December Boys (BxB) | ✓

Chapter 24 - Follow Your Instincts

Café Instinct at 6 pm on a Sunday was not much to write home about. The place's opening hours were contained to a 3 - 7:30 pm window and was usually flooded with all the people that craved coffee and burgers on a Sunday evening. Even on a rainy day such as this, people still fought over the available seats. 

I watched as a mother of three argued with the barista while failing to keep track of her misbehaving kids. One of them was making faces at the young couple by the counter, and another entertained himself with crawling under tables and grabbing people's feet. I took a sip of my hot chocolate and prayed that they stayed away from my particular spot. I wasn't really in the mood to step on a 6-year-old brat. In fact, I was rather busy waiting for Axel.

My table was near the very back of the café, right underneath a gaudy wall mural and a vintage styled lamp. An upbeat Jazz song came out of the nearby speakers and I supported my chin with my hand, elbow catching at a rift in the old table. This spot wasn't too far from the place Axel and I had conducted our first planning session. I could see our table just a few feet away from me, now inhabited by an aging man and his coffee. He didn't look like he was doing much planning.

Remembering that first day brought a smile to my face. It hadn't gone well. I could still conjure up an image of Axel's serious face, and the way he'd pulled me out of the café, all urgent and desperate. It had been a disaster, but it also marked the beginning of this strange partnership of ours. I could have rage quit and handed in a blank project report that week, but I hadn't. I was still here, still cooperating with him, still trying to understand him.

I poked my phone screen, watching it light up to reveal the current time. It was 6:10 pm and my face fell into a confused frown. Axel was late. A month ago this wouldn't have phased me. I'd pegged Axel down as the "fashionably late" type long before we'd met, but my impression had experienced a gradual change. Axel had turned out to be more than punctual, never missing a single meeting, to this day. He wasn't the most reliable guy I knew, but if it was one thing he did, it was show up on time.

The bell above the café's door rang at regular intervals, but none of the people that entered were Axel. I'd watch as they shook the rain off their coats and deposited their umbrellas by the entrance, unable to hold back a feeling of unease that mounted within me. Another quick glance at my phone only made things worse. 6:23 pm now.

Where was he? Had something come up? Why hadn't he texted me?

Nao: Hey, where you at?

I considered our chat room with its short and necessary exchanges. Axel's one-liners had improved in real life, but was still as curt and clipped as ever in text version. I waited for the read receipt to prove Axel was online, but it never came. His blank icon still rested on a message I'd sent two days ago. To make matters worse, he seemed to have been inactive for more than five hours.

I waited ten minutes, and then fifteen more. The time showed 6:52 pm when I opened my phone's browser and entered 'Axel Montgomery' in the search field. His name and number lit up my screen, and I dialed his phone soon after. He'd never actually given me his number, or permission to call him for that matter, but this was an acceptable reason, right? If he was bailing on me, I felt I deserved to know why.

The phone made its standard dialing melody, and then the sound was cut.

"You have reached the number of 475... Please leave a message after the tone."

"Huh," I said, staring down at my phone. The sounds of chattering and cutlery against dishes faded into the background. Straight to voicemail. That was weird. Why on earth would Axel switch his phone off? He could have run out of battery of course, but that didn't seem very Axel.