Alexei And Grace

10 | Avoidance

AS I SLEPT BESIDE JONAH, a chaste distance between our curled up bodies, my phone rang. Thankfully it was on silent, so the only evidence I had was was a low buzzing sound.

I snapped it up before the blue light of the screen could wake up Jonah, cradling it to my chest until it stopped. I didn't answer, because I knew. Somehow, I knew who it was.

Then the buzzing cut out, and all that remained was silence. I peered at the screen. Alexei. I'd saved his number last time he called. And it turned out he'd done so again, twelve more times while I was asleep. A jolt of nerves shot through my stomach. He struck me as the sort of person who always got what he wanted, and he seemed hell bent on getting me to answer his calls.

          There were a thousand reasons he could be calling. He might want to dispose of me, to ensnare me into a meeting just so he could kill me. Or maybe he wanted me to sign some sort of a contract guaranteeing  my silence. Did...his sort of people have those? Like the official secrets act, but less official and far more weighty?

          My half asleep brain ran over the possibilities feverishly until at last I had to force myself to stop. I put my phone on do not disturb and shut it in the top drawer of the night stand.

          No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get back to sleep that night. Little did I know, it was the first night of many that I would stay up because of Alexei.

**

Two weeks passed and I was still regularly receiving phone calls from Alex. I'd gotten pretty good at ignoring them, I'd admit. My phone was on silent almost all of the time, meaning that if i was lucky I wouldn't even realise he was phoning me.

          Unfortunately, however, Alexei made it almost impossible to avoid his calls altogether. There was no pattern to them, no specific times that allowed me to preempt them. They came almost constantly, within the space of a couple of hours. Sometimes there would be a large gap between them of nothingness, letting me get my hopes up. It never lasted long.

          During one of those particular times, I was at work. Lena and I were just about to grab a break when we stumbled upon Alex leaned against the reception desk. He was in one of his dashing suits, with the jacket tucked under one arm. Instead of crisp white, his shirt was light blue and pinstriped.

The moment she saw him Lena knew who he was. I had told her about what happened at the party (leaving out unnecessary details) and she even knew about his frequent calls that I was bent on ignoring.

          "Grace," Lena hissed under her breath as I kept walking in a straight line past Alexei. I put my head down and glared at the floor. "Grace."

          "Shh," I whispered back, shooting my friend an annoyed glare.

          Unfortunately I was halted in my steps by a pair of smart, shiny shoes appearing in front of me. I looked up to find Alex.

          "You've been avoiding my calls," he said and I blushed.

          "I'm at work," I told him politely.

          "And I'm a busy man. You've wasted a lot of my time." He didn't sound angry, but rather perplexed.

          "I'm sorry-" I said too quickly. "I thought you'd have..." I couldn't even finish my sentence from embarrassment. Blanking someone virtually was easy, but in person it proved to be much more difficult. I didn't want to offend anyone; I just wanted Alex to leave me alone. "I thought you'd have got the message," I sighed.