Troubleshoot Chapter 1

Troubleshoot

Chapter 1: The first step

When you troubleshoot something the first step is always the same, you have to verify that there's a problem.

As I read the words “You are a winner: Click here for a prize!” with a big flashing button that says “Claim prize” that no one in their right mind would trust all I could think is that the problem is definitely verified. As I click the X on the pop-up ad another one that said something about winning a million dollars came to take it's place.

“Amy, what were you even doing when you all these viruses appeared, anyway?” I ask the petite blonde hovering over my shoulder as I close two more pop-up ads.

“My guess is porn. Probably something involving anal.” Says the third occupant of the room.

“Hmmm, good guess Brian but I'd have assumed something more kinky than that. This is Amy we're talking about here.” I shoot back, using humor to distract myself from the fact that the endless stream of error messages and advertisements were starting to wear down my patience.

"So I'm getting paid for this right?" I ask while taking a glance at Amy.

"Nope." Amy replies back matter-of-factly.

"Oh c'mon, I know you got the money to spare! You can't even help out your bestie with his money troubles?" I whine, only half joking.

"First, you're not my bestie, you're just some nerd I let in to help fix my computer. Second of all, I don't have any money to give you." She shoots back.

"First, you're only saying that because Brian's here and you don't wanna break your ice-queen persona. Second, you have a walk in closet and this computer cost you two-thousand dollars, you have money to spare." I reply back.

"You know Amy, if you're low on funds you could just make Micheal's fantasies become reality instead." Brian interjects in the middle of our argument.

“EWWWWW!” Amy's voice explodes in my right ear. She takes a step away from me before continuing. “Oh my god would you just shut up?! Why are you even here?!” She says while turning around and pointing an accusatory finger at the somewhat lanky man leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets.

“I'm just here to make sure your little date here doesn't get too rough. I mean we both know that Micheal here is too much a sub to even know the meaning of the term 'Safe Word'.” Brian says with a sly grin.

“Shut up.” I respond. By this point I was done f*****g with the laptop and switched to f*****g around on my phone.

“Would you just leave?!” Amy yells at him.

“Just calm down, all he wants is a reaction.” I say calmly. “Oh c'mon, don't act like you've never thought about it. I bet just being in her room is making your imagination run wild.” He responds.

“Perceptive prick.” I think I as I ignore the slight blush spreading across my face as I turn the chair back around to hide it from them. I turn my attention back to the laptop again and start clicking around and manage to delete the program that was the cause of this mess to begin with.

“And there. We. Go.” I say as I click a few more times to finalize the uninstall process. “It should work now!” I say while turning to face the bubbly blond. “Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! You did it!” she exclaims, her aggressive facade from earlier fading away instantly. “Well of course I did, I'm going to college for this stuff after all.” I say confidently as I secretly thank the fact that we can access the internet using our phones and the fact that Google had the answer.

“Now, let's see what you were doing.” I say as I move the mouse towards the “History” button. “No stop! Get out, get out!” Amy says while pushing me out of the room. I humored her by playing along, she's a little too short to move me normally. Brian was pushed out shortly after me.

"So I'm not getting paid then?" I jokingly ask. She then proceeds to slam the door in our faces.

We make our way out of the house and go our seperate ways to our respective houses. On the walk back I pull out my phone and start texting.

“Hey Ames, we're still hanging out tomorrow right?”

I kept walking for another minute or two, glancing at the phone occasionally. Then I got a response. “yeah of course” followed by the heart emoji. And that was all she wrote...no pun intended. The promise of seeing her again tomorrow was all it took to put a bit of pep in my step as I headed home.

So here I am, twenty-four hours later in a place full of college drop-out employees, over-priced beverages, and people looking for attention. Starbucks. Ok, so maybe I'm being too harsh and am just annoyed that this Vanilla Frappucino thing was about 2 dollars more than it should've been and isn't even very good to boot. Why did I even agree to come here?

I hear the door slam shut and decide to look up from my barely touched iced cold beverage and see a cute 5'6 blonde girl ordering an overly complicated drink before scanning the room for me. Oh right, that's why. She asked me to come. I hate it whenever she picks this place for our meet ups. But not like I ever speak up and ask her if we could go someplace else, so I can't really complain.

I give her a little wave to let her know where I am. She walks over to me after grabbing her drink. That yellow sundress sure looks nice on her. Her blue eyes look as beautiful as ever too. It's honestly pretty hard for me to tear my eyes away.

"Would you stop staring you bespectacled f****t?" Amy's voice breaks me out of my trance.

As she takes a seat across from me I fire back with "Wow, four syllables. Bet you only looked that word up to insult me with it." hoping it hides my embarrasement.

Amy just ignores that comment. Instead choosing to sip some of her coffee through a straw.

"So, what do we plan on doing today? Music, Dancing, and maybe something more?" I quip.

"Ew, no. We're just gonna hang out here for a bit." she replies while taking a glance at her phone.

I'd like to object but I can never say no to her. We spent the twenty minutes just chatting about Our Families, Friends, Gossip, and all the usual subjects that two college age students would discuss in a Starbucks at one in the afternoon while occasionally drinking some overpriced coffee.

"So, this was nice but I think I'm gonna go." I say while standing up.

"Oh c'moooooooooon! Ten more minutes, please?" Amy begs.

Goddamnit, I can't say no to her. She does a little cheer as I sit back down. She then proceeds to pull her phone back out and check the time again before agressively slurping down more of her Cinnamon Roll Frappucino, this is her third one.

"Look Amy I'm not stupid-" I begin

"You are." She interjects.

"Be that as it may, my point is that I can tell when you're hiding something. Why are we still sitting here?" I ask.

She fiddles with her straw a little bit. "Well, ok fine. This is a set up. One of my friends is coming to meet us, but it's taking...longer than expected." she explains.

"You could've just told me." I begin to argue.

"I've asked if you wanted to come with me and my other friends to come do something a lot. But everytime your b***h a*s never shows."

"That's not true, it's just everytime you offer-"

Amy rolls her eyes. "Yeah, I know. You have homework, or other plans. What was your excuse last time again, a stomach ache? This is why I call you stupid." she finishes.

I stay silent, too scared to say that she's absolutely right but not dumb enough to try to lie to her more.

She sighs. "Look, they're almost here. Just stay and meet them, please. For me." she aks while staring at me.

"Fine, but just this once." I resign myself to whatever's to come.

"Yaaaaaay!" she cheers again.

A few more minutes pass, mostly in silence since I was pretty embarrased that Amy knew I was lying the whole time. Should I appologize or just pretend it ever happened?

"Hey! Over here!" Amy's words knocks me out of my thoughts. I look up to her waving her hands over her head like a kid on a sugar rush. I felt a bit of second hand embarrasement since other people in the shop were looking at us. I look around for whoever she was signaling and see a very beautiful brunnette heading towards us.

"Brooke!" Amy yells as she gets up and hugs the taller girl. "You're late, hoe." Amy says as they break the embrace. Brooke gives a bit of an embarrased laugh "Fashionably late." she clarifies. "The only fashionable one here is me, you're just a dirty a*s roach." Amy counters.

I awkwardly stand there, waiting for an opening to talk. Amy seems to notice this and decides to do something about it. "Brooke, this is Micheal. Micheal, this is Brooke. Now I gotta go piss, be right back!" she says as she power walks off. Whether or not she really has to go or if she was just trying to get me and her friend alone together I couldn't tell. My head turns from Amy's retreating form back to Brooke. The first thing I notice about her are her green eyes, they seem to pierce right through me. I don't have to move my head at all to look into them, we must be the same height. Neither of us moves for what feels like too long. Oh no, have I been staring for too long?! Crap, she probably already thinks I'm a weirdo! Do something!

"U-um...I'm Micheal..." I mumble while clumsily trying to avoid eye contact and awkwardly stick out my hand, for a hand shake. She seems to take in stride since she chuckles, shakes my hand, and responds with "Yeah, I knew that."

"You can sit down, you know...if you want." I offer while motioning towards the booth me and Amy had been sitting in.

She takes me up on that offer and slides into the booth. I sit down across from her. I keep averting my eyes, trying not to stare again. "So...um...uh..." I struggle to think of something to say.

"Ha ha, you're not very good at this are you?" Brooke says.

"Good at what?" I say, finally gaining the courage to look her in the eyes again.

"Why talking to a lovely woman like myself, of course!" she exclaims while giving me a wink. In this moment I don't think I said any words, just embarrassed noises.

"Easily flustered." she notes.

"I am not!" I burst out. Seeing everyone stare at me I start sinking into my chair, embarrased.

"Not a very good liar either." she continues.

By this point I'm just staring at her, trying to find out how to get her to stop her little monologue.

"I can see you're also not quite the assertive type. You want me to stop, I can tell. But you have no idea how to go about it. Trust me, I know Amy better than anyone and you're not going to win her over if you keep acting like that." she finishes.

"I-it's not like that..." I weakly argue.

"It's stamped on your forehead. I mean, you only ever agreed to meet up with her if she was the only one there, right?" she says.

"Well..." I trail off, not really having a rebuttal.

"Look, I'm honestly not trying to be mean. I want to help, but I need to know what I'm working with here before I can do anything." She explains.

"The first step of troubleshooting is always to verify the problem..." I mumble.