Red vs. Black

Chapter 4

It's dark, but Liam can tell from the slight humidity in the air that it's going to rain soon. Rather than put a tarp over his charcoal grey motorbike and worry about whether or not it'll get blown over, Liam rolls it towards his flat's brick wall. Once he pushes the kickstand down, he looks behind him to make sure no one's walking by the opening between buildings. With the coast clear, he opens his right palm to the bricks and waves his hand horizontally. A line of the mud red rectangles comes out from the wall, but only halfway. Liam swipes one more time in the opposite direction and the bricks melt, their bubbling mass suspended in thin air above his bike. It stretches thin when he motions for it to do so with his left hand. One final swipe of his right and the bricks are back to solid, now a minor overhang for his bike to stay dry under for the night. After adjusting the duffle bag strap that's digging into his shoulder, Liam opens the side door to the building and starts his way up the stairs.

Much like it is outside, the inside of Liam's flat is practically pitch black. He almost makes it to where the light switch is, but he's stopped short by a wall of something, and falls onto the carpet along with it.

As he lands, he feels for the culprit. Zippers, a hard shell, a protruding handle. He'd shout for Niall to come get his luggage, but with the entire flat a black abyss, it'd be of no use - he's clearly not home. Probably just got off the flight from Australia, chucked his bags as far as he could from the corridor, and then headed out again. Not that it's a big deal, Liam can pick them up and roll them over to his friend's room. Besides, better he get hurt than Niall; the Irishman can't heal a bruise in a fraction of the time it takes Liam.

Right as he's gathered himself and moved the bags out of the way enough to find the wall, the lights turn on from another source.

"Liam?" Niall stands in the hallway opposite the front door, rubbing his eyes in an attempt to wake himself up. He's shorter than Liam, and not built in the same way either - small in stature because he watches what he eats, not because he goes to the.  If he did, he'd have that six pack he's so desperate to acquire by now.  "Sorry about me bags. I thought I'd be up before you got home to move them."

"It's alright," Liam says, throwing his duffle on the cheap dining room table they found abandoned outside on the sidewalk around the time they moved three years ago. A few of the chairs around it may teeter when you sit on them, but they were free and a contribution to saving the environment through recycling, so Liam doesn't mind. They usually eat in the sitting room that's on the other side of the open layout flat anyway. "You just wake up?"

As Liam walks past the table to pour himself a glass of water at the kitchen sink that's a part of the 'L' shaped countertop situated against the far wall, Niall moves to collect his bags. "Yeah, this last flight really did a number on me. Fell asleep when I got in at four. Couldn't help it, the jet lag was just too much."

Liam reads the time on the microwave: 8:47 PM.

"How was your trip to Australia?" He asks, shutting off the tap. "Find any good golfers?"

"Too many. But I've only got space on the roster for two, so it's gonna be rough having to narrow it down."

Niall may have been a walking zombie not more than a second ago, but that lethargic pull is no more now that they're on to talking about his job. When Liam had first met him on a housing website for people in search of flatmates straight out of uni six years ago, he knew absolutely nothing about golf or that there was even a whole sports management side to the game at all. Although in hindsight, that seems quite naive of him considering on the other side of every sport is a business. Now that he's spent so much time with the recruiter, Liam can safely say he knows the bare minimum about what makes a golfer outstanding versus just above average. Niall also loves to use the same phrases over and over again any time he watches a game ("can't teach that sort of a backhander" "smooth follow through" "he's gonna play it off like he meant to slice it that far"), so it could be that Liam's just a good listener and has a sharp enough memory to be able to confidently recite the one-liners in a room of golfers should he ever need to.