A Flight's Desire

Chapter 2: The Call

Robin looked at the caller ID and seeing who it was, she pulled her phone out of the charger to pick the call up. "Hey, brother!" She tried to sound cheery, keeping the phone on her left shoulder and holding it with her head to balance the phone to keep it from falling.

"Robin, hey." Lincoln Hale said. "Why aren't you sleeping?"

"Why did you call so early?"

"Because I just remembered something."

"What?" She asked, trying to figure out what he wanted to tell her. "Don't tell me to tell David about the new filing of reports. I'd rather do it myself." She chuckled.

Robin wasn't a writer by profession. She was an accountant in a firm whose Chairperson was her brother. The company belonged to her as well as she owned a part of it, but she liked working there and to think of herself as more of a part of the company rather than one of the Executive Partners. She looked over the Budapest department even though her brother was against her leaving Los Angeles. NYC and Los Angeles were their home, but Robin wanted a change in her life at that point in life. Some part of her wanted to live in a city where she would be forced to take care of herself, learning to be self-reliant at a very early point in her life.

"It's not that."

Robin's eyebrows knitted together. If her brother wasn't going to talk about work, she must have definitely forgotten about something. "Then what is it?"

"Something that I am one hundred percent sure that you have forgotten."

There it was. "Just tell me already!" She groaned, not wanting to guess, being really bad at it.

Lincoln sighed. "The due date is this weekend." Robin's deep brown eyes widened in shock as she stumbled to look at the date on her laptop. She slammed herself on the forehead, which was loud enough to be heard by the entire city. "I know you didn't do it on purpose." He tried consoling her but nothing could be said about the guilt that was building up in her. "It can happen to anyone, and seeing the progress reports of your branch, I really do not blame you."

"Of course, I didn't do it on purpose! I'm such an idiot!"

Lincoln was Robin's only family. Their parents passed away in a car accident when they were young. Since then, they had been supporting each other and were each other's only company. Ever since they started to live in different countries, both the siblings met each other during the holidays and always stayed in touch. Not even the world could separate them.

Lincoln was married to his high school sweetheart, Melody Stuart, one of America's leading Asian fashion designers. They had been married for a couple of years and now, she was eight months pregnant. He had given the happy and celebratory news to Robin as soon as he found out. Melody and Robin were really good friends, unlike what the society generally thought about the relationship between a sister and the sister-in-law. They always shared important details with each other and were always there for the other. It was a great relationship because Robin got to learn a lot about Chinese culture from Melody.

"Did the alarm even ring?" He wondered, knowing that his ADHD-diagnosed sister must have set an alarm to not forget about the date. It was a technique that she had used ever since their school days because she refused to miss her classes.

"You know that technology and I never get along," she replied as she opened the calendar on the laptop. "I have written it down but-"

"You didn't set the alarm," he smirked.

She closed her eyes in embarrassment. "I know you are on the other side of the world but I will not hesitate to hit you."

While the two siblings were about to start bickering, the soon-to-be-mother joined the conversation to keep it going. "Hi, Robin!" Melody waved at thin air before her, sitting on the recliner chair nearby in Los Angeles - the Hale siblings' hometown.