The Fourth Side of the Triangle

Chapter 4.

4.

It is a couple of months later when Oliver gets to speak to her again.

It starts with several frantic bangs on Oliver’s hotel room door at eleven thirty at night, making him jump off the bed in shock. He opens the door to reveal a forlorn looking James, who exclaims,

“Phone charger!” with no offered explanation.

“I’m sorry?” Oliver splutters, leaping out of the way as James barges into his room, “what’s wrong?”

“Phone charger!” James cries again, waving his iPhone in Oliver’s face, “I’ve gone and left mine at home, why am I such an idiot?! No, Oliver Haydon, don’t answer that, just give me your bloody phone charger.”

Oliver blinks a couple of times, before taking the phone from James’s hand and flipping it over in his hands.

“My charger won’t work on this,” he says slowly, “this thing is way too high tech for me.”

It is James’s turn to blink stupidly as he says,

“What are you talking about?”

“My phone’s a brick,” Oliver explains, “I’ve had it since I was about sixteen.”

And he is proud of this fact, stupidly so in fact- his brother has been through about ten different phones, forever losing them, breaking them, washing them and Oliver often finds himself wondering how people go through so many.

“Can I borrow your phone then?”

“Um… what for?” Oliver asks, fishing the device out of his pocket and cradling it to his chest. He is aware that he looks completely ridiculous, but he just can’t help himself.

“Amy,” James says, as if this explains everything, “she is incredibly demanding.”

Sighing reluctantly, Oliver extends his arm, offering his phone to his colleague.

“Don’t break it,” he begs, “and don’t rack up a massive phone bill.”

“’Course I won’t!” James says, looking positively wounded, “would I ever?”

Oliver’s answer is lost, as the door slams shut behind the blonde.

-x-

Oliver doesn’t see his phone until the next morning when the knock on the door drags him out of bed.

“James,” he says sleepily, “you know it’s my day off yeah?”

“Sorry,” James replies quickly, “just came to return this.”

He presses the phone into Oliver’s hand and turns on his heel, throwing a casual,

“See you later,” over his shoulder as he goes.

Oliver shakes his head before settling back under the covers of the hotel bed and succumbing to their warmth. He knows that he probably won’t be able to get back to sleep, he has always been like that; never been able to sleep in and once awake he stayed awake. He laughs as he remembers how angry his mother used to get on weekends when he would bound into his parents’ room at 5.00 in the morning, full of beans and ready to go. It was a nice memory- his mother never stayed angry for long, less than two minutes in fact after which she would tuck him under her arm, pulling the covers over them both. He misses being four years old, when everything seemed so much easier and nothing seemed as scary or real as it would a few years later.

His eyes are about to close when his phone vibrates on the bedside table.

He could ignore it and normally, he would, but something makes him withdraw his hand from his warm cocoon of covers and pick up the old device in his fingers.