Life by the Page 11
11
The phone rang two more times before Leon got out of bed. He pulled his pants on which were lying at the edge of the bed and opened the door which was already ajar to the hallway. He looked back at Martha who was still sleeping soundly beneath the sheets, she shuffled in bed, turning on her side to face the wall. Scratching his head, and groaning as the ringing grew louder with each aching footstep, Leon picked up the phone. "Hello?"
"There you are! I hope I'm not bothering you or anything." It was Nathan of course, but he didn't sound like he did the last time they had spoken. It was nothing like desperation, but there was certainly something weary in his tone. "I haven't heard from you in a while, so I thought I would give you a call."
"Yes!" there was a pause for a moment, it felt awkward, so much so that his head ached. No, it was the hangover. He'd have to address that aspect of his life at some point. "Sorry, I have been very busy lately...I had one of those rare times where... I don't konw, you just sit down and write and write without stopping." Nathan chuckled on the other end. "Again im sorry..." Stop apologizing "How have you been?"
"I was wondering if we could do breakfast. It's been long enough to have a second date right?" Leon's eyes were so sore that he was tearing up a bit. So much so that he didn't hear the fox kick himself on the other end of the line for thinking he sounded creepy.
"I don't think I could make lunch...how about breakfast?" Nathan chuckled, defusing his awkward emotions.
"So...you can make breakfast then?" Nathan drew out the word "can" as he spoke. The wolf rubbed his eyes confused before realizing what he had said.
"No...sorry" Stop apologizing "I meant lunch...around one? Is that ok?"
"Yes" Nathan felt slightly less creepy now. "Want to meet at the coffee shop? I know a little place we can go, its nice."
"Yeah, that's fine."
"Alright, see you then." Nathan smiled to himself.
"Ok, one o'clock." Leon hung up the phone letting the headpiece hit the receiver with a loud clack. The sound seemed so loud to him that for a moment he was afraid he might have woken up Martha. Searching in his cabinet he pulled out his pack of cigarettes and lit one with the stove. He was running out and decided he would buy more on his way to lunch. He sat at his kitchen table, scratching his unkempt fur as he took long drags from his cigarette. Everything seemed quiet and still as the smoke rose from the edge of his nose to pass in front of his eyes, clouding and misshaping everything that surrounded him. It was 11:30.
Nathan felt like a kid with a crush, and at the same time, he still couldn't shake the feelings he had when he hung up the phone. Graceless, that's he would have described it. To him the wolf sounded a bit annoyed. Would he really have been interested if he hadn't called for so long? He didn't want to seem desperate to Leon or anything, the truth was he really liked him, the wolf seemed like he had potential. To Nathan, Leon seemed like that quirky nice guy that everyone was looking for at some point in their lives. They wanted to find him when they woke up in the morning, lying next to a guy they had met last night, who at the time seemed so funny and charming. The fox was tired of bringing random guys home for the night, only to end unsatisfied and regretting things the next morning. He felt like that made him seem really loose, and quite frankly, slutty. The truth was he had known a lot of guys since college (and he had known them in a lot of ways). Most of them still just wanted sex. What he liked about Leon was that he didn't seem so sexually forward. But at the same time he couldn't help but feel attracted to him physically. That scruffy dark fur, those dark and thoughtful eyes, his strong scent that powered through the thick, ashy smell of cigarettes. "Who am I kidding?" the fox pondered as he wrapped his scarf around his neck before heading out the door. "I'm practically gushing over him."