Paul Thomson's Story

Worried, that's what he was. Paul walked up towards the place Chance dwelled in. "Everything will be fine, your panicking. Just as long as you get the assistance you need from Chance, you'll be fine." Some recent...business with a select second party had left Paul with plenty of threats that he wasn't sure they would carry out or not. The young man smoothed out his suit as he approached the front steps.
He well remembered that Chase didn't mind him entering without knocking, but it was rather...impolite. So he rapped the door with his knuckles once, twice, three times in quick succession.

I heard the knocks at the door and quickly got away from him and settled in the couch, sitting about a foot and a half from Chase. It wasn't something I'd thought would happen, but I was at least glad that the visitor hadn't walked straight in. That would've been pretty awkward.

Somehow, I was relieved that the visitor had come. I didn't exactly know why, but it was this sort of feeling.

Chase inwardly groaned with the knocking on the door, to say the least he'd been hoping to be uninterrupted for a while longer.

"Come in the door's unlocked," he backed off Alex while she scrambled to get some distance between them. Despite his announcement of free entry, he still pushed off the couch to make the door. His expression switched to one lazy to the point of apathetic as he walked. He had a couple friends that knocked, but he was honestly expecting talk of the more...serious variety and that really set him off. However he wasn't the type to rudely offend a visitor by being grumpy, boredom was still something on the table.

He made the door quickly before opening it and blinking dumbly in surprise at the sight of his friend Paul in a suit like always.

"Paul, you brilliant sonova- get on in here and show a brother some love." The recognition of a friend set Chase at ease, and naturally Chase decided he could get touchy. He stepped back for Paul to freely enter his place, but still held his arms out for a hug for when the guy entered.

Paul took a step inside his friend's living space. He'd pass on the hug, of course. Taking a look around, something new caught his eye. "A girl? Probably a friend or something..." he thought. Paul nodded in acknowledgement of the females presence but quickly redirected his attention to his friend. Glancing nervously at the girl sitting on the sofa, he addressed Chance in a hushed tone.
"Is there somewhere a bit more private that we could talk?"

I held in a laugh as Chase's friend rejected his hug. I'd seen it occur more than once with some of his other buddies. Apparently his name was Paul, which meant another name for me to remember due to the fact that Chase would probably mention him more than once, much to my dismay. I was terrible with names.

All I could do was give Paul a friendly smile, as he seemed to be in a bit of a rush. It would probably inconvenience the guy if I tried to go introduce myself.

It'd been a while since I'd seen Chase with a friend over. This one seemed different, but not really in a bad way. He looked quite on edge, which was probably only due to some emergemcy he was dealing with at the moment. He didn't seem to be one to go around wasting time, though. At least that was my first impression of him.

Chase's face twitched a bit at the denial of his hug,but Paul's face was so serious when he asked for privacy that he was forced to yield the point immediately.

"Paul it's either my room or the one across from it you're talking bout keeping this between the two of us," Chase gave a quick response to his friend and continued even faster.

"However while we're putting things on the table...Paul meet my lovely girlfriend Alex, Alex meet Paul. By-the-way-Paul-I-kinda-got-her-pregnant," Chase said the second sentence with such haste it came out sounding like a single word.

"So I guess we could cover this in my room?" Chase did his best to keep his face innocent after he blurted out his news in an effort to let Paul gauge the seriousness of his secret. Then again, Alex didn't exactly know exactly all of Chase's activities which caused him to purse his lips a bit.

Paul stared at his friend for a moment. He had unfortunately had the fortune to actually understand what he was saying. Nevertheless he greeted Alex with a smile. "Hello Alex, I'm Paul Thomson. Pleased to meet you." He would've extended his hand, but he had some more important matters to attend to at the moment.

"And yes of course, your room would be fine." Paul patiently waited for his friend to lead the way, after all it was his house.

"Hello. It is a pleasure to meet you as well," I responded. The fact that Chase had mentioned my current state had kind of thrown me off, but there wasn't much I could've done about it anyway.

I watched as Chase led Paul until they disappeared from my view, sinking into the sofa again afterwards. I was sleepy, and there was no one there to stop me from falling asleep at that moment, so I ended up succumbing to sleep. Less than five minutes later, I received a call from my mother.

"Come home. Now," she said.

"Mom? What happened?" I asked, quite disoriented by her irritated tone.

"I said now!" She then hung up.

At that point, I was nothing but a combination of confused and worried.

Chase simply nodded when Paul stated his preference. He flashed Alex a look to tell her this might take a while before walking towards his room and shutting the door after Paul had entered.

"Alright Paul my man, what is it that's got you wound up so tight?" Rather than sitting down, Chase instead leaned against the door. A feeling in his gut told him that odds were he wasn't going to enjoy the following discussion...not that his gut was any good measurement. Paul was just one of those guys, Chase liked him, but wasn't exactly entirely sure just how to act around him.

Paul sighed before he began. It was mainly his carelessness that got him into this mess. Luckily the solution was quite simple. "I'll just tell you what happened." Paul took a few steps across the room. "Well I was conducting some...business with a...select second party. However they failed to hold their end, and when I cut the agreement they were quite angry. They began trying to threaten and intimidate me."

"Well what do we do? They are quite 'smalltime' as one would put it. A bit of a 'scare' ought to take care of it." Paul answered his own question. "Look, if you help me out...I'll pay for half of the abortion. How about that?" he smirked.

"I'm going home," I said loud enough for Chase to be able to hear. I was panicking too much to think of any other ways to tell him and not be rude to his company. Plus, Paul seemed to have an urgent situation as well.

At home, I was questioned about where I was. Veronica's mom had denied the fact that I'd been at her house at all these past few days--I knew I was screwed. There was really no choice at that point but to tell her the truth, and the truth came with its consequences. I knew I'd have a couple of bruises in the next few days, and being kicked out wasn't anything I hadn't expected. I just needed to be alone at the moment. In a way, I was, since I was now sitting in front of my house wondering what to do. I didn't want to talk to Chase either, so I went ahead and asked one of my other friends if I could stay over for the night. I'd messed up too badly to be forgiven, but there was no going back.

Chase's usual bubbly look turned stone cold when Paul said what the issue was, and it wasn't something he was eager to hear. "Paul, if she hadn't shot down the idea the minute we had positive...that'd be a lot more tempting." His answer came after a not-so-short period of deliberation. In fact Alex's voice interrupted before he could continue... which freed him up a bit.

"So from the top, I need the fools in question, the deal you pulled out on, and chances they're packing heat. If the answer's more than than I like, I've a favor that can be cashed in this time. As from MY end, a studio just accepted my band. Sometime in the next week or two I'll be headed down for the whole contract and initial recording nonsense."

Since Paul was one of Chase's friends, he didn't mind sharing a bit of his hand in what was essentially a business discussion at this point. From here, both of them can start around to getting what they really want.

Paul listened to Chase's talk, but it all felt far away to him. "I must say, your getting better at 'business talk.'" Paul smirked. "Well anyway, like I said, they're quite small time. Smaller, not very well known. As far as I know, this is one of their first jobs. As for the business conducted, that's not so important. However, I can tell you that there are but three members. One of them is...not in town at the moment. I'd say they would carry some firepower, probably pistols of sorts, but that won't be a problem."

Paul stole a glance out the window. "All I'm asking for is a little help, with the two of us, the execution of the plan itself will be quite safe and easy." He tossed a black bandanna along with a black unmarked baseball cap to Chase. "I'm assuming you have your own gloves, but that won't be a problem if you don't. You do have a bat or something though, right?" Paul laughed a little to himself. "Sorry, I never told you the plan did I? Well, it was just like I said, give 'em a scare. There's going to be lots of bluffing involved, but as I mentioned earlier, they'll eat it up. They're nothing close to experienced, no connections. It'll be easy."

He fixed Chase with his stare. "As for your end, remember I don't own the world. Just keep that in your head, and I'm sure everything will work out smooth." Chase was his friend, that was true, but Paul had been triggered into his business mode now.



[Oh my God, I am so sorry you guys. I was unexpectedly grounded from the computer, and I couldn't find a way to let you guys know. Please forgive me.]