The Royal Contract

"Come in." She opened the door wider for him to enter. "Let me check my phone if there was a chance that Dani left a message." She offered, quickly leaving Marcus in her living room as she rushed back to her room to look for her phone.

"Thanks." He quickly replied, seeing her back as she retreated behind the closed door. He could see the tension on her shoulders from the worry he had caused her because of his disturbance.

She was the first person he could think to ask regarding the whereabouts and how he could contact Dani and Alex. There was a likelihood that Dani texted her of the unexpected trip.

She returned to the room where Marcus was waiting with a confused face. Her nose was scrunching on the screen as she stared at it. Her fingers kept swiping, trying to look for something.

"I'm sorry, but Dani did not seem to leave a message too on my phone. Are you sure that they were not in his apartment? Did they not leave a message on the counter?" She looked at him for an answer.

She immediately dialed her number, hoping she might answer her call. But like what happened with Marcus, her call went to voice mail. She decided to leave a message instead and hoped that she might answer later, once she received it.

"That was odd. But don't worry, there must be a reasonable explanation for Alex and Dani's sudden disappearance." He did not want to alarm Jacky unnecessarily.

"What do you think happened to them?" She asked as she sat on the lone chair across from him. "Where did they go? Dani usually tells me if she was going somewhere with Alex."

She could not help but feel a bit of worry that something might happen to them in the middle of the night. But she could not call Dani's parents and worry them. It just might be a miscommunication.

She recalled when she left her last night at the office. She could not remember anything amiss with her situation. She concluded that she was worrying over nothing. They might be somewhere having a great time.

"I have no idea. But knowing Alex, he might have planned a surprise for Dani and forgot to turn their phone on or something. I don't think we should worry about them." Marcus tried to assure her, seeing the slight panic expression on her face.

"Yeah! You are probably right! I might be worrying about nothing." Her voice was calm, but no matter how she tried to calm her heart, it was still beating erratically for her friend.

Until she had heard from her, she knew that she could not relax. She needed confirmation that she was ok. But she had no idea where to look for her and how to reach her.

"Are you alright?" He asked, seeing that she was slightly pale.

He knew how much Dani meant to Jacky. He now regretted disturbing her and telling her that he could not find them. He only caused undue worry to her when it was probably nothing.

"Yeah, I am ok." She did not want to appear too affected by it as she tried to control her emotion. As she had said earlier, there might be a problem with their connection wherever the two went.

She was confident that she would hear from Dani as soon as she found a way to communicate with them. Many did survive in the past without cellphones.

Besides, it required twenty-four hours before she could declare her friend was missing. Not that she thought something terrible happened to them, but she still felt uneasy not getting a message from her or contacting her.

"Would you mind if I make us some coffee as we wait to hear from them? I need something to pump my energy." He suggested, not wanting to leave with her current condition.

He could stay for a while until they could figure out how they could contact their friends. Two heads were usually better than one. Somehow with her help, they might find them easily.

"Fine. I believe you still know your way around the kitchen." She pointed to the other room. "I'll be in my room and change. Call me if you need anything.

She left him to attend to the coffee he was preparing and proceeded to her room. She quickly changed to her comfortable clothes. After fixing her hair in a neat bun, she walked out of her room and looked for Marcus.

She found him still in the kitchen, cooking something on the stove. She thought that he would only make them coffee, so she was surprised to see him holding a pan and spatula in his hand.

"I hope you don't mind if I help myself in the kitchen. I am hungry, and I saw some eggs and bread. I thought of making us some breakfast while we wait." He pointed to the stove.

He showed her the egg that was frying on the pan and the coffee boiling on the counter. He did think of having something delivered to her apartment, but when he checked the refrigerator, he found himself cooking.

"Nah. That's ok." She walked towards him and turned to the freezer, and took out a pack of bacon. "Let me fry some of this."

She prepared the bacon and heated the oil, preparing to cook the strips of pork. She also felt her stomach making funny noises, indicating that she needed sustenance.

"Thanks," Marcus muttered in a low tone as he finished toasting the bread and placing them on a plate together with the egg.

All that was left was for the bacon to cook so they could have their breakfast. He busied himself with the coffee, putting two sets on the table, and waited for her to finish.

He avoided thinking of the two of them intimately. It would not help in their situation, but he still could not help remembering how they were in the past.

They finally sat in comfortable silence when she placed the bacon on each of their plates. Lost in their thoughts as they ate their breakfast.

"I'm so..." He was about to break the silence with an apology, but she stopped him. He still felt the guilt of what he did. Her earlier not-so-warm welcome did not help in the way he felt.

"If you are about to apologize again, please don't." Jacky could not hear another sorry from him. "You already said it before, and I accepted it."

But she still did not condone what he did in the past. She still felt the hurt of his actions. But she was willing to put it behind them for her peace of mind and their friends.

Because whether she liked it or not, their paths would continue to cross, especially now that both of their best friends were to marry. She would rather have him as a friend than an enemy.

"Then, can I assume that we can be friends again in the future?" He suddenly felt a little hope that they could at least rekindle their friendship.

He liked Jacky a lot. Too much that it frightened him, making him do those crazy things to drive her away. But it was too late when he realized what he had done. She was gone.

Until now, he was sure if he even deserved her friendship, but he was willing to beg for it if there was a possibility.. He loved her, but she was now out of reach.