(no subject)
Title: A Smile To Cover (What We Can't Erase)
Author/artist: roseofpain84
Rating: PG-13 (I think?)
Pairing: Ryan/Colin (some mentions of Ryan/Pat and Colin/Deb but don't let that bother you. )
Summary: Ryan and Colin meet in Toronto. They discuss a couple of things and avoid discussing lots more.
Word Count: 5734
A/N: I wrote this abut 5 months ago, or something. Guess what? I'm finally posting it. Thanks to wickedground for repeatedly telling me to stfu and write, ratherdance for finding me a title because I totally couldn't and most importantly rycolfan and tumblr's ihocklecockles for beta-ing this thing. (Any remaining mistakes are obviously my own fault.)
A Smile To Cover (What We Can't Erase)
I’ll be in Toronto for the weekend. Meet me at the hotel lobby tomorrow at 6pm, was all the text message said, followed by the address of a hotel. I only had a vague idea of where it was.
The number wasn’t in my contacts and no matter how many times I looked at it I still did not recognize it. Maybe Deb or Luke would have recognized it but she was away visiting some relatives and he was on a trip with his friends, so asking either of them was out of the question. Setting my phone aside, I went back to the book I was reading but only half a page later an annoying beeping notified me of a second text message demanding to be read.
You are free tomorrow, right?
Same number again. Wondering if maybe it was something important, possibly from someone I knew who simply used a different number, I decided to text back.
Who is it? I don’t recognize the number, was all I sent and only a few seconds passed until the person was calling me back.
“How can you not recognize the number? I’m sure I gave it to you last time we met?” The familiar voice came through the speaker before I even had time to say hello.
Rolling my eyes at this, I still couldn’t help myself from grinning.
“The last time we met, Ryan, was over a year ago and the number you gave me is not working anymore. Believe me, I’ve tried calling it.” I replied, omitting the words ‘several times’ from the end of my sentence. It wasn’t necessarily information that I wanted to share.
“What? Oh, right! It’s a silly story actually. I um, I kind of accidentally dropped my phone down a toilet and I had to replace it.”
I chuckled because the shifty tone his voice had taken made it very easy for me to imagine the expression on his face; that boyish ‘I got caught with my hand in the cookie jar’ sort of thing. It had been a long time since I had last seen it.
“Were you drunk?” I smirked while wondering if he could also read my expression from the tone of my voice. I know he could do so in the past.
“I…might have been? A bit.”
This usually translated to ‘practically wasted’ so I just laughed and said nothing more on the subject.
“Look um, I gotta go. I’ll see you tomorrow, right?” he asked and we hung up soon after I confirmed that yes, indeed, we could meet the following day.
I sat back on my favourite armchair intending to go back to reading my book but that proved to be impossible. My mind had decided that this phone call was more important than I wanted to admit and it kept on playing the conversation over and over for me to rethink and overanalyze.
Ryan never really bothered to find out if I was free after all, did he? He did sound a bit uncertain there at the end but for the most part he just assumed I’d drop everything and run to meet him, self- centered jerk that he is sometimes. These were the thoughts that crossed my mind but in the end I conceded. If he assumed that, he was not wrong. I’d almost always drop everything I’m doing to meet him.
Realization is a bitch so I decided to get drunk. Maybe I’d accidentally lose my phone down the toilet as well, contact numbers and hotel addresses going down with it all.
____________________________
Of course, being a rather sensible drinker most of the time, the following morning found me with a killer headache but my phone was still safely lying on top of the coffee table where I had last left it. Counting down the minutes till 6 pm felt a little counterproductive, and a bit more pathetic than I would have liked to admit to myself, so once the pain killers kicked in and my head felt better I busied myself with replying to my mail, cooking an elaborate lunch for one and taking the dog for a walk.
____________________________
I walked into the hotel lobby only a couple of minutes past 6 and, sure enough, there was Ryan Stiles, sitting on a couch, sipping his drink and casually leafing through a local newspaper. He looked up almost immediately after my eyes landed on him and a shiver passed down my spine when our eyes met. I only had a few seconds to really look at him before he strode over and enveloped me in a tight hug. We let go and grinned at each other, still not having exchanged a single word. He looked a little older and definitely a bit thinner than the last time we’d met but overall, still the same.
“Colin!” he practically beamed at me.
“Hey.”
As we walked towards the couch he had been previously occupying I breathed a nearly audible sigh of relief. We always said that despite not meeting often we could always pick up where we left off, always bounced back and it felt as if we’d never stopped hanging out. It wasn’t a lie, that’s really how things went with us. Be that as it may, I never really managed to stop worrying that one day we would lose this, that next time we met it would all be awkward and uncomfortable. Things were fine for the time being so these thoughts were pushed to the back of my mind once more.
“So, you dropped your phone down the toilet?” I asked him casually. “I knew you hated technology but not that much!”
“Yeah, well, let’s just say drunk dialing and pissing don’t go together,” he chuckled.
“Oh? Who were you trying to call?”
“You, I think…” he replied, averting his eyes at the same time I questioningly raised my eyebrow. “It was a few weeks after the night of improv show we did in July.”
“How come you’re in Toronto then?” I said, quickly changing the subject. “You got a show around? Are the rest of the guys here as well?”
For a minute there, I looked around the hotel lobby as if I was expecting Greg, Jeff and Chip to pop up from behind the oversized, decorative flowerpots and yell ‘Surprise!’
“No. Well, not anytime soon. We’ve got a few scheduled in Ontario, several months from now. There were some complications with the booking arrangements and I had to get here in person to talk sense into some idiots.” The expression in his face was a clear indication about how much he enjoyed having to abruptly travel to the other side of the country because of someone else’s mistake.
“Did you have to fly here?” I grinned in amusement because a disgruntled Ryan was often a very interesting sight.
“It’s not funny,” he muttered through his teeth, throwing me a rather intense glare that could probably burn holes through my skull.
This didn’t faze me at all though. I know he wasn’t really angry with me so I tilted my head and put on my most adorable smile.
“I think it kind of is though!” I said and his expression softened as he rolled his eyes at me and smiled good-naturedly.
A group of tourists arrived at that moment and started crowding the lobby as they entered one after the other, chattering loudly and dragging their heavy luggage behind them. I figured the receptionist was probably new to the job because I could see her perfectly well from where I was sitting and noticed the panicky glances she was throwing towards the crowd.
“There’s a restaurant on the top floor. I was told the food is decent at best but there’s definitely alcohol. Wanna go?” Ryan nudged me to get my attention back to him.
____________________________
The food was, indeed, not bad but I was certain I could do better in my own kitchen and probably so could Ryan. Eating was a mostly silent affair with some insignificant chattering here and there, usually to exchange memories of terrifying restaurant experiences we’d had on the road. Afterwards we engaged in our favourite hobby of people-watching while slowly emptying a bottle of wine.
“How’s touring been going?” Ryan was first to break the silence.
“Oh, you know, same old, really. Running around, trying to catch flights, trying to squeeze in some lunch, trying to get to the venues on time, occasionally getting lost and eventually having ninety minutes of fun and relaxation on stage, laughing at each other and hurting our toes,” I replied, rolling my eyes.
“Still doing the mousetraps then?” Ryan chuckled.
“Of course! The audience loves that game just as much as they love yelling at us to do a hoedown.”
“Ugh…we don’t get that as often anymore.”
“I don’t really mind,” I shrugged and Ryan looked positively scandalized.
“You don’t mind hoedowns???” he exclaimed, his eyes opening wide in genuine surprise and it took me a few seconds to stop laughing in order to explain.
“No, no Ryan. I’ve had enough hoedowns to last me a lifetime! I meant, I don’t mind the mousetraps. Sometimes they sting but most of the time it’s OK. And I don’t really mind people yelling for hoedowns either. I’m not about to give in to them and do one anyway!”
“I saw Brad in Vegas, when we did Improv All Stars,” Ryan said suddenly, staring at his wine glass as if it held the secrets of the universe.
“I thought we were still going by ‘Improvaganza?’”
“Yeah, we are. And I’m still refusing to call it that.”
“Brad mentioned you talked. Didn’t tell me what about though…”
“He reminded me of something,” he said, and I thought he looked a bit uncomfortable, or maybe displeased.
“I had forgotten about it but I was the one who told him about the Whose Line auditions. I had actually really forgotten about it. It’s been a long time, I suppose.”
“Yeah, I guess we both have you to thank for our careers and possibly for the success of our tour. Just don’t ask for a profit share!” I joked, though I really and truly was always grateful to him and the help he had given me in the past.
“Do you regret it?” I added. “Telling him about the audition, I mean.” It was clear that something was bothering him but I wasn’t entirely sure what could it be.
“No, not at all. I always believed Brad was a brilliant improviser and he deserved to make it big. No, I don't regret it.”
His answer was hasty and his smile a bit too wide and I knew him well enough to understand that this wasn’t the entire truth. I knew that he liked Brad and that he respected his improv skills. They worked well together and they always got along too. Well, all of us did. I couldn’t really remember them ever having a big fight about anything so I just made a mental note to ask Brad about all this next time we met.
In the silence that followed I went back to people watching and Ryan eventually ordered some more wine. The restaurant wasn’t really crowded but there was a steady beat of people coming and going. Our table was in a fairly secluded corner but I could still have a clear view of the entrance door. At that moment I noticed a smartly dressed man walking in, a pretty lady on each of his arms. He looked smug and far too pleased with himself; his face all but screamed ‘I’m getting some tonight!’
This made me chuckle and I nudged Ryan’s foot under the table until he abandoned the deep thoughts he seemed to be lost into and looked up at me.
“Hey, do you remember back in Vancouver? When you were going out with that girl-Sandy, I think her name was. Sometime before you met Pat. Do you remember her?”
“What about her?” Ryan said, scrunching his eyebrows, trying to recall.
“Do you remember, back when I was complaining that I hadn’t been laid for ages and you kept on suggesting we should all have a threesome together? In the end she started screaming at you in the middle of the bar, saying that if we really wanted to sleep with each other that much, we didn’t need to use her as an excuse.” I laughed at the memory.
“Yeah, I remember that. She broke up with me a few days later and we never set foot back in that bar. We never got to have that threesome either.” Ryan smiled and his face was definitely a few shades redder than usual. Whether it was from embarrassment at the story or simply because of the wine, I couldn’t tell.
“So, why did you change your number?” I asked before we sunk into another wave of silence. It wasn’t the uncomfortable kind of silence. With Ryan, it almost never was, but we hadn’t seen each other for a long time and I didn’t want to waste the chance.
“Told ya, I chucked it down the toilet.”
“Chucked it? No, you said you accidentally dropped it.”
“Well, same thing really, isn’t it?” Ryan said sheepishly and there was that facial expression I had missed so much.
“I meant your home number anyway. After I called your mobile phone a few times and it said that you were disconnected, I tried calling your home. Pat picked it up a couple of times and she said she’d tell you to call me back once you got home but you never did. Then when I tried calling again I discovered that your number wasn’t in use anymore.”
“How many times did you call?” Ryan asked and I just wasn’t sure how honest I could be in my reply.
“Umm, well, several? I know we never did talk much on the phone but the last time we met you made a point of giving me both your mobile phone number and your home number and you repeatedly asked me to call you so I thought…” My voice kind of died out when I noticed that Ryan’s expression had darkened significantly and I wondered if maybe I had said something wrong.
“When I replaced my cell phone,” Ryan started speaking slowly and deliberately, looking at me straight in the eyes in a somewhat unnerving way, “I asked Pat to text all my contacts and let them know I had a new number. She’s a lot faster at texting and has a lot more patience with cell phones than I do so I asked her to take care of it.”
“I suppose she accidentally skipped me then?” I shrugged, not quite certain if Ryan was implying something or not.
The silence that followed this time was verging on uncomfortable and I allowed myself to get lost in the sounds of the restaurant. There was low music, dishes cluttering, and people chattering in several languages, waiters hurrying past with trays.
A loud and abrupt noise brought me back to reality. Ryan had banged his hand flat on the table causing several people to look towards our table and stare, but they soon went back to their own conversations when they realized nothing interesting would follow.
“Ryan, what’s wrong?” I asked him, fully concerned now about what was going on.
“I was on tour, with the guys, and when I came home Pat said she had to change our number. She said … she said someone probably got hold of it and there were all sorts of annoying calls for several days.”
“It happens sometimes, doesn’t it? Our phone is unlisted as well and yet we’ve had to change the number a couple of times too. Once, when Luke was younger, he gave it to some girl he liked. Boy, was that a disaster. That kid spread it online and the phone wouldn’t stop ringing for days.”
I stopped talking when Ryan reached across the table, grabbed my wrist and squeezed hard until I looked up at him, meeting his eyes.
“Colin, she never once told me that you called. Not once. You said you called several times. I must have been around some of these times. I don’t tour all that much now, do I? I never pick up the phone if I can avoid it and yes, I often forget to call people back but she never… she never said you called.” Ryan was dead serious and I couldn’t pretend anymore that I didn’t know what he was getting at.
“Maybe she forgot,” I offered lamely, averting my eyes and finding great interest at the patterns on the carpet.
“Every. Single. Time?” Ryan replied, stressing each word separately.
“What reason would she have to do it on purpose?” I looked back at him and now it was his turn to shrug and avert his eyes.
We both knew there were reasons. There had always been reasons. And just because we had spent the biggest part of our lives ignoring them, it didn’t mean that others were blind.
“Don’t fight with her about it. It’s not worth it,” I said, giving him a weak smile.
“Not worth it?” His voice shook and he looked as if he was about to explode but at the last moment he took in a deep breath and seemed to calm down a bit.
“No, Colin, she has no right to hide any calls from me. Least of all those that are coming from you,” he added.
“You know what though?” My voice was all but a whisper now. “None of this explains why you never picked up the phone to call me yourself.”
Ryan looked visibly uncomfortable and lost for words. I knew he would have no excuses either way. We knew each other for so many years and he had always been like that. He rarely called anyone unless he absolutely had to. Never seemed to realize why people were bothered either, no matter how many times it was explained to him. I would have been lying to myself if I had actually expected him to change. It always bothered me how he never called and how he didn’t mind even if we didn’t see each other for months or even years. It bothered me, but I had learned to be okay with it. I knew that it didn’t mean he liked me any less. And it seemed that now Ryan had actually made an effort to call me at least once. Sure, it ended with a broken phone and possibly with a clogged toilet, but there was an effort.
“Want to go out for a walk? It’s getting awfully stuffy in here,” I asked and noticed that Ryan visibly relaxed and smiled at what probably sounded like a peace offering to him.
____________________________
It was a little cold but as we walked in circles around the block we soon warmed up enough for it to not bother us. Despite both of us deliberately avoiding discussing anything significant and important, the friendly banter we slipped into was familiar and there was no awkwardness between us. Avoiding things that mattered, after all, was always part of our routine ever since we first met, back in Vancouver. And to be honest, it was pretty much one single topic we always avoided.
By midnight Ryan was complaining that he was tired and that he was getting too old for this whole traveling around the country. He had apparently arrived on an early morning flight and been awake for ages.
“When are you flying back?” I asked when we got near the hotel again, hoping that maybe I’d get to see him once more before he left.
“Monday morning. I didn’t want to fly 2 days in a row. I’m having lunch to talk about the tour tomorrow and then I’m free,” Ryan said, and I thought it sounded like he was also hoping we’d meet again but for some reason wasn’t certain if he should suggest it.
“Want to come over for dinner? I promise I can offer you much better food than what your hotel provides!”
“I never doubted your cooking skills, Col,” he said, making me grin widely not because of the compliment, but because he hadn’t called me that for so long and it made me happy to hear it.
“Your improv skills, though… Dreadful,” he deadpanned.
“Asshole!” I said whacking his arm playfully, but I could not stop grinning.
“See you tomorrow then?”
“You do know where I live, right?”
“I have your address.” he said, “I’m sure the cab driver will find it.”
We hugged then and said goodnight and when I turned around to walk away I could feel Ryan’s eyes on me until the moment I disappeared around a corner.
____________________________
I’ve always loved cooking and sometimes I’ve even enjoyed impressing people with my cooking skills. So when I woke up on Sunday morning I was a bit disappointed to find out that I actually lacked the ingredients for the meal I had planned for on my way back home last night. With Deb and Luke away for the week, I really hadn’t felt up to going shopping on my own so our pantry was rather under-stocked.
In the end, I just concocted the best pasta I could accomplish with whatever ingredients I already had. After all, I knew for a fact that Ryan loved pasta. He often said he could live on that alone and once upon a time he actually did. Back in Vancouver, when we were still both young and penniless, just starting our careers, none of us had enough money to afford more than just plain pasta. He was the only one who could and would eat it week upon week without complaint.
I shuddered a bit at the memories this brought. Compared to what we used to eat then or even the things Deb and I had to get by on when we were poor and struggling in LA, the dinner I was now preparing was a feast made for kings. We surely would have thought so back then. And yet here I was sulking because of all the missing seasonings and spices.
____________________________
By the time Ryan rang my doorbell dinner was almost ready and I had decided I was never, ever going to finish reading that darned book I was struggling with for the past couple of days. Something about this whole situation made it very difficult for me to concentrate on the plot and I was only half joking when the thought of chucking it out the window crossed my mind.
I really had no idea why I was this nervous. It was just Ryan after all. Sure, it had been a while since we got to spend time together but he had always been one of the very few people I immediately felt comfortable with under any circumstances.
“So, you do know where I live!” I said as I opened the door and welcomed him inside, trying to conceal my giddiness.
He rolled his eyes at me, took off his jacket and hung it on the coat hanger I pointed out to him.
“I just had to give the taxi driver your address. The rest was up to him. I’m just glad I didn’t find myself in a different city altogether.”
He settled on the living room couch, sipping the drink I offered him while I was setting the table.
“Have you ever been here before?” I asked when I got back in the room to call him and found him silently observing everything. His eyes roamed from the pictures on the walls, to the decorations on the mantelpiece.
“Once, a long time ago,” he said absent-mindedly. “Don’t you remember?”
I shrugged. I really didn’t remember. The truth was my life and Ryan’s had crossed paths so many times and we knew each other for so long that specific places and individual incidents all kind of merged. Whatever it was that connected us to one another simply felt deeper and more significant than one off meetings and random conversations. Maybe that’s why we could always pick up where we left off; the time and place never truly mattered.
“I think it was an anniversary or maybe a birthday party,” Ryan said, looking at me and I could tell he felt the same.
Our way of thinking was often so attuned that people liked joking about us having a telepathic connection. Something like that would have certainly been useful on stage, but for the most part I was glad that it wasn’t even feasible. Being able to read each other as well as we could was fine when doing improv but in our private lives it was as much a curse as it was a miracle.
Thinking of that as we ate, I couldn’t help but recall the conversation we had the previous night-the things we had talked about and more importantly, the ones we left deliberately unsaid.
“So what did you mean? About Brad…” I blurted out and it only took him a couple of seconds to make the connection.
He shut his mouth tight, his lips turning into a very thin line and stared at his dish for a while. Just when I had started to wonder if my pasta possessed some sort of hypnotic power, he opened his mouth to speak. His words didn’t so much reveal a truth as they actually confirmed my assumptions.
“I just, I guess, I was just wondering how things would have turned out if Brad had never joined us,” he said, almost cautiously.
How things would have turned out? How, indeed! I knew that what he was getting at had nothing to do with Whose Line. Rather, it was about my touring with Brad and where I would have been now if he’d never come along; most likely touring with somebody else, possibly even Ryan himself.
For a moment, I felt a surge of anger rising within me. The last time we had talked about this had led to a screaming match and the revelation of truths that should have stayed hidden forever. I took a deep breath and decided I could allow him to question this. There was no answer but I would be a hypocrite if I ever denied that this thought had crossed my mind as well. He simply had the guts, or maybe the audacity, to voice it out loud.
“It doesn’t really matter,” I shrugged. “We can’t change the past.” My eyes landed on my dish and this time I really did wish my pasta had magical hypnotizing powers. Or that maybe the mushrooms would turn out to be hallucinogenic. Anything that would have clouded my mind and stopped me from going through all the possible paths we could, and maybe even should, have taken in our past; the ones that never really had anything to do with Brad, or touring.
“We could change the future,” I heard him mumble and I was so startled that I half choked on the wine I had decided to sip at that very moment.
I stared at him, straight in the eyes, once I recovered from coughing, and the implications of what he had just said almost terrified me. He didn’t look much better either; probably realizing what he had said only after the words had left his mouth.
The need for a subject change was dire so, taking the coward’s way out once more, I decided to ask him about his business lunch and whether things were cleared for his upcoming shows.
We talked about that for a while; shows, touring, and the people we traveled with. Our ability to effortlessly jump from a decidedly terrifying subject to the friendly banter we were always known for actually impressed, amused and scared me all at once. This was simply too easy. I couldn’t tell if it meant that we could bounce back from anything without repercussions or that we were heading for an explosion caused by everything we suppressed, denied and avoided.
After we finished eating, we settled on the couch, working already on our second bottle of wine for the evening. I reminded him of the time we used to live on pasta and he was quick to praise my cooking skills, saying that I’d clearly improved since that time. Having the money to actually buy more ingredients didn’t hinder my skills either. He thanked me for dinner and offered to cook for me next time we’d meet. Eventually, we started discussing our favourite recipes, something that Ryan found hilarious.
“What are you even laughing about?” I smiled at him.
“Come on, we’re two middle aged men just sitting here, half drunk, swapping recipes. Next thing you know we’ll be getting into crocheting or something.”
“Crocheting? Hmm, no, but I always wanted to try knitting. Maybe I could make you a scarf!” I replied and he laughed even harder.
Frankly, I just thought he was being silly and verging on a little drunk but I always loved the sound of his laughter. Making him break character and crack up on stage was one of my biggest accomplishments but even off stage, making him laugh was something special.
We turned on the TV and browsed through the channels, mostly looking for background noise or something to laugh at. Nothing particularly interesting was on, but there rarely was something these days. We settled on a channel that was showing a movie we both had seen several times but which neither of us really liked.
“Greg really loves this one. “ Ryan scoffed. “I don’t even know why.”
“I’m guessing that a generous amount of weed would probably turn it into a masterpiece!” I said, only half joking, and Ryan laughed then nodded in agreement.
We didn’t talk much after that. Sitting side-by-side, close enough for our thighs and shoulders to touch, even if there was ample space on the couch. The silence between us was comforting and the buzzing of the TV in combination with the wine we had consumed was almost lulling us to sleep.
Ryan yawned and laid his head on my shoulder. This wasn’t necessarily unfamiliar, but it had been a long time since it had last happened, and at that moment I realized how much I had missed it.
“I have to catch an early flight tomorrow,” he grumbled.
I didn’t say anything, I just tilted my head towards him, so that it was lying on top of his, and we just stayed like that for a while, both of us trying to ignore the fact that our evening was coming to an end.
When he announced that it was time for him to leave, we got up and for a couple of seconds shifted around the room uncomfortably. It’s not that we were embarrassed that we spent the better part of the hour all but cuddling each other; it was that neither of us wanted to admit how much that meant.
“Do you want me to call a taxi?” I asked, and I handed him his jacket.
“Nah, I want to walk for a bit. I’ll just flag one down when I reach the main street, or call one then if there’s nothing around.”
“Oh, okay. So you know how to get to...,” I started, but he interrupted me.
“C’mon Col, I’ve lived in Toronto as well. It hasn’t changed that much. I know how to get around.”
“Fine.” I shrugged, “See you around then?”
He promised to visit when his tour brought him in these parts again and even said he was going to call me. I sincerely doubted that but I had his number once more and I knew I was going to call. Hopefully no one was going to intercept our calls this time.
We were standing on the front porch and I was starting to feel the cold as I stepped outside without a coat. We said our goodbyes and hugged each other, but when we let go Ryan was still standing there, looking at me, awkwardly shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He looked a bit like an oversized, nervous toddler and I couldn’t help the grin forming on my face.
“Colin, I… I’m always thinking of you,” he blurted out, and before I had any time to react he bent down and kissed me right on the lips.
To be honest, I was stunned. For a few seconds, I actually expected to hear the old, familiar sound of the Whose Line buzzer, or the audience laughing and clapping energetically. I expected to see Ryan’s smug face letting me know that he got one over on me, Greg rolling his eyes at us and Drew laughing as always. But when I came back to reality, I was still standing on the front porch, shivering from the cold and Ryan had disappeared down the path and out the front gate. I thought of running after him, but what would I even say? He clearly did not want an answer, or he wouldn’t have fled like that.
I walked back inside the house, a little confused, not quite sure what to do with myself. A couple of minutes later my cell phone rung, Ryan’s name flashing on the screen.
“Hey,” I said, uncertain of what would follow.
“Hey,” he also replied, and an awkward silence fell for a couple of seconds.
“So umm… Toronto really has changed, hasn’t it?” he added and once more I found myself rolling my eyes at the shifty tone of his voice.
“You’re lost, aren’t you?” I chuckled and everything was all right in the world once more.
“Maybe,” he grumbled, “A bit.”
“Okay, okay, where are you?” I asked and then I had to remove the phone from my ear and I laughed out loud as he shouted at me that if he knew where he was he wouldn’t be lost, or that he could have at least called for a taxi.
“Fine, fine,” I said in order to shut him up. “Tell me what you see around you,” I added as I grabbed my coat and my car keys and walked outside.