The young snow white-haired boy, Damon Vance, paced back and forth in their living room.
Impatiently staring at his phone screen while waiting for his [Call] command to initiate.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
The call had seemed to connect but after a few seconds, it went straight into voicemail.
[Hey, it's Beth. Please leave a message, I'm kinda busy at the moment.]
That was the constant response that Damon got from his endless phone calls to his elder sister's phone line.
Damon knitted his brows and tried to redial Beth's number once more… for the seventh time.
Beth worked the morning shift at the Chuck's Diner that day.
That meant that by the time Damon was calling, she should have been back home.
Yet there was no sign of her and no messages left by her telling him or Nate that she would be late.
"It's almost 3 o'clock already and she is not back."
Damon worried for his elder sister, knowing the kind of person she was, he feared she might have gotten into trouble trying to do shady deals just to earn money.
"She'll be back, Damon. Chill out, it's Beth," Nate said, trying to comfort his younger brother and make him see why anxiety was not the solution to any problem.
"But have you tried calling Lucia, you know, her friend from work?"
Damon shook his head and turned his eyes to the screen of his mobile phone as he dialled up Lucia's contact.
Nate drove himself to the centre of the room and picked up one of the black and white gamepads.
"By the way, come let me whoop your ass, boy!"
Damon chuckled as the phone rang in his ears.
"You can never!" he said before getting closer to Nate and picking up the second gamepad of the pair.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
Lucia's phone rang out loudly and vibrated on the table where she placed it.
She had gone to a cafe that was near the NERVE tower to wait for Beth.
Lucia glanced at her rose gold wristwatch. "What's taking her so long? It's been a few hours now."
She picked up the phone, taking a peek at the caller's name.
"It's Damon," she commented with a cheesy smirk creeping up her face as she placed it on her ear.
"Hello, Damon."
"Hello, Lucia," Damon answered back, struggling to hold the phone between his shoulder and his ear as he played the video game.
Nate was ruthless and took advantage of his little brother's brief handicap.
He mocked his younger brother while keeping the promise to whoop Damon's ass.
They were playing the Re-Evolution Soccer 2194 (RES '94) and Damon was losing the football game with the score at five goals to one in favour of Nate's team in just the first half.
"What's up? Are you with Beth?" Damon asked. "She's yet to come home. Just wanted to know if she was with you."
Lucia giggled on the other end of the call.
"You won't even ask how I'm doing, sweet boy?" she teased Damon.
"Sorry about that but are you with her?" Damon replied tersely, dismissing Lucia's coquettish setup.
'Tch, so serious,' Lucia complained inwardly.
"Yeah, I was with her a while ago. She's doing this beta testing thingy for NERVE. So I'm still waiting for her to be done."
Hearing this, Damon felt betrayed. "What! Beth is beta testing for NERVE!"
He could not believe that his elder sister signed up for the beta testing program without telling him even though she knew how much he wanted the game, Nexus Online.
"Are you serious? She signed up?"
"Yeah, she did. She's still in there as we speak," Lucia replied.
"Thanks, Lucia. We just wanted to make sure she's safe. Bye."
"You're welcome, Damon. Bye."
Lucia ended the call.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
"That's so cute," she remarked, her face turning red as she stared at her phone screen.
She loved that Beth's brothers really cared for her even though sometimes Lucia worried that her friend does not care for herself enough.
She glanced at her wristwatch, smacking her lips impatiently and tapping her feet on the floor while sipping from her glass of orange juice.
"What's taking so long? It's already 2:30 pm."
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A/N: READ THE AUTHOR'S NOTE. Thank you!