I'd been hungover plenty of times before. At my 21st birthday in Las Vegas, I was up for 32 hours straight and fairly certain I didn't spend a minute of that weekend sober, but somehow drinking two bottles of wine alone in my childhood bedroom gave me an emotional hangover that outdid all of that.

Morning sunlight poured into my room, and I knew without even having to look that I'd slept through my dawn patrol alarm. I checked my phone, even though I feared my head was going to implode if I looked at any bright lights. I had a text from Gemma that she knew I'd read whenever I woke up. I also had an unusually large amount of new Instagram DMs, and typically they were just robots or a random surfer bro here or there, but something was off. My profile was public, but I'd also seen a weird influx of followers in a short period of time. I was a fairly big name in the surfing community thanks to my championship winning past-self, but outside of that sphere of influence, I was a mere speck of a star in the swirling galaxy of famous athletes. Nothing like the supernova that was Atlas Vaughn.

Still bleary eyed, I swiped my messages open, and I nearly dropped my phone on my face as the reality of the situation set in. I let out an audible groan, which prompted Sam to lift his head.

There were a dozen of them, and they all had one thing in common - they followed Atlas fucking Vaughn. Maybe Atlas wasn't a supernova at all. He was a planet, and I'd just been sucked into his orbit for everyone with a god damn telescope to see and analyze and make attempts to identify.

I bit down on my thumbnail as I scrolled through the rest of them, feeling my stomach churn at the thought that there were actually people like this out there - wild and shameless and possessive of someone they didn't even know. But then I saw it - all the way at the bottom was the worst message of it all. Maybe it was just the hangover, but I wanted to puke.

Suddenly every other message in my inbox faded into the background. Even though his first message was time stamped 1:00 AM my time, through some slightly shameful research I learned Monaco was exactly 9 hours ahead of me. Although with Atlas, he could have been anywhere in the world at any given moment.

I didn't know if I wanted to be mortified, turned on, or some combination of both, but regardless, that boy had cojones of steel.

Sam nuzzled himself under my arm and let out a huff through his nose.

Get up. Walk me. Do human things.

I groaned and swiped out of Atlas's DMs. Maybe if I willed it hard enough into the universe, it would just disappear on its own. I opened Gemma's text message and immediately snorted out a laugh.

London wasn't much closer than Monaco, with a whopping 8 hours ahead of California time. Gemma and I had just gotten into a routine of texting each other when we felt like it, regardless of when the other could answer. I'd learned a long time ago that my window for normal conversations with most people (outside of my own family) was tiny, and that most of the day, I just had to accept being with myself, and myself only.

Sam groaned again and rolled his body into mine, as if to say you have me too, I love you, now walk me.

"Alright, alright." I sighed and mentally prepared myself to get out of bed. My joints popped and cracked as I sat up and swung my legs over the side. I did my usual neck rolling, ankle cracking, and back stretching, but my head pounded the second I put my feet to the carpet and stood up.

"Great," I groaned to myself, feeling my hangover burn and bubble up inside me.

My normal morning run with Sam was more of a sluggish, sneaker dragging trot, but he humored me and kept his pace slow. When I got back to my condo, I downed almost 30 ounces of water from my Yeti tumbler and collapsed onto my red leather couch.

"Sam, no more Pinot Noir."

Sam rolled over on the colorful woven rug in my cramped living room, tongue sticking out and panting.

I crawled under a blanket and turned the TV on, my eyes fluttering in and out of a half sleep state as reruns of Avatar the Last Airbender played on Netflix in the background. I pulled out my phone and opened my Instagram DMs again. Thankfully there was nothing new from Atlas's obsessive flock of fangirls, but there were still there. I didn't know how much good engaging with it would do, but I wasn't sure ignoring them was any better. That was where ever-logical, ever-calculating Gemma came in. I sent her a screenshot of a few of the messages.

I chuckled to myself, and I didn't know why I'd expect anything but this kind of answer from Gem. She was without a doubt the smartest person I knew, but sometimes I felt like she forgot I wasn't just another student in her graduate program that she could spew comparative political theory jargon at and expect me to understand.

I cringed and scrolled back through my messages, and unsurprisingly, my conversation with Atlas was also still there, glaring back at me with an intense ferocity. The universe was not my friend today.

Reading and rereading his response, hearing it in his voice and almost picturing the way that half-smile of his would curl his lips, threw my stomach for a loop (even though I wanted to chalk it up to the nauseating hangover). I took another screenshot and forwarded it to Gemma before huffing out a sigh and placing my phone face down on my chest.

Only a few seconds went by before the trill of the FaceTime ringtone busted through the silence of my condo. Despite the fact that my head was still swimming, I answered and was immediately verbally assaulted.

"You've really outdone yourself this time, Sav."

Gemma's slim figure darted in and out of the video, fluttering around what I knew was her rustic looking kitchen in her London apartment. A pale white sweater vest gracefully hung off her shoulder over a tight black turtleneck. Gemma Frost was the only person I knew that could pull off a sweater vest without looking like a grandpa or an awkward classics professor.

"I'd like to imagine it could have somehow been worse," I sighed. "Although at this present time, I can't actually think of how it could have been worse. Ask me again in an hour."

There was a clattering of pots that echoed in the background of Gemma's screen. She came back into view and gave me a coy smirk. "So what are you going to do?"

"I think I've done enough, don't you?" I rubbed my temples with my fingers and propped my phone up against my bent knees.

Gemma went back to tending to whatever was steaming on her stovetop, and from the looks of it, my headstrong, independent best friend still lacked one major life skill after all her years abroad - she still hadn't learned to cook shit.

"Atlas can see that you've read his message, you know." She quipped with a shrug. "And I think a response like his deserves one from you, no?"

I shifted myself on the couch and pulled my crochet blanket up to my chest. "This is why I don't have read receipts on. I don't need people knowing I'm actively ignoring them."

Gemma sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "That's not how Instagram works, babe. You can't just shut off read receipts, they're always on. Now put on your big girl pants and respond."

I knitted my brows together. "What the hell are you even cooking?"

"Lemon roasted cauliflower risotto." Another hiss came from the stovetop.

I chuckled and found myself eying the background of our FaceTime call, looking for shadows on her kitchen walls and listening for the faintest sound of another person breathing. "Since when do you experiment outside of the realm of pasta?"

"Stop deflecting." Gemma slapped the pan with her spatula. "Answer him."

"What do I even say?" I groaned.

Gemma shifted her weight from one foot to the other, tapping away again at the saucepan. "The truth works."

With another groan, I opened my Instagram DMs. The little seen notification underneath his message was so unholy. I typed up the first bullshit response I could think of and hit send before giving myself an opportunity to second guess myself.

I switched back to Gemma's FaceTime screen. "This really doesn't do much to alleviate my mortification. I still accidentally sent a guy that I've slept with - who's also enough of a celebrity to have his own fans haranguing me, by the way - a stupid, slightly lewd DM. If I wasn't on the phone with you, I'd throw it across the room. At this point he probably thinks all I do is get drunk on wine and act like a fool."

Gemma leaned against her dark granite countertop, and even through the fuzzy FaceTime connection I could see the lines in her forehead crease, calculating and concocting something in that big brain of hers. "I mean, does it really matter? Do you even want to see him again?"

It came out like a question, but her tone said everything that I probably wouldn't. Did I want to see him again? Yes. Should I? Probably not, and I wasn't in the mood to give Gemma an elaborate answer as to why - which she'd undoubtedly ask.

"I mean...I'm not gonna go out of my way to jet back to Monaco any time soon," I grumbled.

A smirk pulled at Gemma's lips. "Well on the off chance that you do see him, maybe you should play nice."

"That's not very on brand for me, is it?" I waved my hand casually. "It's something future me can deal with."

I unlocked my phone and was instantly greeted with the Instagram DM screen that I'd neglected to close out of when I shut my phone off before. Underneath my message, the little seen now text popped up.

"Oh shit..." I hissed out and sat up, juggling my phone in my hands as it threatened to slip from my clammy grasp. "He saw it. It says seen. He's in the chat. This is officially a now problem."

Gemma groaned. "This is not even a problem. Just...just speak your truth, Sav."

"I don't have a truth." I rolled my eyes.

"It's not rocket science." Gemma shook her head. "It's just a guy who drives a fast car. There's no harm in talking to him...and maybe making sure he doesn't think you're a wine drunk fool, as you've so eloquently put it."

I was about to fire back at her when a voice came from offscreen - a guy's voice. Whoever it was muttered something in French, prompting a painful glare from Gemma.

"What was that?" I smirked. "Do you have someone there?"

"Not anymore." Gemma continued to glare off-screen and shooed away whoever it was. A faint scarlet brushed her cheeks, but I didn't press her about it. Gemma was like a fisherman's knot - the more pressure that was put on it, the tighter it got. I learned a long time ago that Gemma would unwind and open up on her own terms, and her own terms only.

"Focus on the message," she quipped once she was back in the frame, finally turning off the stove despite the fact that she'd burnt her cauliflower whatever it was five minutes ago. "You better say something else before he does, and before I suffer from more second-hand embarrassment. I think also admitting that you actually want to talk to him would help."

I paused and tapped my fingers against the back of my phone. Complicated was not a friend of mine, and this Instagram DM mess with Atlas was already more than enough for me. "What about just...hi?"

A self-satisfied grin worked its way across Gemma's lips. "Perfect. Now we're making progress."

"Do I add a winky face?" I grumbled as I tapped away at the message. I'd closed out of our FaceTime to send the message, and judging my Gemma's silence she was tending to something...or someone. I added it anyway and hit send. Fly by the seat of my god damn pants.

"Don't be tacky," Gemma warned.

"Too late I already sent it." I shrugged.

Gemma made a showing of dropping her serving bowl to the counter. "Well then, carpe fucking diem."

My phone chimed with his response.

"See?" Gemma said. "That wasn't so hard. Sounds like you're practically made for each other."

I scoffed. "That was hard."

Gemma rolled her eyes. "Okay, well I have to go. Dinner's done. See you in a few weeks. Love you."

I gave her a coy smirk. "Yeah, yeah, you go do whatever it is you were doing before...or whoever."

She responded by hanging up on me. I chuckled to myself, hoping whoever it was that was there could unwind her just a little bit.

Before I could even think about how to continue the conversation, Atlas did it for me.

I gawked at his last message, feeling the cold lingering of the way he'd left that morning in Australia mix with the sizzling heat of his messages now. I smirked to myself and decided to do what I always did - test the water temperature.

I clapped my phone to my chest and exhaled, knowing the risk of the message I'd just sent. He responded immediately.

I couldn't hold back a chuckle knowing Gemma would be losing her shit over our brash misuse of the winky face emoji.

I groaned to myself. Smiley face emojis were where I drew the line, and while I knew it wasn't that late in Monaco, dread began to tangle itself up with the temporary euphoria, and I had to pull myself back. I wasn't about to bother him with the fangirls waiting in the background of my DMs, so I half-expected the conversation to end there, but my phone chimed with another notification.

"Oh he's good," I grumbled to myself, feeling warmth spread through my body like wildfire. "Too good."

Over the next week, it had somehow become commonplace for Atlas and I to just...talk. Unprompted. Casual. He'd comment on a random Instagram story of mine and just carry on from there, our conversations stalled and slowed by time zone differences. We'd swap dog pictures, talk about the asshole that cut me off on Route 1 or the sweatshirt he'd shrunk in the dryer. We'd pretend we were normal 20-something-year-olds, even just for a few minutes a day.

The influx of DMs and follows from the Atlas Vaughn Fan Club had also slowed, but that didn't mean that every time I gained a new follower I wasn't looking to see if they were a member. They usually were. Every time my phone chimed with a notification, it sent my heart careening into my throat, for better or for worse. Message from Atlas? Skip a beat. Message or follow from some crazed teenage girl? Skip another beat. This person I had become since my injury, fragile and nervous like an old woman, was spilling over into all other parts of my life, and I couldn't let her. I had to be better than that.

After spending a morning on the waves with Malia, I lowered myself onto the floor of my living room, wrapped my knee with ice, and opened my phone to see another message from Atlas. I wanted to so badly ignore it, but how could I? What had he done to me...other than simply exist? Sam laid down beside me and put his head on my shoulder.

Atlas had attached a video of Phantom expertly picking the pieces of steak out of his normal bowl of food and swallowing them with way too much gumption. It made me laugh, and I wanted to bury myself in the warmth and comfort of Phantom's dark fur, hoping maybe I could just disappear into it. He ended the video by flipping the camera onto himself and giving it a thumbs up. I wanted to bury myself in him too, but at what cost?

I left him on seen. 

sometimes all i think about is you
late nights in the middle of june

heat waves / glass animals

if i had any patience for photoshop whatsoever, i'd probably try to learn to make better graphics for the text/dm communications, but alas, this is all i can do for now. in the wise words of the infamous nick saban, "everything is a test of my patience because i don't have any patience."

obviously a new aspect of this story (if you're a return reader) is the commentary on the way some fans behave, especially on social media. as i can now say i've personally experienced crazy uncomfortable "fan behavior" in this particular space, i think it was something important i wanted to address in this new version. harassing an athlete/celebrity or their friends and loved ones on social media is never okay, nor is it okay to attack other fans because you don't share the same opinions as them - if you think this stuff can just be written off as "fan behavior", you need to check yourself. as much as i've always wanted overdrive to be more of a feel-good story than some of my other work, it can't really be a story of mine without some kind of social commentary on athletes or sports or whatever is in between. *angel emoji*

okay, i'm off my soapbox now. hope y'all enjoyed the chapter and be good to my babies as always (convo between sav and gem always inspired by real life convos that w1ldflow3r and i have about game theory and comparative politics)