Circles ━ Evan Buckley

012: WHEN YOU KNOW, YOU KNOW

CHAPTER ELEVEN: WHEN YOU KNOW, YOU KNOW
song of the chapter: margaret, lana del rey & bleachers

Evan Buckley is nothing if not stubborn.

You would think after knowing each other for several months that Indiana would have picked up on this, but given the circumstance that she now finds herself in, the observation must have slipped her mind.

"Buck," she calls out, for what feels like the thousandth time. "Come and sit down before you collapse from overworking yourself."

From the kitchen, Buck responds, "I'm good. Thanks, though!"

It is the exact response that he has given her every time that Indiana has attempted to summon him for the past four hours. The only indicator that he's still with her in the house is his lacklustre responses and the clattering of pots and pans.

Indiana is an independent woman. She likes her time alone, loves to curl up on the couch with her laptop and read through her students English projects as her evening newspaper. She is at peace alone, with the sound of Clover's light snores and the soft sound of The Supremes coming from her record player.

However.

If there is going to be someone in her house, then Indiana would like them to be in the room with her. She's sick half to death of sitting on this couch like Henry the Eight, waiting for one of her many servants to come and spoon feed her dinner.

And listen, if Indiana could get off of this couch and drag Buck to the living room, then she would. Alas, she is very much compromised, what with the casts and bandages on varying parts of her body. She's laid up on the couch like an unholy version of the mummified Cleopatra, barely able to twitch her fingers enough to click a button on the television remote.

Dragging Buck here by force to lay with her is nothing but a pipe dream, so if she wants to see his face sometime before the sun goes down, she's going to have to resort to drastic measures.

A few centimetres away from her, Indiana's metal water bottle sits idle. Next to it, the silly little red service bell that Buck insisted she ring 'only in a state of emergency'. The bell has the words 'RING FOR SEX!!!' emblazoned on the front in white cursive, which Buck had attempted to cover hastily with black sharpie when he noticed the phrase, his cheeks flush almost the same colour as the bell.

Indiana considers the options, wonders if going insane from a lack of human interaction counts as an emergency, or if she should just tough it out and hope that Buck shows face sometime soon.

Evidently, Indiana's impulsive nature wins the battle. She uses the little strength she has to push her bottle over using the cast on her wrist, watching as the bottle careens into the bell, a loud ringing echoing through the house as the items clatter to the ground.

Then, just to really send it home, Indiana shouts, "Ow, fuck, ouch!"

One, two, three-

Her mental count doesn't reach four before Buck comes charging into the room, panicked eyes landing on her immediately. She can see him doing a scan of her body, eyes darting from her head to her shoulders, then to her knees and her toes, trying to find the source of the injury.