Coming Home

Chapter 17

I had, once more, buried myself in work, not wanting to talk to anyone. I needed to sort out my thoughts and I did that best by being on my own and working hard. On the display on my phone I could see that Alex had tried calling me a few times, but I didn't want to hear about his date with Amy, so I had ignored him.

On Tuesday, three days after my last shift at the bar, I was expecting a pizza delivery from Figaro's. As the doorbell rang, I buzzed the delivery boy inside my building, and left the door to my flat open.
Not long after, there was a small knock on the open door and a faint voice called out, "Is?"
I knew that I probably ordered too many pizzas from Figaros but to my knowledge, the people working there didn't know my name. I poked my head out in the hallway and saw that there was no delivery boy in the flat. Instead, occupying the doorframe was Alex.

"Hey!" He said.

"What are you doing here?" I furrowed my brows. Had he not understood that I had ignored him for a reason?

"Just wanted to check if you're still alive," he shrugged, "are you?"

"Very much so!" I said, "but I have a ton of work to do...."

"Oh, alright," he said and looked truly disappointed, "you don't even have time for an old friend for ten minutes?" He said with puppy eyes that I couldn't resist.

"Come on in, Turner," I rolled my eyes, "but if you don't leave in exactly ten minutes, don't think I wont hestitate to use force and violence to get you out of here."

"As if I'm scared of you - you hit like a toddler," he teased, and took off his shoes.

"So....What's up?" I asked him as I closed the door behind him.

"Just thought it was weird that you haven't answered any of my calls in the last couple of days," he shrugged, "you alright?"

I nodded eagerly, "like I said: I just have a ton of work to do."

"Do you want me to go over those albums and give you my take on them?"

"Maybe next time. For now, I think I'm alright."

He nodded and neither of us spoke for what felt like hours.

"Issy, what's wrong?" He finally said, "I can tell something's up.."

"What? Nothing's wrong! Nothing's up!" I said in a voice that was half a pitch too high.

Alex noticed and he started to chuckle, "you have never been able to hide what you think. I've known you since forever and I can tell when something's up."

I sighed, "It's nothing, alright. I just need to sort it out in my head and actually get some work done meanwhile."

Alex nodded, "Alright, I'll leave you to it, then. Wanna hang out tomorrow or summat?"

"Naah, I'll probably go over to my mum's place tomorrow and do some work while sitting outside in her garden. I'm probably gonna stay there for a few days, to be honest," I shrugged.

Alex nodded and looked at his watch, "well, looks like my 10 minutes are almost up. I'll leave you to it,"

He smelled like heaven and his scent hung in my nostrils for hours making it hard for me to concentrate on anything else.