Savior [Completed]

Savior: [Four] [I/II]

Nick

It’s only because I’d been watching him intently that I caught it. The phone, when he dropped it that is…although I’d been keeping a keen eye on him even before I’d heard the soft sound of a phone vibrating in the car. Technically, that could date back to when I’d picked him up, or even since the week before, but it’s when we’d gotten to his place that something told me to be extra-alert.

He hadn’t seemed too keen to come home, and I’d found that a little strange. He’d mentioned that he’d disliked the loneliness the night before, which was understandable, but why would he show distaste towards being there? All but war had been waged in his head when I’d proposed that he stay the entire weekend – his expressions screamed that out loud and clear – and I suppose I did have an inkling as to why that was (which was why I’d pushed instead of assuming it was because we’d hit a few bumps recently and let it go) yet this was weird.

If he really didn’t want to stay over because he was worried about what his parents would think, or, as I suspected was the case, because there was a chance I’d find out about what was going on, it didn’t make sense for him to shiver slightly when he arrived at his own home.

If it were night-time, that could still be excused, but in broad daylight?

Had something else happened the night before?

I didn’t get too much time to dwell on that, however. He collected his things remarkably quickly and we were heading home without much preamble, and once driving, I couldn’t really dissect this new doubt that had arisen properly. Plus there’s that he received another message, and all else took a back-seat.

I suspected it was my movement that had startled him enough to make him drop it, but I didn’t let it show. He was really nervous about being discovered…not that I cared. It was a golden opportunity. Now he couldn’t pretend like there was nothing there.

“I, uh, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s cool,” I said lightly, “it’s good I caught it.”

“Yeah, you’ve got good reflex action.”

I shrugged to acknowledge that, then nodded towards the phone that I’d handed back to him. My shoe lace was irrelevant at that point. “You’ve got a message.”

The expression on his face had me panic momentarily about my faux pas, but the next instant it became obvious that he hadn’t realized that I hadn’t even looked at the phone. He looked down towards it as though to confirm it was really happening, then towards me for a brief moment, after which he swallowed. “Yeah,” he agreed hoarsely.

“So are you gonna take a look at it?”

I was being nosy, but now that I knew just how wound up he was, I wasn’t afraid of making more ‘mistakes’ – he wasn’t noticing anything. And it was important that I made it such that he couldn’t get out of this.

“It’s probably another message about the offers and stuff, you know. ‘Now call free from 6 AM to 6 PM’” he quoted, “or something.”

I wasn’t fazed. “Maybe. Why don’t you check it out though?”

There was a momentary lull in which he stared at the phone, again, and then at me, and after that he nodded slowly, reluctantly. “Yeah, let me do that.”

I waited. I wasn’t sure what he’d try to put forth as his excuse first, and I wasn’t sure how I’d get him to admit to the truth, but this was the closest I’d gotten after all the little subtle jabs like ‘it’s not like you’re hiding anything’ or ‘you know you can tell me anything, right?’, and I was determined not to let the opportunity go to waste.