Dallon's POV
Why is someone at my door at 2 am.
They keep knocking, more like banging, until I open the door. At first I see nothing because it's dark out and whoever this is is wearing nothing but black, and then my eyes adjust.
"Brendon? What are you doing here, it's two in the morning."
"I need you to let me in, let me sleep here tonight without calling Sarah or Spencer or anyone and don't ask any questions."
"What? That's insane, what's going on?"
"Let me stay here, just for tonight, I'll explain it tomorrow when I understand it more than I do now." The light above my door has finally turns on and I can see him clearly now. His hair is a mess, his eyes are red just as his cheeks, below his eyes it's black. He's been drinking, crying, and possibly smoking which he stopped doing a few months back at Sarah's request once it got really bad. I open my door wider and step out of the way to give him room to walk. He goes directly to the couch and sits down with his head in his hands.
"I know you told me not to ask any questions, but do you need anything? Water, blanket, some Advil?" He shakes his head, "Okay, I'll see you in the morning." He gives a small nod and I debate on saying more, telling him he can tell me what he thinks he knows and thinks happened, but I decide against it and head back to bed. I intend to continue sleeping, but sleep never fully comes. I'm in and out of it continuously. I worry about Brendon and what had happened. Worry about how I haven't heard from Merideth since she told me why she didn't make it to dinner. It's almost seven when I give up on sleep entirely and decide to go to the cafe across the street to get Brendon some coffee and a muffin.
The cafe is rather empty for a Sunday morning, but it's filled with the scent of freshly brewed coffee and the people that are there are quietly sipping on their coffee. Some are reading, some writing, and others doing some kind of work on their laptops. I like to imagine that during my free time I'd come here instead of sitting around at home.
I'm taken from my thoughts when the barista says something that I don't quite get, "I'm sorry?"
"I asked if I could get you something," she says with a laugh.
"Oh, sorry, just a coffee and two blueberry muffins."
"One coffee, but two muffins?" She gives another laugh.
"I'm not really much of a coffee drinker...but you can make that two coffees." She smiles and this time I return that smile.
"You're name is Dallon right? Dallon Weekes?" I hesitate a moment as it's still too early, "I'm sorry, I tend to blurt things out before I actually think things over. That would be twelve dollars."
"No, it's fine. I didn't get much sleep and it's taking longer than usual to process things," I say handing her a twenty dollar bill, "But yes, my name would be Dallon Weekes." She gives a small nod and hands me my change and goes to fill the coffee cups.
"Have a nice day," she says handing me a carrying tray with two coffees and a white bag with the muffins. She smiles once more and I give a nod as if to say thank you. I admire the people once more before I go to walk out, but even then I'm stopped.
"Sarah, hi. What are you doing on this side of town?" She seems to be a mess just as Brendon was, but in a different way. She didn't get sleep and didn't care enough to do her makeup or do anything but comb through her hair.
"I was hoping to run into you actually...Brendon...he ran off last night and never came home, I was wondering if maybe you knew where he was. I went to you apartment first, but you didn't answer. I wanted some tea or something so I came here. I'm sorry, you can get going, you obviously have someone waiting for you," she says gesturing at the two coffees.
"Brendon's in my apartment. He showed up last night around two, he told me to let him stay the night, to not ask questions, and to not call you or Spencer. He wanted to wait until morning to try and explain it to me so he was more clear headed. I didn't know what else I could've done so I did what he told me to. I let him stay, I didn't ask questions, and I didn't call you or Spencer. Did you get any sleep?"
She gives a laugh, "No, how could I? I didn't know where my husband was, for all I knew he could've been dead or halfway to New York to change his name and completely start over." She wipes away a tear, "Can I come back to you apartment with you? Talk to Brendon?"
"Sarah, I need you to understand that under any other circumstances I would, but he didn't seem to understand what had happened himself. I'm going to talk to him and work out what happened and then I'll either call you over or I'll send him to you. Okay?" She nods and faintly whispers thank you. I pull her into a one armed hug because of the coffee in one hand, but she wraps both arms around me and gives out a sob and then pulls away.
"Well you better get going... I'll see you or talk to you later. Thank you again." I smile and leave the bakery without another word.
*****
"Brendon!" I call once I get back to the apartment and find he's no longer on the couch.
"Bathroom," he calls back with a hoarse voice. I wait in the living room until he says more, "I'm vomiting, not peeing you can come in."
"Right, sorry." I walk into the bathroom to see Brendon sitting on the floor next to the toilet, "Coffee?"
"Please." I hand him a cup, but he hands it back.
"What? You just said you wanted coffee?"
"There's a name and number on it, frankly, I wasn't at the place to meet a Taylor." I grab the cup from him and sure enough a name and number is scrawled on it. I shrug and hand him the other cup. "Are you not with Merideth anymore?"
"I am, but we're not here to talk about me. Care to explain last night?"
"I told Sarah...but it all became too much so I ran, I ended up at some bar, which, by the way, I need you to drive me there after the studio so I can get my car, and then I think I went to Merideth's bakery and then you came into the story. So here we are, you with a barista's phone number, me as a fuck up. Would you like me to go into depth of any of what happened yesterday or are you happy with how I put it?"
"You went to Merideth's bakery? What for? She shouldn't of even been there last night, she said she was with her friends."
"Oh she was there alright. She's always there Saturday nights. I don't remember what I said to her though, or why I went there before going anywhere else. But I did."
She was at the bakery when she said she was going to be out with her friends. What was the significance in me not knowing exactly where she was? She wouldn't of lied, something probably just came up at the bakery that she needed to fix or her plans got cancelled.
But she hasn't tried to talk to me recently...
"Can you help me up? We should be in the studio soon and I don't have enough strength to get myself up by myself at the moment."
"Yeah." I help him up and keep my hand on his shoulder for several minutes until he seems stable enough on his own, "You should eat something. Here I got you a muffin." I hand him the the bag and head off to the kitchen with my coffee.
*****
Brendon and I both act as if nothing had happened and Spencer doesn't notice how Brendon seems to be talking and laughing less compared to usual. Spencer seems off himself though, he could know. I can't imagine Sarah not calling him or Linda to ask if they've seen him, and when she did she would've had to explain the bare minimum, he left and she doesn't know where to, and if it was Linda she talked to Linda surely would've said something to Spencer. Which would make sense as him and Brendon are best friends and surely if Linda wasn't there he would've gone to Spencer's rather than my house, but Linda would've said something to Sarah and then it all would've been over. He wouldn't have time to think without alcohol in his system. In fact when Sarah got to him there would still be alcohol in his system, more so than there will be when she seems him later, once I send him on his way after I get him to his car.
"You and Mer break up?" Spencer asks.
"No? Why do people keep asking that?"
"There's a phone number on your cup."
"Yes, there's a phone number on my cup. I did not ask for it, I don't plan on using it, and I'm still with Mer. Everybody understand that?" Spencer puts his hands up in a defensive way and is about to say something but I shoot him a glare and he doesn't. Brendon gives a shrug at Spencer and goes back to playing some notes on his guitar until someone knocks on the door. We all look at each other confused because anyone we know would call us first and anyone else doesn't know where we work at, and we're all in the room. Brendon gets up to answer it and just sticks his head out to talk to whoever it is and I figure it's nothing so I go back to plucking away at random notes on my bass. An attention grabbing cough is what pulls me away from the music. "Merideth, hi. What are you doing here?"
"I wanted to talk to you so I went to your apartment, but you didn't answer so I called you and you didn't answer that either. I asked Sarah if she knew where you'd be and she gave me this address." Her glance directs to the cup of coffee on the table in front of me with the number facing her, "I thought you didn't drink coffee?"
"I don't... Not usually, I didn't sleep very well is all. I can take a break and we can talk?" She seems to almost say no and when she says yes I assume it's because we're all just kind of sitting around playing our instruments with no actual purpose.
I walk her down to the lobby and the first thing out of her mouth doesn't surprise me, "Who's Taylor?"
"I don't know, some barista at the cafe near my apartment," I shrug to imply that it really is nothing and she just gave me my coffee. And her number.
"Yes of course, totally normal for the coffee girl to just write her phone number on your cup. You know for all I know she could've been a girl just sitting in the cafe that you engaged in conversation with."
"Okay so what? I can't talk to other woman? I have to tell everyone that I'm in a relationship? It's not like I was going to call the damn barista anyway, who, by the way, is just the barista that gave me my coffee. Don't believe me? I didn't even know she wrote her number on one of the cups until I handed it to Brendon and he handed it back to me."
"Oh please! Brendon would say anything to protect you why would I believe him?"
"Why won't you believe me?" She stares at me for a few seconds trying to find an answer, "You know what? Never mind. I have to go." I turn around to walk back upstairs and back to where Brendon and Spencer are.
When I get back I start packing up my bass instead of continuing to sit and do nothing. "Ending early?" Brendon asks.
"Yeah, we are all. Lets go get your car." Neither of them protest against this.
"Where's your car?" Spencer asks Brendon.
"Outside some bar. Took a taxi home." Spencer doesn't say anything about the fact that he knows Brendon hasn't been home.
*****
The car ride to the bar Brendon was at last night is quiet and when I stop in front of his car still neither of us say anything until Brendon opens his door.
"Go home, go talk to Sarah." He stops with one leg outside of my car, "You can't run forever."
"Okay... What did Merideth want?"
"Not what she originally wanted to talk to me about. Coffee cup." He laughs as if the entire thing is hilarious, and it kind of is. She doesn't trust me, never has, and she made that very clear for the first time today. I thought things were going well when they weren't. We sit there and laugh at nothing really, but it seems right. With all that's happening in our lives we deserve a few minutes to just laugh.
"Thank you, for letting me stay last night, not pushing the issue, not calling Sarah. Everything really. Especially for not giving up on me."
"Yeah, what are friends for right?" I give him a smile, "I'll see you tomorrow. And if you need anything you know where I am." He waves and once he's in his car I finally start to drive off.
When I look back in the rearview mirror I see him turning onto the street that will take him home.
*****
All of my Dallon chapters are always all over the place nice.
I didn't plan on uploading this until I was finished developing my characters and getting a sense of who they are and such because I wanted to go through and edit a lot of things throughout the story, but here I am, uploading this chapter because I wanted to say happy anniversary of A Fever You Can't Sweat Out so here's to 10 years.
Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this chapter,
Share with a friend, comment, vote, all that good stuff,
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