Maybe some abi/nick/jacob(which I am now calling furblygstos) getting together post-game? 👉👈
🌦️ somehow I was captivated by the most unlikely pairing (abijake) in the trio. here it is! Also it kind of got out of control. it's a 1.3k monster of a ficlet and Nick’s barely here
There were messages in Jacob’s phone, from the one and only Abigail Blyg.
The idea was so, so daunting just in itself. What could Abi have to say to him? Kaitlyn and Nick were the only ones who had any words left for him, after he came clean, and it was still weird with Nick. Though, Kait had assured him that Nick was just ‘like that’ now, which he really didn't know what to say to, and he had no clue how to broach the subject with Nick himself, so he never did.
It took him a week to open them because it was just so easy to put it off.
ABIGAIL: i forgive you
i’m sorry that was out of nowhere. i know we weren't the closest at camp but
i don't know. sorry
do you want to meet?
That was… weirdly reassuring, but also weirdly threatening.
JACOB: Hey ‼️💯 Sorry for late reply haha football practice is crazy 🔥🏈😩
That was believable… right?
JACOB: Let's do it‼️‼️‼️ Are u still in NY area⁉️
That was how Jacob ended up trying boba for the first time. Abi had ordered a purple drink, matching the new purple dye in her hair (complimenting it was the first thing Jacob had said to her, even before ‘hello’, because it really did suit her) and advised Jacob to get the same, when she saw him floundering over his order.
He watched her get the straw in in one precise shot, and then proceeded to get his drink all over the table and rip the lid when he tried. She laughed, tried to stop herself when she realised Jacob could hear, and then laughed tentatively louder when she saw him laughing too.
Abi tapped her short, painted nails against her drink and finally came to why she wanted to meet, “I just— I feel so bad for you. I feel so guilty for so many things that happened and we all did things but you're the one who's getting all the heat.”
Crumpling up the wet napkins into a ball, Jacob quickly asked, “Wait— guilty for what? You didn't do anything wrong?”
Abi took a deep drink from her straw. “I looked Nick in the eyes and shot him. He lived, but I didn't know he was going to. All you did was try to get one more night at camp. Half of us wanted that. Your intentions were a lot purer than mine.”
Jacob’s internal response to that was a jumbled mess of emotions. He'd heard the story, in full detail, from Kaitlyn. Even to him that was a clear case of self-defence. He had come to terms with, kind of, his own share of guilt, because even if he didn't mean it like that, it was still a whole ordeal. “Okay, no. A: my intentions were not pure, they were ‘ignore Emma breaking up with me’. 2: literally self-defence, dude. Sorry, I shouldn't call girls ‘dude’. Anyways, it was definitely self-defence. Kaitlyn told me everything, about how the—” his eyes darted around— “thing was making Nick go psycho.”
Jacob realised that he was thinking about Nick a little too hard while saying that, and ended up copying the ‘A’ and ‘2’ thing Nick had said to him that night.
Abi lightly chewed on the plastic of her straw. Jacob watched it catch on her lower lip. “Thank you. I guess if Nick’s friend tells me it's okay, then that's the second best source.”
“Dude— sorry, uh, girl— Nick doesn't even remember. No harm, no foul. He holds literally nothing against you.”
Abi gave him a wide-eyed look. “He told you that?”
Shit, was he supposed to tell her that? “Um, yeah.”
“Huh,” Abi said, and Jacob took a sip of his drink in the ensuing pause. It was really sweet but pretty good. “You're over Emma then?” she asked, and Jacob choked, and what the fuck, he had forgotten there were those balls in the drink.
Abi yelped. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” she said, throwing more napkins at him, “I just— you mentioned the Emma thing so casually and I— sorry.”
Jacob cleaned himself up again, cringing a little at today’s clumsy streak, “Um, you're fine. Yeah. It's been nearly a year now. Plus, she really drilled it into me after.”
She snorted. “I heard.”
“Hey!” he exclaimed with no real anger.
Conversation came strangely easy after that. It was nice. He wondered why he hadn't talked to Abi more at camp.
Long after they finished drinking, Jacob felt a pang of hunger.
“Hey, do you want to get something to eat?”
Abi looked at him with an indiscernible expression for a reason Jacob didn't understand, and then just said, “Okay.”
Jacob got a chicken burger, and Abi got some vegan chicken fingers. Jacob laughed at how much ranch Abi used and she smiled at him picking the onion out of his burger. She told him about her art, when he asked, and then she asked him about his football practice. He had to hold himself back from admitting that it hadn't been that crazy, and he had just been making excuses.
In the end, Jacob was left holding a receipt with a drawing of him on it, dizzied by the realisation that his time spent with Abi had felt like the best date he'd ever had, when it wasn't even supposed to be one.
It was okay to ask his ex-girlfriend’s friend on a date, right? She had said they were only a summer fling, after all. Was it okay to ask his friend's ex-situationship on a date, too? It was coming up on a year since, and Nick avoided the topic like the plague, so it was probably fine. He hoped it was, because he was going to do it.
On their fifth date, a quiet night in watching a movie, Abi brought up Nick. It all came spilling out of Jacob all at once.
“I know exactly what you mean, Abs. Whenever I talk to him, hang out with him, whatever, it's just so weird. I’ve never had a guy friendship like this before— um, wait, other than Tyler in sixth grade— it just feels like we're staring at each other the whole time. I just don't get it.”
Abi looked fascinated. “I really don't think we're on the same lines here but— Go on?”
“About what?”
“Nick— Tyler?”
“You're a girl, but it's like when you and your bro have that close friendship that just feels weird, right? Like you get kinda nervous and sick when you hang out with him. Do girls ever get that too, like with other girls?”
Abi had that wide-eyed look again. “Some girls do. I have— but Jake, that's because I’m bisexual.”
Oh, shit. “Oh, shit. Sorry, uh,” Jacob stammered out, needing time to think about this. “What was your thing about him?”
A bad deflection, but Abi took it in stride, “Oh. Uh, I kinda still like him— not, um, that I'd ever do anything! I know we aren't like, together-together but I'm not— I’m not a cheater. Um, I kinda like him but my feelings are so weird. That night weirdly made me, um, like him more but also made me feel sick over him. I’ve worked through my feelings with therapy, we all did after that court mandate thing, but some things just stay stuck together. Anyways, Nick is weird and I’m weird, um, sorry for rambling.”
“Don't say sorry—”
“Sorry,” Abi cut in, and Jacob couldn't help but smile.
“Don't say sorry,” he repeated, and took Abi’s hand, “I get it. Turns out we both have weird Nick feelings.”
Jacob was proud of himself for his emotional maturity, as his therapist called it. He didn't even get jealous over the Nick thing!
“Don't tell Nick?” Abi murmured.
“Only if it goes both ways,” Jacob joked, serious in sentiment. Abi nodded and shifted closer to him on the couch.
They changed their mind in a few months.
Then, Nick was waiting for them, all perfect curls and doe-eyed, outside the same boba shop. Abi and Jake approached him as a unit, and hoped they wouldn't scare him off.
