Chapter 3: Friendship

Olivia's pov:

After what seemed like forever, we finally reached Sam's home. I never knew LA traffic was this terrible! It kinda reminded me of traffic back home where my mom would crack lame jokes to pass the time. I deeply miss my family now thinking about it.

As soon as I got out of the car, what I saw blew my mind. It looked like a mansion in comparison to my apartment.

"Is that your house?" I asked with a shocked look on my face. I didn't even realise how stupid I looked with my mouth dropped to the floor.

"Why yes! It took a while to save up but I finally got my dream house!"

I kept on admiring the house from the entrance gate.

The front of the house had polished wooden planks that led to the huge door of the two storey building.

A minute after we rang the bell, the door opened with a click and I saw Sam's friends, Jack and Jessica!

I gave each of them a tight hug as I was a huge fan of them too. They made quite a lot of appearances on Sam's channel. Did you know they live together in this very house? All of us were so happy to meet each other.

The house was enormous on the inside, it felt so surreal that I was here.

Sam gave me a whole house tour which took some time to get through all the rooms.

I always wondered how awesome Sam's house looked like and how awful my tiny apartment looked like. I guess blowing your money off on random anime figures was a bad idea.....

In the middle of his recording room, there was a huge white table which contained his monitors and cameras. The place was flooded in wires. This set up was a lot more complex than my set up! I literally used cereal boxes as my tripod as I was too lazy to go out and buy an actual one.

While Sam and Jack were setting up the lights and cameras, Jessica and I sat down and started chatting or maybe gossiping.

At that point, I remembered what Sam told me in the car about his parents so I asked her about Sam's parents to get the whole story.

Jessica told me that his parents were quiet depressed with each other and due to financial issues, they couldn't take it anymore. Sam had just started YouTube afresh at that time so the income wasn't stable whatsoever. After months of stress and depression, they finally ended their lives.

I felt so shattered upon hearing this but I controlled my emotions as I didn't want Sam to know we were discussing this.

Jessica further told me that initially Sam was so upset to find out the reason why they did it that so he worked a lot to get rid of the financial difficulties but later after getting a stable income he got depressed thinking about the past and it still haunts him to this day.

"Trust me, Jack and I did a lot to help him and he has become a thousand times better!" Jessica put on a proud face while saying this.

While I was extremely happy to hear that, I couldn't take it anymore, it was so upsetting and sad to hear how much difficulties he was and is still going through.

After thanking Jessica for telling me this, I got up and put on a happy face and got ready for the video.

Meanwhile at the hotel~

Nikita's pov:

"If I want to get into Olivia's room, I would need a key!" I thought to myself.

But since I don't have her key, I would need to steal a master key from the hotel's employees.

I got out of my room casually and saw a waiter bringing in room service to the neighbouring room opposite to mine.

Perfect timing!

I quickly pulled an act and pretended to twist my ankle and started calling for help.

That moron quickly ran up to me asking, "Are you ok ma'am? Let me help you"

As he tried to help me up, I put my hands around his waist and sneakily took the master key out of his back pockets.

I politely "thanked him" as he dropped me to the entrance of my room.

That fool took some time to leave the floor! I was getting pretty annoyed pretending to go into my room.

After he went away in the elevator, I quickly took the stairs to get to Olivia's floor.

All this hard work better pay off since I had to walk the stairs in my heels. Of course I didn't want to change them, I loved my heels.

As I approached her room, I stared at the keys thinking of the fame I would get if my plan worked out.

After chuckling a bit, I inserted the key card into the slot and slowly unlocked the door without looking suspicious to the surveillance cameras.

Back at Sam's home~

Olivia's pov:

After we finish filming which took hours to complete! Ok I'm exaggerating, it took two hours to film. Sam went down stairs to fetch us some drinks as I was thirsty from talking a lot in the video.

As he was getting the drinks, I was walking around the room looking at Instagram while Jessica and Jack were sitting on the couch.

As my face was drowned into my phone, I didn't even realise when my shoe got tangled up in those wires! I instantly fell down onto the soft carpeted floor, knocking one of the ring lights in the process.

Jack immediately got up from the couch and came to help me. As I was getting up. I inspected myself and thankfully I received no bruises.

Right then, we heard the door lock click and saw Sam walking into the room!

As he walked in, he saw the shattered light and all the glass pieces on the floor with me standing at the centre with Jack amongst this commotion.

I was feeling so guilty that I was ok if Sam yelled at me but to my surprise he yelled out, "Jack, what the hell did you do?"

At that point I was wondering, "Jack?" when did my parents name me Jack?

A few seconds later I finally grasped what was going on! It seems that Sam thinks Jack broke the ring light!

Jack tried to explain the situation to him but he thought he was lying.

In order to defend Jack, I immediately told Sam what happened and instead of getting angry at me, he looked at me with a rather cute smile and said, "Its alright, I can get a new one. I'm just glad you didn't get hurt."

After hearing this, I got a sense of relief and frankly I was very happy to hear Sam's concern for me like I'm some creepy girlfriend of his but let's ignore that for now.

However, I was wondering why he got so angry when he thought Jack did it but was so calm when he came to know I knocked the light.

I pitched in to help Sam clean the mess, at that time, I saw Jack completely distressed but he didn't say anything. When I saw that, I was feeling so guilty and thought to apologise to him later.

Jack left the room to which I don't know if it was out of anger. Jessica went after him right away so I took the opportunity to talk to Sam about the situation.

"Can I ask you something?" I asked in a low voice.

"Sure go ahead" he said while simultaneously cleaning the mess.

I asked with a sigh, "Even if Jack did knock the lights, don't you think you were being a bit too hard on him? I mean y'all are best friends, right?"

He paused for a second with a guilty look on his face and proceeded to say, " You see the fact is that he is a lot older to you and should be more responsible..."

I said, "Yes but.-"

He cut me off, "Also, someone could've gotten hurt and I can't afford that!"

I sighed and nodded in agreement with him. I knew I should not say anything else as I could potentially mess things up again.

Sam did look pretty cute when he was angry.....Ok what on earth am I saying?!

After cleaning up while I was taking the bag filled with shattered glass downstairs to the trashcan, I noticed Jack standing alone on the balcony.

He looked very sad and so after gathering some courage, I went there to apologise to him.

"Jack, are you ok?" I said while approaching him. I held the garbage bag very tightly, trying to brace myself as I thought he would snap at me.

Jack got surprised and snapped himself out his thoughts while rubbing his eyes.

"Yes I'm ok just looking at the sky" he said in a low voice.

I lowered my head in guilt while simultaneously fidgeting with my nails which very coated heavily in white nail polish.

"Listen, I just want to apologise for what happened earlier" I said as fast as I could.

He surprisingly replied, "No, really its fine. Things like this happen and you are our guest so why are you cleaning up?"

"Here let me take this" he said while taking the bag containing the glass pieces from my hand. He gave me a smile and left the balcony while I was still standing there looking like a complete idiot.

I mean I was a bit relieved that he was ok but I still felt that he was hurt. But maybe I was overthinking it. I think too much but you know....... not in a productive way.

Back at the hotel~

Nikita's pov:

"Aaah I can't find anything! I have turned the whole room inside-out but there is nothing drama worthy here!" I said loudly in frustration. My face was so red in anger that people 6 feet away could notice it.

"Calm down, calm down, CALM DOWN Nikita, you will find another way" I said to myself.

I looked around the room and saw that it was in a complete mess. I didn't want to clean it but I don't want to land in any unnecessary trouble so I took some time to clean the room up.

After cleaning that stupid room up, I opened the door and was stunned at hearing a familiar voice saying, "Ma'am you're here?"

I looked at that man and quickly realised that it was the same waiter from whom I stole the key earlier.

I froze at my spot after closing Olivia's door. I was sweating a bit as I was scared to get caught. I was thinking of ways to try and get away from him before he suspects me.

He looked at me with a concerned face and asked, "Do you remember me? I had helped you when you had fell down"

I replied in a hasty and nervous manner, "Of course, yes, I do haha"

I don't know why but I was smiling so wide that it looked so awkward with my teeth stuck out like that.

"Well I wanted to ask whether you have seen my master key anywhere. I seem to have dropped it" he stated.

My eyes widen and I quickly said, "Oh yes the key! I have it. I was looking for you to give it to you"

When I pulled the key out of my pocket, he looked at it and gave out a huge smile.

"Thank you so much ma'am! Without your help, I would've lost my job today" he said.

As he walked away, I thought to myself, "Well that was easier than I thought!"

I quickly got out of that floor and went back up into my own room. As I entered the room, I let out a breath of relief and wiped my sweat from my forehead.

"Well that was a total fail!" I said angrily.
I got no dirt on Olivia that is drama worthy at all.

"Aaaah what to do? What to do?" I kept saying to myself while walking in circles in my room.

Back at Sam's house~

At the balcony:

Olivia's pov:

I was still standing at the same spot thinking of how Jack is. I was so lost in my thoughts that I did not realise Sam was standing right in front of me.

"What's wrong? Are you ok?" he asked with a worried face.

I snapped out of my thoughts and with a faint voice replied, "Yeah I'm fine"

He quickly said, "Listen if this is about Jack then you don't need to worry! He is fine. You don't need to stress out about it."
His face had a glow due to the moonlight but it wasn't enough to cover his concerned look.

"I don't know I just feel guilty about it!" I said again in a faint voice.

"Its gonna be fine! Come on now, I'll drop you off to the hotel before it gets any more late" he said with a smile.

I looked into his shiny eyes and nodded and went with him to his car.

In the car~

Olivia's pov:

"Well apart from the whole 'lights' situation, I think the collab went pretty well, don't you think?" Sam said with a smile.

I replied, "Yes it was amazing!! Thank you  so much for doing this! But you will apologise to Jack right?"

He said with a smirk, "Don't worry about that! He's my best pal! He will alright."

"Well I hope you're right!" I said.

After reaching the hotel~

Still Olivia's pov:

"Well thanks a lot for dropping me" I said with a faint smile.

"No problem! So we doing tomorrow's video for your channel right?" he replied.

"Yup! Same time tomorrow as I think we have a meeting with YouTube's CEO in the afternoon" I informed after checking the schedule Vidcon gave me.

After we hugged, he got in his car and drove home. I proceeded to go to my room while scrolling through my phone again. Yup, I think I'm addicted to my phone.

Nikita's pov:

Because of the stress I was biting my nails while walking across the room.
"Ok since Olivia is fully clean and has no dark past, I'll need to create some kind of trouble while she's here" I thought to myself.

I plopped myself on the bed, trying to think of something. After a few mins, since it was such a long day, I fell asleep.

Sam's pov:

I finally reached home, it was almost midnight and I was dead tired. While walking to the entrance of the house, I was just thinking how how fun today was. Olivia really made this day so much better than my usual boring days. I'm so excited for tomorrow but then I needed to crash!

Jessica opened the door for me but she had a worried look on her face.

"What happened? Is everything ok?" I asked concerningly.

She sighed and replied, "Well I'm ok but its about Jack!"

My face morphed to a completely sad face from a happy excited one! 
"Why? What happened to him?"

She looked at me and took me to the entrance of Jack's room. We did not enter the room but looked at it from the outside. There we saw Jack sitting near the window, staring outside with a sad face.

"You know how sensitive he is right? What you did earlier really affected him. Go apologise now!" Jessica whispered in a slightly intense voice.

She walked away and I sighed and went into his room and sat down next to him on the floor.

"Today was quite a day, right?" I commented with a subtle smile on my face while looking at the night sky that was filled with twinkling stars.

Jack didn't say anything for a while, so I immediately switched the topic, "Ok listen I want to apologise for I did today. I know that was completely wrong and I hope you forgive me!"

There was a short pause but finally Jack replied, "Its ok, I guess I overreacted a bit"

"A bit?" I replied laughing. He too started laughing and said, "ok well maybe a lot."

We hugged it out  and I reminded him that we both have to film a video tomorrow together.