Possibility

Harlow sat at her desk, listening to music and shading her latest creation. It was a picture of a Carol's garden out in the back of the house. It wasn't a terribly impressive picture, she had drawn better things before, but it helped her keep her focus, it helped her to stop from focusing on her many sporadic thoughts that ravaged her mind on a constant basis.

“That's really good you know.” She heard a voice ring out.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” she snapped jumping in her seat “you scared me. I didn't even hear you come in.”

She turned, she had fully expected Thatcher to be standing in her doorway, not John O'Callghan. She could feel herself gaping at him in shock and curiosity, but she could not bring herself to stop staring at him.

“Look, I know I'm incredibly handsome, but I'm going to need more than a look of shock and amazement from you.” John joked.

“I'm sorry,” she said shaking her head, “but what are you doing here, like in my room?” She paused, “I'm sorry that sounded incredibly rude, I just mean you're never really in my room.”

“No worries, I wasn't offended. I just wanted to see if you'd like to join me for lunch today.”

She furrowed her brow, “like in a group with you and Garrett and Casey or something?”

John laughed, “no, just me and you.”

She gave him a skeptical look, there was no way she trusted him. She had heard stories about John O'Callaghan and what he did with girls when he was alone with them. Albeit most of the stories came from Thatcher and his friends who were rather biased against John, but this did not waver her opinion much. There was some quality about John that prevented her from trusting him.

“Don't worry I won't try anything,” he said holding his hands up, “I mean I just want to have a nice friendly lunch. After all you're Garrett's sister and you've been living here for like two months. I should have had this lunch with you two months ago.”

“Well alright, I guess” she said awkwardly, “just let me put on some shoes really quick.”

John nodded sitting on her bed. She walked over to the side of her bed, quickly grabbing a pair of sneakers and tying them to her feet. By the time she had gotten up, John was standing at her work desk, looking through her rough sketches.

“Wow is this Thatcher?” he asked holding a picture limply in his hand, “this is really fucking good. I'll have to have you draw one of me sometime.”

She gave a small smile, “so are you ready to go?”

He nodded, and she followed him down to his car. Usually whenever she saw John drive up to her house he was driving a black BMW, but today instead of the usual BMW there was a rather old blue truck.

“Sorry that the usual car isn't here,” John said as he opened the door for her, “but this is my old truck, she get's the job done all the same.”

“It's alright,” she said quietly, “I think I like your truck more anyways.”

John smiled at her, “so where would you like to go to lunch?”

“Oh, Chipotle or something is fine with me. I'm not intensely picky”

His smile seemed to widen some, “Chipotle it is then.”

The silence between them was enjoyable. Whenever she was with Thatcher the two of them rarely fell into a silence, not that she minded seeing as she never spoke much outside of spending time with Thatcher. But the silence that she and John were sharing was surprisingly comfortable.

“Just out of curiosity,” John said as he turned down a street, “why do you and Thatcher spend so much time together? I mean are you guys really just friends? Or are you like friends with benefits.”

She frowned, she didn't like how John seemed so interested in her friendship, “well yeah we're just friends. I don't see why everyone automatically thinks we're sleeping together. Can't a guy and a girl just be friends?”

John smiled but didn't say anything, “Have you ever seen How Harry Met Sally?”

“No,” she replied blushing, “I'm more into movies like Se7en, Fight Club, The Usual Suspects you know, stuff like that.”

“Ah so you're one of those girls,” He said easily pulling into a parking spot, he wasn't smiling as he usually was, instead his expression was unreadable.

She frowned,“What do you mean?”

John shook his head, dismissing her question. Other than ordering their food, and John being gracious enough to pay for her food as well, the two remained in relative silence, and Harlow now felt uneasy, trying to figure out whatever John met by “one of those girls”.

“So,” he said suddenly “when would you be available to draw me?”

Harlow furrowed her brow, “oh, I didn't think you were actually serious.”

“Of course, I was serious,” John replied, “your pictures are really good, I'd love you to draw something for me.”

She opened her mouth to respond, but was cut off by the sound of Vampire Weekend playing from her phone. She looked down to see Thatcher's name on the screen, she muttered an apology to John who simply nodded.

“Hello?”

“Hey my little wallflower,” Thatcher's voice rang out cheerily, “what are you up to? Seeing as you're not at home.”

“Oh, I'm at lunch.” She replied

“By yourself? Not going to lie that's kind of weird. That's like going to the movies by yourself, not wrong, but somewhat weird .”

“No, no, no,” she said quickly, “I'm with John. He took me out to lunch.”

“John who?” Thatcher asked confusedly, “Have you been hiding friends Harlow? That's not very good for our relationship you know. Relationships are built off of trust, and we can't have a relationship if you're hiding something or lying about something.”

“I'm with John O'Callaghan.”

The other line was quiet, and Harlow was tempted to check if the call had been dropped, but Thatcher's voice had suddenly returned, “okay this is seriously fucking weird. John's never this nice. Like I thought that the other day he was just in a good mood, but this is strange. Did he pay for your lunch too? Where are you guys at?”

“Chipotle, and yeah he did.” she said confusedly.

“Well I was going to invite you to go to the movies with me and Liam.” Thatcher said after a few moments.

“Oh,” Harlow said surprised, “well I still can if you want to.”

“No, you stay with John. Milk all this time while you can. We never know when he's going to revert back to his regular self,” Thatcher paused, “besides I want you to tell me everything about what happened today. I still think he's up to something.”

“Well, alright if you insist then. I'll talk to you later okay?”

“Yeah, call me when you get home.”

Saying a quick goodbye she turned back to John giving an apologetic. He gave her a toothy grin and a small pat on the knee.

“So,” he said still grinning, “when can I get that picture?”