Page 63 of All That History
“Oli?”
I blinked, wrong-footed, then feeling ridiculous.The beady, spherical eye of the camera stared at me from above the array of little name tags and their companion buttons.
“Hey,” I said, then mentally kicked myself.
“Wh-what are you doing here?”
There was a possibility, some cringing part of my brain pointed out, that he’d demand a full explanation here, now.With me standing on the street, my face in distorted black and white from some fisheye lens, and Flynn’s voice compressed into robotic harshness.
I took a deep breath.Let it out, slowly.
“Let me come up,” I told him, in as firm a voice as I could muster.
A beat, and then the door buzzed.
#
William could be there, of course.I’d heard some tiny sliver of their fight; my untimely arrival might’ve interrupted their make-up sex.Even as I rode the elevator up, Flynn’s boyfriend might be on his hands and knees, with dustpan and brush, sheepishly retrieving the shards of cheap wineglasses from around the skirting boards.
It was tempting to hit the Emergency Stop button, but then I’d only be stuck inside the elevator cab.Trapped, with the voice in my head sing-songing “you fucked up, you fucked up, you fucked up,” until the fire department arrived to cart me off.
Even as the doors slid open, I considered stabbing the button for the lobby again.Leaving, before I had to explain exactly why I’d arrived so abruptly.Before politeness forced me to put my paranoias into the words that would reveal them as ridiculous.
Jaw clenched, regret simmering, I raised a hand to knock on Flynn’s door.Then stopped, finding it was already slightly ajar.
Noise, down the hallway.
I’d not made it to their kitchen before; had gone straight to the bedroom, then a detour to the bathroom, and then left.Even so, I was pretty sure it wasn’t meant to have tumbled chairs and surfaces swept clear of every object onto the floor.The dining table was probably not meant to be a drift of bubbled safety glass, shattered around the feet of its metal frame.
Eventually, my eyes skittered across the haphazard destruction and landed on Flynn.To discover he was already staring back at me.
“Uh...you called me,” I said, feeling no less ridiculous than I had on the whole drive over.
He looked down, my own gaze following.I’d not really noticed his cellphone before, or at least, it’d been so thoroughly tumbled into the remnants of the table - its screen crazed - that I’d not made the connection with what I was seeing.That, at least, explained the line suddenly going dead.
Flynn’s face was pale when I glanced back across.Ominously so.
“I think you should sit down,” I suggested, gently.
He flashed me a wan smile, barely more than the outline of one, as he gingerly eased himself onto a stool.
“You had an argument.”
Flynn grimaced.“What gave it away?”
I fought the urge to look around the room again.“Call it intuition.”
The noise he made was probably meant to be a laugh.“I forget how astute you are.”
It was asinine, as conversations went - particularly when I could feel the grit of broken table under my feet - but it was probably better than Flynn passing out.Gingerly, I opened cupboards until I found a glass.Filled it with water, then held it out to him.
A sip, first.Tentative.And then a couple of deep gulps.
“So, how much did you hear?”
I shrugged, uncomfortable again.“I wasn’t sure you even meant to call me.”
His smile was tight, rueful.“You were going to be my star witness.I didn’t actually think the call had gone through.”
