Blood Ties (NaNoWriMo 2015)

Seventeen

"What are you doing here?" I screeched, wishing I'd brought a change of clothes with me in the bathroom.

"Sorry!" he gasped, hiding his face in his hands. "You paged me, I thought you were in trouble!"

"No I didn't!" I exclaimed and slid into my closet, shutting the door and quickly began dressing. I was suddenly very, very thankful that it was so massive, I had no trouble at all moving about.

"Yeah you did," he answered as I slipped on a blouse.

"No I didn't I left that thing on my nightstand, it hasn't been anywhere near me."

"Then you must have hit it or something when you got up."

Ugh! Did he have to be this argumentative? I pulled on a pair of leggings and stormed out of the closet. "For the love of Pete I did not page you, see?" I was ready to snatch the little bit of plastic off my nightstand and then I quickly saw a new addition, a bit of yogurt and a large, ornate spoon that was resting over the pager.

"Seems you did get paged," I acknowledged grudgingly as I hit the button again to turn it off. "But it wasn't me. Someone left me breakfast and set it on top of the thing."

"Told you so," I heard Damon mutter and I rolled my eyes.

I picked up my breakfast and began eating. "So," I asked. "Did you just get done at the gym before you came here or did you just not get enough sleep last night? Day?" I reconsidered that choice of words before deciding it did not matter. "Whatever you prefer to call it."

"No and no," he panted as I sat down on the other end of the couch. "I ran here, I thought you were in trouble, that's the whole reason I gave you that. In the event someone unfriendly had you cornered, you could get ahold of me without tipping them off."

"Oh," at the time he'd given it to me I hadn't thought much of it. Now it seemed painfully obvious and I felt very stupid for missing it. "That makes sense, well sorry, false alarm."

"Don't worry about it," Damon said, his voice more even as he got his breath back. "Can we just agree to make those as minimal as possible?"

"Certainly," I took another bite of yogurt. The creamy cool food felt good on my empty stomach. I hadn't been aware of how hungry I was.

"What were you asking Ife about?" he asked.

"Oh, it's not important."

"Maybe not," Damon yawned and he stretched, his Old Navy t-shirt pulled up, and I caught a view on well toned-abdominal muscles. "But I'm curious, mind telling me anyway?"

"I was just wondering where the office was around here, if you even call it that. Ife mentioned yesterday there was a process to go through to request things, I wanted to find it and start the process for a few things."

"You don't have to do that," Damon told me, sitting a little more upright. Apparently my asking to do paperwork was something akin to coffee. "Just let someone know what you want and they'll take care of it."

"I know," I answered as I polished off the last of my breakfast. My stomach still gurgled and grumbled in want of more food. Damn. "But I'd rather handle it myself."

"Why?" he asked. "Paper work is boring as hell, anyone would tell you that."

"I'm aware," I recalled all too well how long some of my college applications took. They had been about as exciting as dust mites. "Regardless, I still want to handle it myself."

"You didn't answer my question," Damon pointed out and I set my empty bowl on the carpet and looked directly at him.

"You ask a lot of questions." I remarked and he smiled at me. It wasn't like it was a new gesture but this time, being less terrified and angry, I was able to take notice that he had a very nice smile. His teeth were straight, white and nothing about his grin said it was fake. He seemed genuinely amused and interested by what I was saying.