Love at the time of Quarantine

Chapter 1

Day1 Part 1

Adam was pacing in the room nervously.

He checked his phone. The pop-up notifications from his phone were doing nothing but increase his worries. Eric is supposed to come back from Milan and he hasn't heard from him since last night. Last night he sounded nervous and unsure, though Eric tried his best to hide fretting, Adam was seasoned in his tones. He knew Eric like the back of his palms. He checked his phone and some flights have been cancelled and the whole country is probably preparing for a lockdown.
Thoughts raced in his mind. All he could do was to think about all the possible worse case scenarios. What if Eric's flight got canceled and he couldn't get out of the country? What if he actually had it - the disease, that can't be good. What if Eric had a mild fever or the common cold and they don't allow him at the airport. Eric always catches a cold easily, whatever the weather. Adam cursed aloud worrying. Cookiejar, Baxter and Olaf, three of their dogs were in their resting places, raising their heads to listen to Adam.

At that moment he couldn't stop blaming Eric for going to Milan. Why did he have to be on another continent in the first place? So far away. It's not someone he can easily go and pick him up. Eric was doing well in New York as an assistant designer. They had made some friends over the years. A two-bedroom apartment and three dogs to share the space. Adam had been earning pretty well as a dog trainer and his ties with the rescue shelter. Two of their dogs were also rescues. Eight months back Eric took a new job at a company that was having their headquarters in Milan, Italy. Within three months of joining, he got this opportunity to travel overseas and work at their HQ for six months. It was October, the day before Halloween when Eric came back from work beaming. Adam had seen the sparkle in his eyes when he announced the opportunity. His eyes were sparkling then he had dimmed down a bit and told him that he wouldn't take this if he didn't want him to. Adam was always proud of Eric's accomplishments. He always gushing to others about how ambitious and determined his boyfriend was. Time to time Eric's own enthusiasm has inspired him, pushed him to be a better person. Eric was so passionate about his work that sometimes it was too much but even in his annoyance, he was proud. 

Adam knew he shouldn't and he wouldn't stop Eric from pursuing his dreams. But Adam's work had just taken off and was going well for the first time after so much struggle since they moved into New York, leaving the small town of Moordale. Adam had assured Eric that he would be alright, what was six months when he knew they were forever. It was finalized if Eric had to stay any longer than six months in Italy Adam would move in with him. It had been five long months out of six months.

Adam checked his phone it was 6:30 pm in the evening. If he had boarded the flight on time from Milan he should have reached New York airport by now. Adam wasn't sure if Eric would get a cab home because things were pretty shaken up there as well. People were fighting for toilet paper in the stores leaving the shelves empty, mass hoarding and food was becoming scarce. Adam really respected the retail workers who were putting up with these people, always calm and helping people. He was a retail employee once in Moordale during his school day. It was a job he that was ok but if people were being this stupid and annoying at his face he would have probably lost his shit as well. These retail workers were really appreciable. 

This strange country wasn't the only place going nuts like this, the whole world was in turmoil while facing this invisible threat, completely unprepared. There was a global pandemic threatening the whole world and it had started spreading the US as well. A highly infectious disease was wreaking havoc everywhere, there was no proper medicine to treat the virus and neither there was a known vaccine. Experts all over the world were confused about lethality. Heck, it seemed they couldn't agree on anything - whether to wear a mask, sanitize hands or not - there was no consensus. Even last week no leader was taking this much seriously, but the number of cases was rising and people were dying, more and more each day. Things aren't going particularly well in Mediterranean Europe wither.