The next day I waited by the elevator to level 600 of S.T.A.R Labs for Caitlin. She hasn't answer any of my text and I was worry. The girl had way to much to drink the night before.
"You know she probably just took a sick day." Barry points out as he approached me bearing two mugs of coffee.
"Thanks," I mumbled as he gave me one. "Yeah, but she would have at least called in by now to let us know."
"True," Barry shrugs as he leans against the wall with me. "But with the hangover she must be having I wouldn't blame her." Barry phone goes off and I look over in hopes it's a text from Caitlin, but become disappointed quickly when it's only a text from Joe. "She's fine, Madison. If you want I can speed over there and check up on-"
"No! I will not become a helicopter parent."
"I think its to late for that." Barry snicked into his mug earning himself my famous side eyes. "Oh and Linda texted me. Wanted to hang out, but I can say no."
"Question, does she know you have a girlfriend?"
"Yes. I made sure to make that very clear."
"Good. Do you like her?"
"Maddy, I can say no if you're not okay with it." Barry softly smiles. "And no, I don't see her in that way. She's new to town and I'm the only person she knows. If you want you are more then welcome to tag along. She wants to go bowling on Saturday."
"Can't. I have that awards think with Austin," I remind him. "But you should go and have fun, but of course not to much." I tease.
"You sure?" Barry ask carefully.
"One hundred percent." I smile leaning in to kiss Barry who's lips taste like coffee beans. I trust Barry. I really do. I just don't trust Linda since she's a girl I've never meet before, but if Barry says he doesn't like her like that then I believe him.
As I pull away from the kiss, the elevator doors open to reveal a bundled up Caitlin. Even with the wool yellow scarf and huge sunglasses covering her face I can tell she is very grumpy and tired.
"Hi!" says Barry with a raspy voice.
"So loud." Caitlin complains, as she continues to walk down the corridor. Barry and I looked at each other and try our best to hold in a laugh. Caitlin is so hungover.
"Just checking to see if you're okay." I chirped following into step with Caitlin with Barry and I on either side of her.
"Let's just say I envy your inability to get drunk."Caitlin says while looking straight ahead. "I don't remember much from last night."
"Yeah, that's probably for the best." I giggle.
"Summer lovin-"
"Oh, God." Caitlin cringes as she cuts Barry off from singing. "That I do remember." We continue to walk in silence after that to not bother Caitlin as much, but once we entered the main room Barry broke the silence due to the noticeable tension between Dr. Wells and Cisco.
"What's wrong?"
"Cisco Has something he needs to tell you." Wells declares with his arms crossed.
"Hartley's gone." Cisco states weakly.
"He escaped from the Pipeline?" Barry asked shocked. "How is that even possible?" Based on the tension I could tell this was no accident.
"You let him out, didn't you?" I ask. Cisco nodded and looked over at Caitlin.
"Are you mad? I can't tell with those glasses on."
"I'd like to yell and wave my arms, but I'm afraid I'd throw up." Caitlin replies.
"Why? What were you thinking?" Barry says as he raises his voice. "You know how dangerous he is."
"Hartley said he knew what happened to Ronnie."
"I told you to let it go." says Caitlin has she pulls off her glasses. "I didn't want you looking into that for me."
" I wasn't doing it for you." Cisco paused, taking a deep breath before continuing. "I sealed Ronnie into the accelerator before it blew. He told me to wait two minutes, and I waited, but he didn't come back. And I can't stop thinking, Ronnie wouldn't be like he is right now if I had't just waited a little bit longer. I've wanted to tell you so many times. I'm so sorry."
"So you carried that around this whole time? Do you know what Ronnie would say if he was here?" says Caitlin as she approached him. "He would say that you did the right thing. It wasn't your fault. What happened that night wasn't anybody's fault. Come on. Don't we have a teleporter to catch?"
"We do have a teleporter to catch." Wells says, cutting into a very sentimental moment. "And fortunately, we do have a promising theory. Take a look at this." Wells pulls up a DNA container onto the screen. "Now, this is the normal behavior of the particulate that Shawna left behind. Watch what happens when we remove light." Before the tiny dots were moving all around, but when Wells turned off the light the dots stopped moving.
"Shawna can only become entangled with something she can see. Take away her ability to do that-"
"She can't teleport." I fill in.
"Exactly."
"So, we just need to get her into a dark space. How do we do that?" Caitlin ask
"That's a valid question." Wells sighs as he tries to thing. During this Barry phones rings causing him to step off to the side.
"Hello? What? Yeah, I'll be right there." Barry yells in panic gaining our attention.
"What's wrong?" I ask, reading his expression.
"M-My dad. He's been stabbed." Barry explains, clearly shaken up by this.
"Hey," I say grabbing his hand. "Go, he needs you. We'll take it from here." Barry numbly nodes and speeds off causing papers to fly everywhere.
"Bad timing, but what happened to the paper weights Felicity sent us?" Cisco ask to no one in particular.
~~~
After doing my best to help the team figure out how to take down this teleporter, I went off to Austin's house to see what he's up to, but not before stopping by big belly burger. While waiting outside Austin's door I get a text from Barry letting me know that his' father is alright which is a relief to hear.
"I feel like you have a sixth sense in knowing when I'm hungry." says Austin once he opened the door.
"Well, I wished you had a sixth sense on knowing when I'm at your door because you take ages to open it." I tease while stepping into his cute little house.
"Fair enough," Austin reaches in the bag for some fries and points over to a pile of clothes. "Good thing you're here for I can't figure out what to wear for Saturday." I walk over to his line up and point to a nice furry jean jacket.
"You have no choice, but to wear that."
"It's cute, right? Got it at some thrift store."
"It's amazing." I tell him, taking a seat with my hamburger. "If you don't wear it I will steal it from you."
"I have no doubt you will." Austin laughs. "What about this shirt?"
"Eat first, then I'll help you." I say while shoving a burger in his face.
"Fine." Austin playfully points while giving in.
After what seemed like years Austin finally settled on a outfit to wear for Saturday and thank God for that cause I was getting tired of ransacking his closet for something he'll approve of.
"So, what are you gonna wear." Austin says as he hangs his clothes.
"Mmm, I was thinking sweats and a crop top."
"Funny."
"No hear me out! With like cute pumps to add some class to it or something." I continue.
"I will not be seen with you if you do that." Austin states as he gives me a look.
"Okay, Ugg's?"
"You're dragging it sweetie." Austin takes a seat next to me with a pillow now resting on his lap.
"Fine. How about a onesie! Like a cute anima-" I was cut off by a pillow being thrown at my face making me laugh. "Hey!"
"I hate you." Austin laughs. "Be serious."
"Okay, okay. I got this new jumpsuit from my sister Emily." I pulled out my phone to show Austin and his dramatic gasp told me the outfit choose was acceptable.
"Very sexy Ms. Foster." Austin teases.
"Only for you."
"Oh, please! More like for Barry!"
~~~
Tap! Tap! Tap!
"Can you stop?" Gina hissed over at me. Boy do I hate having to sit across from Gina at work.
"Sorry." I mumbled. The tapping of my feet was something I didn't notice for I was to focus on the task I had at hand. The boss gave me another assignment and I didn't want there to be any mistakes. That's the last thing I needed.
I watch as Gina nervously chews on the easer side of her pencil glancing nervously at the clock above my head.
"What? Waiting for a hot date?" Austin teases Gina as he walks by and hand me a mug of coffee. I accepted it gratefully for I desperately needed it.
"What? No! Mind your own." Gina scuffles, turning to face the door.
"Hard to do so when your desperate need for attention is radiating off of you. Practically making your skin glow." Austin sits on the edge of my desk and sips his coffee. Just waiting for Gina to start her rant of the day.
"There's a newbie coming in today." Gina sighs, giving in easily.
"And?"
"Let's just say this newbie is gonna be competition for me." Gina vagally explains.
"Did you worry about me when I got hired?"Austin slightly teased.
"Oh please, I wasn't worry about you." Gina quickly states, but frowns once it is said out loud. "Sorry."
"No, I walked into that one." Austin shrugs.
"What's got you worry about this person?" I ask.
"She's gonna be working in the sports department and I already heard people speaking so highly of her. I wouldn't be surprised if she comes for my job." Gina whispers in a harsh tone of voice.
"I wouldn't worry so much about it." Austin try's to reassure. "Just keep kissing up to the boss as you do and you'll be fine."
"I hate you."
"Feelings are mutual, darling." Austin smiles blowing Gina a kiss to which Gina scrunched up her face in discuss.
The two began to banter like they usually do around eleven and while that was going on a familiar looking women walked through the doors.
Linda.
I excused myself from the two which wasn't necessary since they didn't notice and walked over to a lost looking Linda.
"Hi." I smile.
"Oh hey! Madison, right?" Linda asking while sticking out a hand to shake.
"Um yeah, Linda?" I ask while taking her hand to shake.
"That's me." Linda nervously laughs. There was awkward tension that loomed around us and I wasn't honestly sure how to address it or felt like I wanted to, but Linda took care of that.
"I'm really sorry!" Linda blurs out.
"Oh, you don't have to d-"
"No please! I didn't know Barry was taken when we meet at that bar and I flirted with you boyfriend which is wrong. I'm truly sorry about that." Linda says sounding genuine. "I'm really sorry and I only texted him because he's the only guy I know from here. So if you want me to stop I can totally do that."
"That's really not necessary." I tell her. "Barry is his own person and can make his own chooses. Plus you didn't know. Its not your fault, really"
"He didn't flirt back." Linda adds. " I just felt like I had to tell you that so you don't get mad at him." Linda goes to rub her arms clearly nervous, but I placed a hand on top of her shoulder causing her to look up.
"It's okay, Linda. Let's just start over."
"Really?" Linda asked with a soft smile approaching her lips.
"I don't see why not."
"Thank you. Really." Linda smiled widely.
"So what brings you here? I'm pretty sure it wasn't just to apologize." I joke lightly.
"I'm here looking for Lewis," says Linda as she adjust her bag strap on her shoulder. "I'm the new reporter for the sport department."
My eyes slightly widened as I took this new information in. Cool, I guess?
~~~
IMPORTANT A/N: I'm the worse when it comes to updates. Believe me I know. I was having MAJOR writers block when it came to this story so I had to put it aside in order to figure out how I want to continue it. When I first started writing it, I knew what I wanted to do with my OC, Madison, but I was young-ish when I wrote this story. So now I'm trying to take that original idea and try to write it in a way that makes sense to you, the readers, and not come across cheesy and terrible. So this story (as always) will have slow updates as I try to make sense of it all.
However, when I was taking breaks from writing In Love In A Flash, I started messing around with Social Media stories because I've been reading a lot of those lately. Writing this social media story was a way for me to destress and I'm actually happy with the way it's truing out.
It's a social media story based on Brendon Urie, that I'll be posting in the near future. I do want to add that I'm not going to stop writing In Love In A Flash, but will just be trying to maintain both books as best as I can. I hope you can understand where I'm coming from and give both books a chance. Thank you to those who stuck with this book. I'm truly grateful.