Unknown Number

by Victoria Hyder

  ~0~

  Sunday AM

  Over the weekend Lucas kept himself tucked away in his flat, relieved that he and Cavan seemed to be back on the same page. At the very least, the awkwardness had left the older man whenever he replied. Bonnie and Fletcher had text him, knowing full-well that he’d slam the door in their faces despite his better mood. He just wanted to be left alone and enjoy some peace and quiet just in case his comfortable little bubble was shattered again. It didn’t help that he was most definitely ill; the moment any of his friends knew he was ‘under the weather’ they were going to harass him with chicken soup, hot tea and texts every half an hour to make sure he hadn’t suffocated on a snot-bubble.

  The only person who treated him like normal was Cavan, mainly because Lucas had tried to keep any complaints of his health to an absolute minimum.

  Lucas had to admit he was overjoyed when he rolled over in bed, swiped his phone up and saw that he already had a text from Cavan.

  (10:02) Good ‘morrow, handsome knave, how doth the morning greet thee?

  (10:13) My morning hath blessed me with the sweet words from thou’s soft lips.

  (10:17) Mine lips mirror the sweet suppleness of thou’s favourite fruit.

  (10:23) Sorcery! Do not taunt this fellow with a fruit betwixt thine lips!

  (10:30) Sorcery? Ha! You jest good sir! Thoust hath no shame!

  (10:35) Shame be the daemon upon thine soul! I welcomed his presence with open arms!

  (10:46) Cruelty! The devil within you hath burdened your mind! You are driven wild into frivolous fancies of delectable fruits and sorcerers the age of a son! Are you not ill, beloved?

  (10:51) Woe is me! Beloved –I hasten to be the term however thine heart will never beat beneath my breast. It shall remain out of touch, caressed by cupids own hand and cradled in the ribcage of my lover.

  (10:55) [are we perhaps a little too good at this?]

  (10:57) [I don’t care. It’s amazing. You’re better at this than I thought you’d be.]

  (11:01) Scoundrel! You dare to insult me!

  (11:04) Intelligent young mortal. Thou shalt not accuse a creature such as I of wicked things. Lest those wicked things come back unto you.

  (11:09) Oh divine heart! How you tease and taunt me with such affections!

  (11:14) Affections, my little knave? Thou art a ragamuffin! Present your posterior for a rigorous punishment!

  (11:36) Oh God! I’m sorry! I choked on my coffee and it went down my shirt and I’ve had to strip the bed!

  (11:40) How can you make Old English hot?!

  (11:42) Seriously?! I feel like I’m discovering new and creepy fetishes purely through you!

  (11:50) I’m willing to take all of that as a compliment.

  (11:53) Of course you would!

  (11:58) What? It’s hot. I could literally rock up to your bedroom window and spout some Romeo and Juliet bullshit and would have to catch you as you THROW YOURSELF at me from the window.

  Sunday PM

  (12:04) You’re a prick.

  (12:07) I’m glad that opinion hasn’t changed over the last few weeks.

  (12:12) The radio silence has helped cement it.

  (12:16) Good.

  (12:22) Why do you like me calling you a prick?

  (12:29) It makes it easier to say ‘I am what I eat’.

  (12:32) Good grief you’re lame haha.

  (12:35) It’s also not strictly true. Think I only sucked one dick in my life and it was just vile.

  (12:39) Iiiiiiiiiin what way?

  (12:45) The guy really REALLY liked his pineapples. Made his jizz sickeningly sweet.

  (12:47) So … Does that mean I should stop eating strawberries?

  (12:51) Careful, kid. If you’re not careful you’re going to give me the impression that you WANT me to touch you all over.

  (12:54) Hardly an impression.

  (12:59) Braaat is there something you want to tell me?

  (13:05) I’ve missed you. I … still do.

  (13:07) I want to come and see you.

  (13:10) You mean like … at my house?

  (13:14) It doesn’t have to be. We could just … meet up somewhere. Talk. Have some drinks.

  (13:16) Are you trying to ask me out on a date?

  (13:18) No! No not a date! I mean … well no, it’s not a date …

  (13:20) It’s just two adults meeting up for drinks and catching-up.

  (13:24) Cavan.

  (13:25) … Yes?

  (13:27) Would you like to come up and have brunch with me as soon as your birthday is out the way?

  (13:30) For real?

  (13:34) Of course you nitwit! Sorry, it can’t be sooner. I have a lot of school work to sort through.

  (13:35) That’s okay! I’m just … wow, I feel so honoured you’d let me in your home!

  (13:37) You do realise that I didn’t even let Eleanor know where I lived until about four years ago.

  (13:41) And when I finally did I had to lay newspapers on the floor for her to step on.

  (13:45) Couldn’t you just ask her to take her shoes off?

  (13:47) I did. This was for her feet.

  (13:48) Ew.

  (13:50) Back to the topic at hand, yes, you’re more than welcome to come up to my end and have brunch.

  (13:53) You have no idea how big my smile is right now!

  (13:57) I can imagine.

  (13:58) I … really want to see you again.

  (13:59) Two weeks, kid.

  (14:02) COUNTING DOWN THE SECONDS! ;D

  Chapter 13

  Tuesday AM

  The pounding on his front door was refusing to stop. It had been going on for, what felt like, thirty whole minutes and it was finally too much to bear. Dragging himself from his bedroom with a blanket thrown around his shoulders, Lucas opened the front door with as much force as possible. Bonnie’s eyebrows flew up into her hairline as she looked him up and down. Great, he must really look as shit as he felt.

  “Oh, Lucas! Why didn’t you say something sooner?” her voice cut through him like a knife and he would have slammed the door in her face if he’d had the strength. Her cool hand pressed against his forehead and it was like a shock of cool water. It felt so soothing he unwittingly leaned into her touch. “Oh, love, you’re burning up.”

  He swallowed; his throat thick with mucus. “I … don’t get sick …”

  “Everyone gets sick, love, you know that.” She frowned up at him, “You must have gotten that awful flu that’s been going around the schools. Come on, let’s get you settled back into bed.”

  “N-no, it’s gross.”

  “Alright, alright, lets get you settled on the sofa then, and then I can change your sheets.”

  Lucas mumbled a string of protests but allowed Bonnie to nudge him gently in the direction of the sofa. The cushions sank under his weight and the soft, tepid fabric made his muscles relax instantly. Bonnie rearranged his blanket to cover most of him and placed a box of tissues next to his knee just in case. She fetched him a glass of water from the kitchen and asked if he wanted the TV on.

  He shook his head.

  As Bonnie stripped his bed, put the sheets and covers into the washing machine and then put fresh, clean sheets on his bed, Lucas stared off into space, his heart thrumming heavily in his aching chest. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so ill, and he wasn’t exactly enjoying the trip down muscle-memory lane. He’d barely been lucid enough to text Cavan as often as he usually did and he was sure the kid was beginning to suspect.

  Somewhere in the distance, he heard the washing machine whirring.

  Bonnie’s cool hand on his neck jolted him awake. “Hey, hey, hey,” she soothed, stroking his greasy hair away from his face. “I brought you some tea.”

  He looked at the cup and then up at her face. He struggled to focus. “… Don’t want tea,” he managed.

  “Darling, you need to eat and drink a little something, okay?”

  “Tastes … a
shy …”

  “It will do, sweetie, but you need to break this fever otherwise it’ll get worse for you.”

  Lucas shook his head, his eyelids growing heavy and his body slumping lower against the sofa. Bonnie sighed and settled in the armchair adjacent to him, drinking the tea she’d made. She kept an eye on him, watching as Lucas twitched and grumbled in his sleep. He whimpered ‘Patricia’ several times, and she felt her insides knot painfully. Squeezing her eyes shut, she hurried out into the kitchen to see if the sheets were finished, before transferring them into the dryer. It broke her heart how much pain Lucas had endured before they’d met.

  At 5PM Fletcher knocked on the door and asked if she was coming back home yet.

  “I will be,” she sighed, rubbing at her tired eyes. “I think Lucas should be settled back into his bed and given more tablets.”

  Fletcher hugged her to his chest and rubbed soothing circles against her back, “Why don’t you go home and put your feet up?” he suggested. “I’ll get Lucas settled in here. If it puts your mind at rest, I can pop-in during the night and see how he’s doing?”

  “Okay,” she raked her hair out of her eyes. “I’ll go make us something to eat and then you can come back here if you feel you need to.”

  They kissed goodbye at the door before Bonnie walked down the hall to their own flat. Meanwhile, Fletcher was now faced with getting his friend into bed with minimal bumping into things. Turning on the bedside lamp in the bedroom, Fletcher set out a glass of water and some paracetamol on the nightstand before going to the living room and trying to coax Lucas upright.

  The shorter man was languid as he clutched limply onto Fletchers shirt, dragging his feet along the wooden floorboards, mumbling incoherently as Fletcher sat him on the edge of his bed. He drooped forward, hunching over his knees. Fletcher frowned at his friend’s form; the exposed flesh of his right arm just below the shoulder was puckered in an ugly scar where the bullet had lodged into the muscle. Shaking the thoughts aside, Fletcher knelt down and gently shook Lucas to consciousness.

  “Hey buddy,” he said as Lucas’ eyes stared through him. “I need you to drink some water for me, okay?” He wrapped Lucas’ hands around the glass and didn’t let go as he raised it to Lucas’ lips and watched him drain half the glass. “Good, now do you think you can take some tablets for me?”

  “Took some …”

  “Yeah? When was that?”

  “Bonnie …”

  “Okay, we’ll leave it for now. Can you lie down for me?”

  Lifting the covers, Lucas obeyed his friend and dragged his legs up and shuddered violently as the cold duvet was draped over him. Rolling over onto his side, he burrowed down into the pillows, inhaling deeply.

  Fletcher placed Lucas’ phone beside the glass of water. “If you need me, just Speed Dial 3, okay?”

  Lucas hummed, his eyes already closed.

  Convinced that was the best he was going to get, Fletcher resigned himself to the evening ahead. Making sure everything was okay for the time-being, he went back to his own flat and had dinner with Bonnie, watched about half an hour of TV, before he kissed her ‘goodnight’ and went to spend the night on his friend’s sofa.

  ~0~

  Thursday

  To Bonnie From Cavan:

  (17:15) Hey, this is Levi’s friend Bonnie, right?

  (17:16) The one and only! How can I help you, Cavan? x

  (17:18) I was just wondering if you’d checked-in on Lucas over the last few days? I’ve messaged him a few times, but he hasn’t responded.

  (17:19) I just wanted to know if he was okay.

  (17:20) … Didn’t he tell you?

  (17:21) Tell me what?

  (17:22) Lucas came down with the flu. He had a fever on Tuesday. I’m surprised he didn’t tell you.

  (17:23) I knew it! I kept asking him last week if he was feeling okay, but he just ignored me or brushed it off!

  (17:24) Is there anything I can do?

  (17:25) I’m afraid not :( he’s far too proud to accept any sort of help when he’s ill. So far he’s been too weak to protest.

  (17:26) Fletch had to sleep over Saturday night to keep an eye on him.

  (17:26) Shit, it was that bad?

  (17:27) Sadly :/ he’s in pretty bad shape. I just feel awful that we’ve both had to go to work yesterday and today.

  (17:28) Hey, I could come up! Let me help.

  (17:29) Isn’t it your birthday this weekend?

  (17:30) Friday, yeah. How did you know?

  (17:31) Lucas wrote it on his calendar.

  (17:32) … That’s sweet.

  (17:33) Okay, well … thanks for letting me know. I hope he feels better.

  (17:35) He’ll text you the moment he’s more lucid, don’t you worry about that. If he doesn’t, I will. I can keep you updated if you like? X

  (17:36) Yeah, thanks. That’d be great.

  (17:37) No problem, Cavan. Try and have a good birthday, yeah? X

  (17:39) Yeah, sure. I’ll do my best.

  (17:40) Thanks again.

  (17:41) You’re welcome, sweetie x

  Friday PM

  Cavan stared down at his phone willing someone to send him a message. He felt like he’d been going stir-crazy for the last few days, barely having the energy to enjoy Sophie’s return home for his birthday celebration. He had caught her whispering with Arthur and a few of their other friends on a skype call, but he’d shut his ears to it all as best he could.

  He liked the element of surprise after-all.

  Which, sadly, left him all too much time to worry about Lucas’ sporadic replied. Maybe he was being a little selfish, expecting a ‘Happy Birthday!’ from the older man, but a part of him had hoped that Lucas would be feeling a little better. He had thought the man to be indestructible, and yet he had been struck down by the common cold?

  Yes, he was being selfish.

  His stomach was in knots already. He wanted time to hurry up so he could get to the venue Sophie was taking him to, get drunk, dance like an idiot, and just get the day over and done with. Any other time, he would have been excited to celebrate anyone’s birthday, especially his own. Now, however, he couldn’t muster the energy.

  He had sent a few messages to Bonnie and Lucas, however between them both he’d gotten a total of four replies, which was not reassuring. He tried to get on with some of his Uni work to distract himself. He snapped his headphones on, cranked up the music and drowned out the rest of the world.

  A hand on his shoulder made him jump.

  “Blood fuck, Sophie, what the hell?!” he yelled as he yanked his headphones off.

  Sophie snorted at him, “Sorry, but you didn’t answer when I called.”

  Cavan rolled his eyes and swivelled in his desk chair. “What’s up?”