Before You Go

Chapter Ten

The constant sound of my phone ringing and vibrating on my end table is enough to wake me up and instantly make me cranky. I don't bother to check the screen to see who's calling me at eight in the morning, partly because my eyes are still half closed when I do answer it.

It's a Saturday and I don't wake up until nine on weekends. Whoever's calling should be in an emergency to wake me up at this ungodly hour.

"What?" I growl on the phone, not caring who's calling me right now.

"Jesus Christ, good morning to you too Val." the caller says on the other line and I immediately recognize his voice.

"Carter." I groan out loud, dragging his name. "What do you want?"

"Aren't you a little ray of sunshine." he mutters over the line and I groan.

I swear if he doesn't tell me why he's calling me in the morning on a Saturday, I'm going to shave his hair off.

Giving him a black eye might interfere with his sense of sight, thus rendering him not being allowed to fly. I'm sure flying a commercial jet with a shaved head isn't going against any safety protocol.

"Can you open your door?" he asks, pulling me away from dozing off. "I'm outside. I've been knocking for ten minutes."

"It's eight in the morning, Carter." I groan but still throw the covers away from me. I swing my feet over the edge, rubbing away the sleep fromy eyes. "You better have an excuse waking me up this early."

Before he's able to answer me, I end the call and trudge to the front door. I don't check the peephole when I open the door to see if Carter is really there. If he's not, then he can kiss this trial run goodbye.

He's standing at the other side of the door, in his damn pilot's uniform. I suddenly don't feel grouchy being woken up this early on a weekend.

Aside from his dashing uniform, he looks a little bit rugged despite being clean. He looks almost tired, carrying a white paper bag. I can't see the print on it very well because his hand is bunching up the top.

"I got breakfast." he grins, raising the paper bag up. I step aside so he can enter my apartment. "I'm not sure if it tastes as good. It's been around thirteen or fourteen hours since I bought this. I'll heat this up."

I look at him oddly as he removes the contents of the paper bag- an assortment of pastries, and places it on the oven toaster. He twists the knob to get it started and turns to face me.

"You're here early." I say with a yawn.

"You're up late." he counters, leaning against the table with his arms crossed over his chest. He's looking at me with amusement. "It's eight."

"And it's an hour earlier than I'd like to wake up." I finish his sentence for him. "You came here to eat the stale bread you bought?"

"I just came from a twelve hour flight." he rolls his eyes. "I can't exactly bring you fresh bread from halfway across the world."

"You bought me breakfast from another country?" I ask.

He shrugs. "Getting you one from McDonald's would be boring."

A smile finds its way to my face. "So you came here to have breakfast with me with food you bought halfway across the world?"

"Pretty much." he nods. "I also kind of feel like an asshole. I wanted this, and recently I've been treating you like a booty call."

I let out a laugh when I realize what he just said was right. "Now that you mentioned it, you do always call or text me late at night. Are you hiding me from someone?" I tease him, but he doesn't find the humour of what I just said.