Still Just Friends

02 ♚ Band-Aide Covered Bullet-Hole

 Chapter Two, "Band-aide Covered Bullet Hole" 

First Cut Is The Deepest – Sheryl Crow

 

 Spencer's POV

 

 

I was on a beach. The sand was wet beneath my body and felt like little shards of glass poking at the skin on my back. I could both hear and feel the waves; soothing and rhythmic while also washing ashore to curve around me. It took me under for a moment, but it always pulled back before I lost my breath.Then the process would happen again.

The sun was blazing above, juxtaposing the coldness under me. I turned myself onto my side to avoid scorching my eyes and the cold, wet sand becomes an assortment blankets and pillows; while the soothing sounds of waves crashing against the shores transforms into a blaring alarm clock.

And it read 8:30. My phone was ringing. I grabbed it. Crap. It was the other one. I dived out of bed, fighting the blankets that seemed to have attached themselves to me.

I dug into my bag and fished out the yellow phone – the work one – and answered with a groggy, "Haynes."

"How far are you?" Emilio asked one the other line. I could hear cars passing in the back of him; people screaming, babies crying and blaring horns. You'd assume the end of days had arrived, but no, it was just a New York City morning.

"I'm...uh..."  I paused. Who cared? "I just woke up," I grumbled, fighting the last of the sheets off of me. "What's up?" I asked. "Where are you?"

"Jesus, man," Emilio laughed. "Court. Anne and the district attorney are talking...there's been a few developments while you were sleeping, beauty."

I groaned. "Please tell me he didn't murder anyone else."

"Allegedly." He countered. "And no. At least not ye-" He stopped.  Someone said something in the background. It sounded like Anne. "Got to go in court. See you in fifteen, dude."

I hung up and threw my phone onto my bed behind me. I went to move to shower, but my phone rang again. The blue one. The private one.

It's not even a question of who it was. It's like a sixth sense. And a seventh just in case the former stopped working. So, I ignored it. At least I tried to. By the time I got ready for work, the damn thing had rung about eighty times; it echoed up and down my stupid apartment -  that for the first time felt small  and clustered despite being the size of a mini village.

I didn't look at the ID. I just picked it up and answered with a casual, "Uh, Hey." Adding a smooth, "Um, its Spence...cer...speaking."

"Spencer!"

I stopped myself for saying "E?" automatically. It wasn't him. Either one. Maybe it was time for me to invest in that eighth sense. "Kai?"

"Dude, what the fuck?" he bit.

I was tempted to just hang up. "What's with the swearing?" Jesus. It wasn't even 9 in the morning yet.

"Well, fuck. If you don't fucking like me fucking swearing then maybe you should fucking pick up your fucking cell phone when your big fucking brother calls you, motherfucker," he said, probably setting a personal record for most swears in a single sentence. Possibly. Probably not.

"Good Morning to you too, Kai," I responded and sit down on the edge of my mattress. "Now, you want to tell me what's so important?"

"He's in town," he said, frantic and when I don't answer, he probably connected the dots. "Your silence is almost as loud as you just saying you knew that."