The others

Bugged

Dianne sighed softly. Her eyes flicking to the clock on the far side of the wall, taking in the time which had continued to click past, second by second, minute by minute, only to amount to a time which was depressingly closer to the time that she last checked than she had expected.

It wasn't uncommon for Joe to be late to a training session, or at least it didn't used to be. These days, with the two of them spending more and more time together, most nights sleeping in one another's arms either in his bed or on the sofa, the morning routine hardly ever went out of schedule due to the Australians need for punctuality. Her rigorous theme of waking both herself and Joe up early enough to shower, get ready, have breakfast and leave on time was the one thing which had kept their training sessions afloat for the past three or so weeks.

But this morning, having decided to sleep at her own apartment on her own the night before, the redhead was both concerned and infuriated at the fact that her brunette counterpart was just under half an hour late, with not a single hint of appearing any time soon.

Of course at first her mind had gone to the extremes. Such as the idea that on his way to the studio he had been hit by a car and - or eaten by a bear, or some kind of other extreme which admittedly made her toes curl. But before long, as ludicrous upon ludicrous ideas ran through her tired brain, the Australian conceded to the fact that the brunettes tardiness was down to one of two things. Either the traffic which was perfectly reasonable for her was a nightmare for him, or the hangover he experienced yesterday afternoon (which prompted him to wear his sunglasses all the way back to London as he rested his head upon her shoulder, sleeping the entire length of the three and half hour long journey home) had resulted in him being incapable to set his own alarm to wake up on time for the day of training ahead.

Sighing softly, Dianne took a sip of the coffee beside her. The gentle aromas of black coffee beans exuding from the cup doing the job of indulging her with the required energy she needed for the day ahead. Whilst in contrast the subtleties of herbs and spices from the chai latte she had bought for Joe a little further out of her reach seeming to relax her at the same time. The result of which left her brain firing at a million miles an hour, whilst her body was slowly but surely falling back to sleep. Until, after a continued period of clock watching, coffee sipping, and conundrums as to what could have happened to the young man to cause him to be forty minutes late, the redhead decided that enough was enough.

Picking up her phone which had been left on charge across the room - after forgetting to charge it herself whilst she slept last night - Dianne headed straight to her contacts and hit the name she was looking for. Then lifting the item up to her ear, listening to the dull, life wasting sound of a dial tone, until a voice spoke from the end of the line.

"Oh hey Dianne." The voice echoed once the dial tone had cut off. The voice in question being that of one which was confusingly familiar to the redhead in that moment. A subtle hint of an accent and a deeper, more dulcet sound to the obviously male voice which had picked up the phone.

"Joe?" She questioned softly. Her voice instantly becoming quieter and more sceptical as if this was all some kind of elaborate prank of his.

"Shit, sorry no... it's me Byron, his roommate." The now clearly South African voice spoke through the phone.

"Ohhh, Byron!" She responded, a small chuckle edged behind her voice as she relaxed a little at knowing this wasn't a stranger who had seemed to get hold of her partners phone. "Sorry, I totally didn't realise that was you."

"Haha, it's okay." The singer responded in a somewhat mundane fashion which cut their polite conversation short.

"Umm, is Joe around at all, or has he left his phone on his way to training?" She questioned, praying to god that this was the situation at hand, rather than him still being in a complete state of sleep.