Forever Bound

Just Friends

I look down at all the texts from Warren.

No, I did not call him this morning. I thought that was him being him, doing the things he does that plays with my feelings, now I regret it as it looks like he is starting to get worried. It's just- he doesn't get it...

I read the last text he sent.

You're about to piss me off. Answer the damn phone

"Call him," Char suggested with a glint in her eyes.

I pressed the call button. The more the phone rang, the more my heart dropped into my stomach.

"Why the fuck aren't you answering me?" He yells, his accent has never been so strong. "It's too much shit going on for your stubbornness."

"Can you fix your tone?" I scoff. "I'm at work, what did you expect."

"You left your office twenty minutes ago. You aren't at damn work."

Shit, I forgot he had people watching me.

"Okay, well I'm alive, now what do you want?" I say without thinking. I remember I have to think about what I say.

"The point of telling you to call me before you got to work was for you tell me how you slept," he grumbled.

His voice lowers, so I try to do the same. "It was...okay."

"Can you not talk right now?"

"No..." I glance at Charlotte while she is driving.

"Okay," he sounded muffled for a second, "any nightmares, did you get through the entire night?"

I sigh. "Yes...to the first one."

"I'm sorry, Dawson," he exhales into the phone.

"Yeah..."

"Can...My mom wants to see you. Will you be busy this evening?"

I make up an excuse. "I'm going to be working late tonight. My boss just switched me over to a new case. I have a meeting coming up and I have to pick up where the last person left off..." None of that was entirely a lie. Only thing was that I wasn't in a rush to get my presentation together.

"I'll let her know," he says, "but you scared the shit out of me, I told you to call me for a reason."

"I'm sorry..."

"Will you tell me when you get home?"

"Sure."

Char stops at a red light. "Well that was dry."

I hang up the phone. "That's pretty much how it goes. If we don't start off yelling, we end yelling."

She grimaced. "I mean...it's cute," her voice goes up a pitch, "if you're into that sort of thing."

"If it was a movie or a book," I rest my elbow on the car door and hold my head, "but it's stressful in real life."

"What did he say?"

"I was supposed to call him before I went to work," I say, "then I've been ignoring him all day."

"Okay, I'm going to ask you this once," Charlotte holds up one finger, "this is sounding really possessive, like the bad kind. Should I be worried?"

"No, it's nothing like that," I say. She really shouldn't, I know Warren has good reason to want to keep tabs on me. I try to make it sound like he is just trying to make up for our 'bad argument'. Maybe I should just keep all of this to myself. I thought if I twist the truth, I could vent without causing worry, clearly that isn't working...