for it will suddenly appear on your phone. Trust me we will find her." Picking up his phone, Luke seems to rapidly type and scroll. "What the hell are you even talking about Luke?" I love my brother, but sometimes the things he says throw me off. 

"Okay so hear me out," He gets up off the couch, standing in front of the TV. "The internet works in mysterious ways and we just might be able to find her. I mean the girls on TikTok always talk about practically being FBI agents to find out stuff, so why can't we try that?" He looks like he's fully convinced himself that we can do this with no problem.

"Luke you're out of your mind. If we were to do that, which I'm not saying we are, we have nothing to go off of to find her." He starts pointing at me, "Now that, Jacky boy, is where you're wrong." Taking his phone he takes a seat next to me, trying to show me whatever he's found. 

It feels like he's been scrolling and tapping away for ages before he turns his screen towards me. Luke's phone displays pictures shot at last night's game. A lot of the pictures were of the guys and I, Luke stops at a picture from after my goal. At first, I have no clue what he's trying to show me, "You see anything, or actually, anyone who looks familiar?" Luke hands me his phone and once I hold it, I zoom into the picture looking around at the crowd.

No one looks familiar until I spot the face I've thought of since last night. "That's her. That's the girl." I zoomed in as much as I could turning the phone towards Luke. "Which one, the brunette or the blonde?" He looks up at me, waiting for a response, "It's the brunette." 

"You see Jack, now we have something. It might not be much but it's something." He smiles, waiting to see what I say, "Clearly I can see that, but what do we do next." My interest peaks at the fact that we might actually be able to find her. 

"Well maybe she posted something about the game on her page, if she did, then our job is done. We just need to look at the Prudential Center's geotag and see the most recent pictures added under it." Nodding, I watch as Luke looks up the geotag, scanning all the pictures to try and see if we find the same face from the last picture. After about five minutes, we find a picture posted of both the blonde and the brunette from the last picture together. 

Clicking the picture, we look at the post. Reading the caption we see that they're thanking this company called Dragonfly Publishing for their jerseys and getting them to the game. Scrolling through the comments, there's hundreds of people sending love to the girls, and excited about them working with Dragonfly. "Let's look at her page." We take a look and I know that without a doubt this is the girl. 

liked by emiliegavin and 13,150 others
charlottemitchell made this cake for @emiliegavin and she didn't want it so I ate it 😔
↪️emiliegavin char stop lying to the people, you know damn well you made it for yourself 🙄

    ↪️charlottemitchell I'm not lying guys I swear 😭
user4 I can't tell who is being honest
user3 charlotte why are you eating the cake outside? 😂
↪️ user2 I was just thinking the same thing 😂😂
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"Is this her?" My eyes are wide as I go from looking at my phone to Luke's face. "Yeah that's her. Luke, how did you even know to do all of that?" I'm absolutely amazed as to how Luke knew exactly what to do and where to start searching for her. "It's all in a day's worth of watching TikTok's and learning from the best." He laughs patting my shoulder. 

"Should I DM her? Or would that be too strange?" I look over to Luke asking for guidance on what to do next. "I don't see why not. If she replies then she replies, but if she doesn't then you just move on with your day." He makes a fairly good point. It wouldn't hurt to try to send a DM to her and see what happens. "Well I guess it's worth a shot." 

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐯

Taking a quick break from editing, I pick up my phone to catch up on any messages and emails. The first thing that catches my eye is a notification from someone I wasn't expecting to get a DM from. 

jackhughes hey i saw you at the game last night. did you have fun at the game?

jackhughes I'm sorry if this sounds straight forward or weird, but I think you're really cute 

Oh my God. Placing my phone down on my desk, I tried rubbing my eyes to see if I was just seeing things. Maybe my eyes are just really strained and once I pick up my phone again the messages won't be there.

charlottemitchell  hey, yeah i had a really good time at the game. and really Hughes? you think i'm cute?

jackhughes I would never lie to a pretty girl 😉

A giggle comes out of my mouth and I can't help but feel the same bubbly feeling in my stomach like last night. There's no way this is actually happening. I'm gonna have to tell Emilie when she gets home. 

Edited: 11/10/24

~

melissa speaks

Hey hey hey. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and getting some of jack's pov. They've finally started talking, but charlotte is clearly a little hesitant and that may change soon, but you'll have to wait and see. I based the way charlotte was broken up with to my own breakup a few years ago. It really sucked at that point in time, but it did get better over time and you'll see that with charlotte as the story continues. I hope you have a lovely day or night stay safe and i'll talk to you in the next chapter 🤍