The Bodyguard's Duty ✅

Chapter 44 - The Cracks That Show

Author's Note: There's quite a bit of time jumping in between this chapter (nothing massive but still relevant).

~~~~~~~~~~

After their goodbye at the airport, Ethan and Thomas talked to each other everyday whilst they were in their own homes. More effort was put into their relationship as they both promised to talk to each other more often.

The first couple of days apart were easy, because the time zones were barely an issue. There was only a one hour difference between USA and Argentina, so the both of them could easily schedule video calls so that they could see each other more often.

But things proved to be a lot more difficult for Ethan and Thomas, with the distance between them in the upcoming weeks fracturing their relationship more than they originally thought.

~~~~~~~~~~

Ethan was sitting in his car as he put all of his belongings in the passenger seat. After plugging his phone into his car, Ethan began driving as he dialled Thomas' phone.

After a little while, Ethan heard the call connect as he began to smile. "Thomas? Can you hear me?"

Thomas was in the middle of the busy streets as he tried to navigate himself towards the new NG&P office in New Zealand. He tried to the block out all the other noises by covering his ears, so that he could only hear Ethan on the other end of the phone.

"Ethan? Are you okay?" Thomas asked loudly.

"Yeah I am," Ethan chuckled. "It's just been a while since we spoke."

"I just needed to settle in here when I landed," Thomas explained. "I think I've only got a couple of minutes until I need to hang up again."

Ethan swallowed the tiny amount of disappointment that was surfacing when he realised he wouldn't be able to talk to his boyfriend for the rest of the night.

Ethan was nervous as he tried to quickly summarise everything he wanted to tell Thomas. There wasn't even anything important Ethan wanted to share, but Ethan was just missing hearing his boyfriend's voice everyday.

"I just- I wanted to see-" Ethan was fumbling for words as he then thought of something stupid to say. "How's the weather?"

Thomas chuckled on the other end of the phone when he mentioned, "You've never talked about the weather before in your life..."

Ethan was tapping the steering wheel as he tried to play off his weird mood, "And now I'm asking."

"It's nice?" Thomas said in a questionable tone.

Ethan was glad it was the middle of the evening for him, as the night sky could hide the cheesy smile on his face. "I miss-"

Thomas was interrupted from the phone call when he witnessed two seemingly random pedestrians fighting right outside of the NG&P building. Things were quickly becoming violent when Thomas felt he had a duty to intervene.

"Shit. Ethan, I need to go," Thomas shouted over the phone. "I'll talk to you later."

Ethan didn't ask any questions as he just nodded his head in response. "Okay I underst-"

Thomas had to hang up the phone when he thought he saw one of pedestrians pull a knife out. He sprinted across the road to try and stop the fight from further escalating.

Ethan scrunched his face when he saw that Thomas ended the call just like that. He couldn't even get to finish his sentence when a lump on his throat resurfaced.

Ethan just coughed once as he tried to not overthink their little interaction.

'He's just busy.'