Loud and Clear by Aidan Wayne

Author:Aidan Wayne [Wayne, Aidan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Published: 2016-04-07T16:00:00+00:00

Jaxon stared at his phone and played the message over again, hearing “I honestly couldn’t care less,” in the app’s stilted robot voice for a second time. Okay, then. That was . . . that was nice, he guessed.

He selected the reply option and spoke into his phone’s mic, “Thank you,” before shaking his head. No, that was just stupid. Why thank him? He erased it, tried, “Okay, well, you wanted to talk about something?” And that sounded even dumber. “Sorry, so what did you want to talk about?” That might work. Simplest was best, right? He erased it and said it again, making sure to dictate the question mark, then sent it off.

Whatever happened next, well, Caleb was . . . real nice to look at, sure, and yeah, okay, he’d given Jaxon his number and asked to talk, but Jaxon was not about to assume anything with this guy. Probably he just had more questions or something, not an interest in Jaxon of all people. But either way, better to feel things out. Let Caleb take the lead in whatever. That was reasonable, right?

Regardless, he had to put his phone away then, put his fare’s bags into the trunk of his car, and pay attention to his fare’s address.

“Okay,” he said, smiling at her as she got into the backseat. “I know where that is, no problem. I’ll get you home easy.” She nodded at him, smiling tiredly, and didn’t seem at all inclined to talk. Travel took it out of a lot of people, and hey, it wasn’t as if Jaxon didn’t have some experience with his fares not being much for conversation.

He fought the temptation to check his phone for a reply on the way over. He wouldn’t be able to listen to it until he dropped off his fare anyway, so there was no point in riling himself up.

Though he did find himself pulling in and out of traffic a little more than he usually did, trying to cut down the travel time by a few extra minutes.

When he got to the woman’s house (Julie Kimbell, 1919 Alexandria Way), she paid him in cash, the seventy for the trip and a five-dollar tip. He thanked her, unloaded her bags, wished her a good day, drove about a block away, parked, and pulled out his phone. There were a few new messages from Caleb. He marked for them all to play in order.

I just wanted to say thank you again for last night. And apologize for my behavior today.

And the next, sent about a minute later:

As I’m sure you noticed, talking doesn’t come easy to me. I have to . . . present a certain way sometimes, otherwise I lose it. I’m sorry if I came across as . . . cold.

And the last:

When I’m trying to talk and I lose it, I get mad at myself. I’m sorry if I took it out on you. You didn’t deserve that.

That answered, well, at least a couple questions Jaxon had sort of already figured out.

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