Note: Dear Jimmy, if you ever end up reading this, I'm so sorry lol. 🤷

~*~

Like many college students, I was broke and struggling to get by.

At only nineteen years old, I had moved to North Carolina from my hometown in New York to get away from my toxic family, which was a great decision on my part, but it also meant that I didn't have any help to pay bills.

I was going to the local community college as a nursing major, but I was also stuck working a part-time job at a local Walmart because I was trying to minimize my student loans as much as possible.

I was only about 3 hours in to my 8 hour shift at Walmart--the thought of which made me groan. It was a fairly normal shift as it was a Thursday evening, so I was mostly just straightening up and re-stocking the shelves.

I continued going around the clothing section of the store and picking up the clothes that people had casually (and rudely) tossed on the floor, and I put them back in their proper place.

I saw a group of guys around my age over by the electronics section and I walked a little closer to see what they were up to. They were laughing and piling several expensive things into their carts--TVs, laptops, etc. Someone was holding a camera and filming the guys loading up the carts.

Filming wasn't allowed in the store, but I wasn't about to say anything... I didn't get paid enough to do that. I just stood there fixing the same rack of clothes again that was closest to the electronics section (it was already fixed) just so I could watch them.

Not gonna lie--they were all pretty cute. One of the guys in particular was very much my type: very tall, average build (let's be honest, I'm not perfect either), dark brown hair, and a bit of facial hair.

I have no shame, so I walked over to the electronics section to get even closer and pretended to be rearranging some of the things on the shelves. I was able to hear the guys talking now, at least. There was a lot of back and forth conversation about what they should get.

"Jimmy, what do you think about this one?" asked one of the guys as he pointed to a TV. He had a heavy southern accent.

"I think they'll love that one... Throw it in," Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome responded. Okay, so his name is Jimmy.

There was a lot more joking around between them, and I was able to pick up some of the names of the other guys: the guy with the southern accent was Chris, and then there was Chandler, Garrett, and Jake.

Then, Jimmy gave a hint as to who he was when he spoke directly to the camera, pointing at his hoodie. "Remember guys, go to shopmrbeast.com to get awesome hoodies like this one so we can afford to buy all this stuff to give away!"

I hid behind one of the shelves and pulled out my phone, and then I typed MrBeast into Google. Someone's YouTube channel popped up with a blue tiger as the logo.

I nearly choked as I saw that he had over 20 million subscribers, and sure enough, I saw Jimmy's face in the thumbnail for a bunch of the videos. I saw titles about giving a lot of money to random people, homeless people, and his friends.

These guys are loaded.

Some of the videos I'd watched before, but I hadn't really paid any attention to the name of the person uploading them. He did some pretty crazy stuff.

Just as I looked up from my phone, Jimmy looked up and we made eye contact. I felt my skin starting to get hot as we made slightly-longer-than-normal eye contact, but then he looked away and said something to his friends, quiet enough that I couldn't hear.

They all turned around to look at me at the same time, which made it very obvious that he had probably said something about the creepy girl in the Walmart vest standing there and staring at them.

Jimmy walked over to me and said, "Hey, my name's Jimmy... We're looking for some people to be a part of our YouTube video on Saturday, and since we're probably being a pain during your shift here, would you be interested? It's a challenge to win a car." He must have noticed me looking at the cart full of electronics because he added, "We're donating all this stuff." He patted the cart next to him.

"Sure," I spit out before my brain even processed what he just said.

"Great!" Jimmy pulled out his phone and asked for my name and number. "I'll text you with the details."

"Sounds good," I said.

I think I seemed really well put-together on the outside, but inside I was silently screaming in excitement. An attractive, famous YouTuber just asked me to be a part of his video... I don't know how I didn't pass out just now.

Okay, I was actually starting to feel a little woozy.

I finally started walking away from them. I heard Jimmy whisper to the group, "I can't believe I got her number."

Was that a good or a bad thing? I mentally kicked myself: someone like him wouldn't be interested in an average girl like me.

He was probably just struggling to get people to volunteer for this video, and he was surprised at how easily I gave in. Way to go, girl, you just made yourself look like a weirdo.

They were there for another hour or so. I made eye contact with Jimmy a few more times as they walked down the aisles that I was re-stocking, but we didn't talk anymore after our brief encounter. He gave me an adorable crooked smile and I smiled back.

The rest of my shift dragged on. I couldn't wait until the video on Saturday, even though it was only two days away. 

Later on that night, I binge watched probably every single one of MrBeast's videos, so at least I had an idea of what I was about to be getting myself into.

After 2 hours of his videos, I heard a ding and saw that I had a text from an unknown number:

Hey, it's Jimmy from earlier today with all the electronics lol we're filming the video on Saturday, so if you could get here around 10am to start if you're still down for it

He provided an address maybe 10-15 minutes from where I lived, but it sucks because I can't afford a car, so I'll have to figure out how to get there. Public transportation is how I've been getting to work and school, so winning the car would be incredible.

I texted him back:

Sounds good lol I'll be there 😊

I set my phone down on my nightstand and rolled over onto my pillow to go to sleep.

~*~