Our love couldn't go wrong

Chapter Five :

Ian was sitting at his kitchen island, editing the next EBE script, when it happened.

He's always found it funny how fate works in mysterious ways. Like how one decision made out of the blue can have a knock-on effect, like dominoes in line, falling one after the other with one simple push. Sometimes you're the one knocking them over, sometimes you're the one getting knocked down. But everything happens for a reason; that much, he's sure of.

Like today, how he had taken his phone off of silent when he got home. This was out of the norm for him, but for whatever reason, it just felt like the right thing to do, as though he needed to do it.

And in that moment, when he was interrupted from his editing by the sound of his ringtone, he knew that this was the reason why.

He hesitates upon seeing the caller ID pop up as unknown. He's no stranger to spam calls or his colleagues tipsily prank calling him after a night out, his thumb lingering over the decline button out of habit. But instead, he presses accept and lifts his phone up to his ear, "Hello?"

"Ian?" The sound of a sob has him sitting upright, trying to place the all too familiar voice, "Ian, please say it's you. I-it's Courtney."

Her voice is shaky, uncertain, and it reminds him of the phone call she'd left him merely days before. It does nothing to alleviate his worries, but he forces himself to remain calm as he replies, hoping to get some more information about whatever is happening right now. "Yeah, Court, it's me. Are you okay? What happened, do you need help?"

He can hear her pause, sniffling as she answers. It makes his heart break. "I-I don't know where I am. I'm s-so scared, I don't have my phone and I was lost and yours is the only number that I know off by h-heart and I'm sorry, I-I just...can you pick me up, please? I can't go home," He had already stood up and grabbed his keys before she finished her panicked ramble, not even checking if he'd locked the door behind him as he unlocks the car on his drive. He places his phone into the windscreen-mounted stand, putting it on speaker, before reversing off of his driveway.

"I'm just leaving now, Courtney. Can I ask how you're calling; are you at a pay phone or did you borrow someone else's phone?"

"I walked until I found a gas station, I don't know what I was doing or where I was going, but I saw there was a pay phone and I-I remembered Kari teaching me how to reverse the charges, but it was broke so I went inside and they let me use the landline..." She trails off, clearly unsure of herself and the adrenaline starting to wear off, "God, this is so embarrassing. I'm so sorry, I should've just found my way home, I shouldn't have called you."

He cuts her off immediately, "No, you did the right thing. You're safe right now and that's a good thing, I'm so proud of you and I am glad you called, okay? Do you think you can pass me over to the worker who let you borrow the phone?" Even if he can't see her, he can imagine her nodding in response, wordlessly passing the phone to who he assumes is a cashier. "Hello, you work there, right? This is probably a weird question, but it's not your standard situation as I'm sure you can tell. What's the zip code for your store so I can put it into my GPS?"

The cashier seems polite enough as they tell him where they're located, giving him rough directions to the store, and he makes sure to thank them before being passed back to Courtney.

He tells them that he's on the way, but refrains from saying just how long he'll be. That information will just set her anxiety off and she'd just started to audibly calm down, her hiccups stopping completely and her sniffles less frequent than before. Hell, he is concerned himself to know that she's over an hour out from LA. She doesn't know how she got there, she didn't know where she was, and alarm bells are immediately ringing, but he ignores them for now.