The ball is in your court

/Brian’s POV/

I flounce out of my father’s study bouncing the door angrily behind me, enraged by the suggestion that he just gave me only to be interrupted by the sound of my phone ringing loudly.

I almost fling my phone in anger, but catching a glimpse of the caller ID changes my mind so I decide to pick the call instead.

“finally!” Elliot heaves a sigh of relief on the other end of the call as soon as I pick up the call.

“where have you been?’ He inquires.

“I have been trying to reach you since I got back to silver city and found out about everything that has been going on, but your line has been so busy….” Elliot trails off.

“where have you been?” he inquires with concern lacing his voice.

“everywhere” I answer him with a deep sigh because at this point, I am way too exhausted to go into the details of my crappy day.

“where are you right now?” Elliot inquires

“I am in front of our mansion” I inform him

“I am also presently at kings’ villa, your mom told me to wait for you in your suite” he informs and I just sigh because at this point, I doubt if I have any energy left in me to engage in a proper conversation.

“I will be down in a minute” he says hurriedly before getting of the call.

After getting off the call with Elliot, I almost take out my frustration on my car, but on getting flash backs of what I went through after breaking my steering shaft this afternoon, I comport myself and just yell to vent my frustration.

After yelling for a while, I notice Elliot standing rooted in his spot and staring at me like I just stepped out of a zombie apocalypse so I stop screaming and I start staring at Elliot who doesn’t speak for the first few minutes.

“how have you been holding up?” he finally speaks up after a while of staring at me like a zombie.

“I honestly don’t know; I guess I have just been trying my best to stay sane” I answer him.

“I have just been trying to analyze and reanalyze everything that happened over the past two weeks and somehow, I am able to fit in the missing links in the events” I express.

“I am really sorry that this is happening to you, you don’t deserve any of this” Elliot comforts and I just sigh

“You are going to be fine…” he says squeezing my shoulder reassuringly he says and I sigh again because it saves me from trying to think of the right word to reply with.

“I heard from Meelah that your father summoned you talk about everything that is going on,so how did the conversation with him go?” Elliot inquires but my rage surges like a tide trying to cover my hurt and grief.

“what does Xander kings think of himself?”

“why does he keep on making decisions concerning my life time and time again without consulting me first?”

“how could he suggest that I call off my engagement with Ember and announce my engagement to her sister in a few days as if it is as easy as flipping a switch?”

“above all, why do I have to go through this magnitude of injustice just because I am the almighty Xander Kings only son?” I start to rant.

“Hey! Hey!! Hey!!”Elliot coos me.

“Don’t get yourself worked up over the outcome of your conversation with your dad…..You have been through a lot today” he tries to calm me down.

“I think what you need right now is for us to go inside so that you can grab something to eat, freshen up and relax” Elliot suggests.

“I don’t want to face my father right now , I just want to get out of here to a place where no one will impose anything on me” I say in something that sounds like a pleading tone.

“Fine….let’s go to my house” Elliot offers but I immediately refuse.

“Anybody that knows me will trace me to your house and I really want my whereabouts to remain untraceable” I explain.

“Fine……let’s get you to an hotel” he agrees.

The drive to the hotel is really quiet, which brings me to one of the things that I appreciate about Elliot, and it is the fact that he waits for the appropriate time for people to open up to him .

He didn’t ask me any questions while we were in the car, neither did he try to forcefully engage me in any boring conversation, he just allowed me to have that time to myself.

When we got to the hotel, he did all the necessary checking in before inviting me into the hotel room and helping me get comfortable.

I try to check through the series of messages that clouded my notification bar, but Elliot confiscates my phone , forces me to eat and also forces me into the bathroom to shower while he steps out to get me change of clothes.

I step into the bathtub for a soothing hot bath after Elliot prepared my bath for me and for a while, I was able to get my mind of things.

Throughout the time that I was in the bathtub, all I could think about was the blissful feeling that I experienced as I let myself soak in the bath.

I don’t know how long I stayed in the bathtub, but I am sure that it was long enough for Elliot to go to the nearest mall to get some essentials and come back to knock the bathroom door to ask if I was still alive because I have stayed longer than he expected me to and he wanted me to come out so I wrapped myself o to a bathrobe and stepped out to change into something comfortable.

I suggested to Elliot for him to go home and get a proper rest after such a stressful journey, but he stubbornly refused saying that he can’t trust me to stay alone in the hotel room and before o could say jack, he forced me to retire to bed and tucked me in like a child ignoring my protest so I eventually gave in and retired to bed obediently, because if I am being honest with my self, I am really exhausted.

I have been in bed for more than 20 minutes now without being able to sleep because my mind keep wandering off to what happened during the day.

I try to shield my mind by thinking about the past two weeks with Ember, and my thoughts become slower with my body posture changing to a more relaxed state as the events of the past two weeks starts to become cage in my memories.

************

The piercing sound of my phone ringing makes my eyes flutter open as I start to wriggle and search frantically for my phone on the bed stand.

After struggling in vain, parts of my body starts turning on, so I get out of bed to check around for where Elliot flung my phone after he seized it the previous night.

While dear king for my phone, I silently pray for the person calling to give up, but the caller is quite persistent.

“Elva!” I groan half asleep as I swipe right on the caller ID to pick the call.

“We’re you intentionally listening to your phone ring so that I can stop pestering you?” She answers from the other end of the call visibly annoyed.

“Why did you decide to call so early in the morning?”I answer her question with another question.

“Bold of you to assume that your voice is the first thing that I want to hear after waking up in the morning”she mocks.

“So why are you calling?” I inquire uninterested in all the details

“I am calling because we are in front of your hotel and we need you to let us in” she informs

“We??” I ask her bewildered

“By we, I mean mom and I do can you just open the door and let us in?” She groans

“How did you guys find out about my whereabouts?” I query

“I refuse to answer any question unless you open this door” she Insists

“Before I open the door,I hope you guys didn’t tag along with dad” I pause to ask before going close to the door

“Do you you think I will sly you after the heated conversation that I eavesdropped on between you and dad?” She questions

“So why did you now expose my location to mom?” I question her

“First of all, I won’t call this exposing your location to mom because I got your location after great difficulty and second of all, are you going to open the door or do you want me to create a scene in this hotel?” She snaps

“Fineeee I will open the door” I agree as I walk towards the door to open the door for them

“Good morning mom” I greet my mom as she walks into the room scanning around

“Why does this room look so lifeless?” Mom mom inquires as she goes to open the Curtain

“What are you doing?” I caution her

“It’s afternoon already, and you look like you are not ready for the day” she says and I just let out an uninterested ‘oooohhh’

“So what are you guys doing here?” I inquire and both my my sister and mom share glances

“Why do I smell suspicious activity on you both?” I ask my mom but instead of her to answer me, she starts to out food like we are having a feast.

“ can you both stop being so weird and tell me why you are here?” I ask not enjoying silent treatment and knowing look that both my mom and sister were sending each others way

“Wait a minutes, did dad send you?” I ask my mom with my rage building up

“I was not sent here by dad, I just can’t say the same for mom” Elva clarifies making me shift my attention to my mom

“Stop looking at me like that, I wasn’t sent here by your father…… I just came here to buttress what your dad said”my mom starts and I hiss because I can’t believe they interrupted my blissful rest to “buttress what my dad said”

“You have not been taking my calls, nd I get that you probably need time to process everything that is going on, but at the same time you may have to consider your dads decision to marry Eden because this whole thing is blowing out of proportion and marrying Eden is the only constructive solution that your dad could come up with so stop being so hard on your dad and try to see things from his own perspective okay?” My mom tries to intercede on my dads behalf

“If your husband sent you here to emotionally blackmail me into marrying Ember, tell him that it is not happening” I tell her with finality in my voice

“Elva and I will be on our way now” she informs

“We will?” Elva cuts in

“But we just got here…”Ember protests warning her a glare from my mom

“Fineeee we will be on her way now” she finally agrees

“Well, the ball is on your court….do with this information whatever it pleases you” my mom says in conclusion before walking out .