It's just him.
I glance at the clock. It's now closing in on two a.m. I call him, but his phone goes straight to voicemail. I text him asking him to let me know he's okay.
I've got a bad feeling about this.
One look at his face when he finally trudges through the door a little while later confirms it. He looks unkempt and exhausted. His blue eyes are rimmed with red, and his hair is standing on end as if he's been pulling on it.
I want to run to him and pull him into my arms, but I remember rule number one. "What happened?"
Xavier sinks down on the couch, his face buried in his hands. He shakes his head back and forth. Everything about his posture reads defeat.
"Xavier, you can tell me. Are you okay?"
He shakes his head, still not looking at me. "It's bad. Very, very bad. I'm sorry."
My skin prickles. "How bad?"
Finally, he turns to look at me, his elbows still resting on his knees. "Quite bad."
"Xavier, who called?"
He shakes his head and buries his face again. "I … I can't …"
"You can't tell me like you can't-can't or you don't want to say?"
"It's a right disaster. A bloody fucking disaster. Tony's gone."
I sit up straight. Oh no. "Like dead?"
Xavier sits up, one side of his mouth pulled up. "He's going to wish he was when I get my hands on him. No, he's gone, as in he doesn't work for the firm anymore and actually hasn't in several months. He ghosted all of his clients."
"But you've been talking to him, right?"
Xavier shrugs. "I was, until the last few weeks. He was texting and now he's not responding at all."
I'm trying to make sense of this all in my head. "But what … why? I'm confused."
Xavier stands and begins pacing around my small living room. Sundance scurries to the kitchen, jumping up to perch on top of the fridge. He can sense that something's horribly wrong.
Part of me wants to scurry and hide, but that isn't what Xavier needs right now. I'm not sure what I'm going to do to comfort him. Tossing rule number one out the window, I gently put one hand on his shoulder and the other on his forearm. "Listen, it's late. You've got to be exhaust—"
He shrugs me off. "Don't suggest I try and get some rest. Sleeping will not make this better. It's only going to, oh bugger." He looks at his watch. "I've got to make a call." He doesn't bother to leave the room before whipping out his phone and dialing.
It's two-thirty in the morning. Who's he calling?
"Mum? Is Dad there? I need to speak with him. It's quite urgent."
Xavier stands, phone pressed to his ear, his other hand over his eyes. "Fuck, fuck, fuck," he curses under his breath. "Dad? Fuck, Dad, I've gone and mucked it all up again. But this time, I did it for good. It's done. I've lost everything."
I don't understand what he's saying. I was there when he talked to the coach last night, and it was all good. So what if the agent left the agency? I'm sure that sort of thing happens all the time. Maybe Xavier can just go with another person at the firm. He's probably just panicking and didn't think about that.
"No, I'm not alone. Ophelia's here with me."
There's a pause.
"Ophelia. She's the bird I married."
There's another pause as Xavier pulls the phone away from his face and winces. Even across the room, I can hear the screaming that has eardrum-rupturing potential. Yikes.
