Jack's picking me up soon to hangout and although I'm excited to officially meet him and spend time with him, I can't help but feel nervous. The message I'd gotten while I was eating the other day was Jack asking to hangout and Emilie hyped me up as I replied to him. There was no way I was going to decline the offer after we both seemed to click, even if it was just through messages. After asking me, he'd offered to come and pick me up from my place since he doesn't live too far from me. The thought of being alone with Jack in his car is a little nerve-wracking, but there's no better time than now. 

Other than IHop, I had no clue what else he had planned for us.  For today, I decided to just wear a navy blue crew neck with light-washed boyfriend jeans and my Converse. Right as I finished brushing out my hair, there was a knock on the door. Walking out of my room, I head to the door and look through the peep hole to see a familiar face standing on the other side, Jack. Picking up my purse and keys from the hook next to the door, I let Em know that I'm heading out and I'll text her when I'm on my way back. She tells me to have a great time.

With my hand on the doorknob, I take a deep breath to prepare to come face to face with Jack Hughes, the guy I've been talking to and thinking about for almost a week.

Opening the door, I come face to face with Jack. Taking a subtle look, I see that he also decided to wear a crew neck, but paired it with black pants and a pair of white Air Force 1s. When I look back up at his face I see that he's already smiling a familiar smile, the same one from the game. There's no way to describe his smile other than it could make any girl giggle and turn their legs to jelly. Seeing his face up close I notice how his eyes are the prettiest shade of blue I've ever seen, it's almost like staring at the ocean. As much as I love my brown eyes, I've always been jealous and in awe of anyone who has blue eyes. I can without a doubt say that Jack's eyes are my favorite shade of blue, but I would never say that to his face.

Staring at each other for what feels like an eternity, I snap out of my little trance and it looks like Jack has too. "Hey Charlotte, you ready to head out?" I feel my stomach do a little flip when he says my name and I can only nod in response. Stepping out my apartment I close and lock the door before walking towards the elevator with Jack.

"How was the drive here?" He tells me that the drive was surprisingly pretty good for a Tuesday morning. Making it to his car, Jack walks ahead of me and opens the door, waiting for me to get in and comfortable, before closing the door and getting in the car himself.

The ride to IHop has probably been the most fun I've had in the car with someone other than Em in a long time. The whole way here consisted of us making small talk and talking about our music taste. He's more of a country music guy, while I'm more of a little bit of every genre kinda girl. Once Jack parks, he makes his way over to my side opening the door for me. "Thank you, kind sir," I say, thanking Jack in a terrible posh accent with a giggle. Jack looks like he's trying to hold in a laugh as he replies with his version of a posh accent, "You're welcome my lady." Once he gets those words out he starts laughing as I follow him to the door.

Normally I have a hard time opening up or joking around with someone when I first meet them, but with Jack I feel comfortable to be myself right from the start. Getting seated by a window, we get a view of a row of trees with leaves in a variety of yellowish-orange shades. Picking up the menu in front of me I start looking at what to get even though I already know what I want.

Looking up, I see Jack focused and scanning his menu and I decide to break the silence by asking him a question, "Jack, I have an important question to ask." He looks up from his menu confusion painting his features as he probably has no clue what important question I could possibly be asking. "Yeah sure what's up?" Sending him a reassuring smile, I hope to let him know that the question isn't anything crazy.

"Pancakes, french toast, or waffles?" My eyes stay on him as I ask this question. He seems to let out a breath he must've been holding in. Processing my question, he takes a few seconds to think of an answer. "Waffles are the best without a doubt. Oh my God ,wait. Please don't tell me you like pancakes." My jaw slightly drops at his answer that waffles are better.

"Eww, why waffles? Pancakes rank low for me, but french toast will always be superior in my mind." Jack chuckles at my reply. "Charlotte are you kidding? Waffles outranks french toast. They're crispy goodness that can hold a glorious amount of syrup with no problem. Plus, they don't get soggy." I can agree on his points, but I would never tell him that. I need to hold my ground on this topic. We spend the next few minutes going back and forth, defending our preferred breakfast food.

Our waitress takes our orders and we continue talking after coming to a truce in our battle of which breakfast food we deem the best. "Want to play a game while we wait for our food?" I nod my head and wait for Jack to let me in on what we're playing. "Okay, so we'll take turns asking each other questions and we have the option to either answer or pass. We're only allowed three passes so choose wisely on what you do or don't want to answer. We both need to answer the questions if that makes any sense." Jack looks at me to make sure that I understand the game.

"Got it. You wanna start or should I?" I look over at Jack and wait for his reply. "You can start first." I nod in response and think of what to ask first. The only things I know about Jack are what Google has told me, but I would rather learn about Jack Hughes from the source himself.

"Okay so first question, where are you from?" I start with a basic question, but it's just something to get us started. "Well I'm from Michigan, but I was born in Florida and my family lived in Canada for a while when I was younger."

"Oh cool! Did you love living in Canada?" I was genuinely interested in what it was like living in another country. I've never left the U.S., but I've always wanted to travel out of the country. "Yeah, I loved it. Hockey is like a religion there so I played and practiced almost every day with my parents and brothers." A smile made its way onto Jack's face when he mentioned hockey and his family. Even though he only mentioned both briefly, I could tell that he loves the sport and his family deeply.

"Now what about you, where are you from?" Jack and I make eye contact when he shoots my question back at me. "Well my answer is gonna sound boring, but I'm from Jersey born and raised." Jack decides to ask me if I grew up nearby and I tell him that I grew up in Central Jersey, right across from Staten Island. We talk more about our families and he tells me about his older brother Quinn and his little brother Luke. I'm an only child so I didn't have much to offer in the family department of the conversation.

Our waitress appears at our side with our food in hand. Jack got waffles with scrambled eggs, hash browns, and bacon while I got french toast with eggs sunny side up, hash browns, and bacon. Although we were eating, Jack and I agreed to keep the game going. "Charlotte, since you already know what my job is, what do you do?" Jack looks up while picking up a piece of his waffle and some eggs. I finish swallowing my food before replying "Well my job is nothing like being a professional hockey player," I joke with a laugh and Jack joins in "But I'm a Youtuber. I create book videos, so I usually do reading vlogs, sit-down videos where I review books, and just a bunch of book-related videos."

He nods his head while taking a drink of his juice and asks me how long I've been making videos and if I love what I do. "I've been making videos for about three-ish years now and I love it. My best friend, Emilie, was the one who encouraged me to start my channel." We spent the next half hour talking and making jokes while we finish our food.

When we finished our food Jack took the bill and paid before I could even take my card out. "Nope, Charlotte I invited you to hang out so I'm paying." Jack smiles at the waitress when she takes his card and the bill back. I pout and cross my arms over my chest to make it seem like I'm mad at him. "Jack, come on I could've at least paid for my food." He only shakes his head and leans over the table and tries to move my arms down.

"Lotte, I know you wanna smile your pretty smile, come on." My stomach does a little flip at the new nickname not expecting it. I can't help, but break from my pout and let out a little laugh while I finally let him uncross my arms. "There's that smile I like to see." I can feel my face heat up and before Jack could notice the blush coating my cheeks, the waitress comes back and he hands her a hundred-dollar tip.

We make it back to the car and we begin the drive to our next destination. Jack has yet to tell me where we're going now so I look out the windows and see people setting up fall decorations and kids playing in piles of leaves in their front yards. "Where are we heading to now?" I look over to Jack as he's focused on the road and he turns his head to me. "We're heading to Dave & Buster's to see just how competitive you can be." He smiles over at me and turns to look back at the road ahead. While we sat at IHop, Jack asked if I was competitive and I may have told a little lie, but I couldn't back down now. When we get there I guess I'll have to try my best to kick his ass.

Edited: 11/11/24

~
melissa speaks

Hey beautiful people! This is only the first part of Jack and Char's hang out. I hope to have the second part out soon so be on the look out. We're almost at 400 reads and I can't thank you all enough for making this happen in just two weeks of this story being out. I love you all so so much!

    have an amazing night or morning wherever you are 🤍