Chapter 2

16 February 2021

The next day Sam and I meet at a roadhouse two cities away from ours, where we lived right now. Our boys-meeting was planned at 10 a.m. and we both went there with separate cars. I walked in the roadhouse a minute later and already saw Sam sitting at a table in the back of the restaurant, talking to the waitress.

"Hey there you are" Sam said when he noticed me walking to his table. "Did you already eat something for breakfast?" he asked. Before I could reply he added: "Because Anna says that the special breakfast of this week are pancakes". The waitress, whose name was clearly Anna, smiled shyly at me and stepped aside so I could sit. "I didn't eat that much so this special breakfast sounds good to me" I replied and also asked for a black coffee. Anna nodded, while writing down our order and then she walked away.

Sam smiled widely at me and raised one of his eyebrows at me. "How do you do this?" I asked at him and sighed. "Do what?" he asked, but he knew well enough what I meant. "Luke, the thing is that I'm still the same person I was five years ago, I still behave the same as I used to". Since everything happened, I was so afraid of letting someone get close to me. I know that flirting wasn't that much of letting someone get close, but I just couldn't do it. "I know that you're struggling with this and that's why we need to have these meetings every week, to keep you sane" he said, and I nodded because I agreed with everything he said.

We stayed quiet because I saw Anna coming our way with two big plates. She placed them in front of us and I saw a pile of pancakes with fresh fruits in a bowl next to it. In a smaller bowl was some whipped cream and there was also a small bowl with chocolate sprinkles. "I'm getting you the syrup as well" Anna said, and she walked away to get it. She came back to our table with the syrup and a large pot of coffee. Then she walked away to get two mugs and cutlery for us. It barely fitted on our table. "Thanks love" Sam said, and I saw Anna blush, then she nodded at us and walked away to help other customers.

"So, what did you tell them what you're doing right now?" Sam asked me. We always made a small competition about the reason we told our bosses that we had something else to do when we had our meetings. "Well yesterday evening I had a good run at the park, but I felt my ankle injury coming back" I replied. "So, I had to go to the physiotherapist" I added. "Well show me that hurting ankle of yours then" Sam said, laughing and he tried to grab my right foot from under the table. I kicked his shin to make him stop and he dramatically grabbed his leg. "I actually took today off" Sam said, referring to his earlier question. "So that means I won, because you didn't tell them a reason about your whereabouts" I said and I saw in Sam's eyes that he wanted to discuss this, but he decided not to and instead take a bite from the pancakes. Before we forget, I pour us a cup of coffee which was still steaming hot.

"I saw that mysterious Ellen posted a very inspirational picture yesterday" Sam said, and he chuckled when he saw that I rolled my eyes at him. "Did you like it?" I asked and we both started laughing. Together we created a fake Instagram account so we could follow a few people's tracks. We actually made the account very credible with an actual name on it and a lot of pictures about interior and nature. The account followed around 500 people and had like 200 followers. Little did these people know that they followed a fake account managed by two men.

"I'm talking about looking up pictures about interior every week, but it's worth the sacrifice" I said. We agreed that I look for pictures about interior and Sam looks for pictures about nature. No one else knows about this account, because we can't take a risk. We also don't have any private social media accounts, much to the dislike of Olivia. She just thinks that we both don't have Facebook and Instagram because it doesn't interest us.

One of the conditions in our contract about keeping our real names is that we can't have social media which is traceable to us. The people from the past need to stay in the past. The group of friends we had fell apart and some of them got a whole new identity, living in another country. Sam and I decided to take the job the police officer offered us, instead of going to jail.

"So how was last week?" I asked to Sam. "It was fine, I didn't discover anything special. I actually have this new colleague in my team, he is transferred from another city and he is good friends with Cameron. His name is Chris, and he seems nice" Sam told me. "It's not totally clear to me why he is transferred, but I'll try to talk with him this week to find out" he added. "Okay, good to know. Is he already working in your team?" I asked. "Now that you're saying it, they only introduced him to the team. I think he's actually coming here at the end of the month" Sam said.

We talked a bit about how my week was and that we had to plan a friend's reunion, which we did every year. The reunion was not going to take place for several months, but this year the invitation and organising everything was Sam's and my turn. We agreed to send invitations next week at the latest.

While Sam went to the toilets, I looked up at the timeline with the newest posts from the Instagram account Sam and I made. My heart started to beat faster when I saw the username leah_wilson. I saw her latest post, which was a picture of her at a park, drinking a coffee. She looked flawless and I quickly took a screenshot from the picture to save it to my camera roll. I closed the Instagram app when I saw Anna coming to our table. I asked her for the bill which she was going to get. While Anna went to get the bill, I drank the last remains from the coffee.

"There you go, I hope you both enjoyed the pancakes" Anna said, and she handed me the bill. "Yes, thank you very much for everything" I replied, and I handed her some cash, which concluded a tip for her. "Thank you so much" she said, and she smiled widely at me. I saw Sam coming back from the toilet, so I stood up and put on my jacket. "I already paid" I told him, and he put on his jacket as well. We walked to the exit of the restaurant and greeted the owner of the restaurant on our way out. Sam and I said our goodbyes to each other and then went to our own cars. I heard the door from the restaurant open behind us and when I reached my car, I turned around to look who it was. I saw that Anna was standing in front of Sam and she handed him a piece of paper. I sighed and smiled, while getting into my car. I took out my phone and texted Sam: "Did she just gave you her phone number?". I looked up to see Sam also sitting in his car and Anna was already back at the restaurant. Sam looked up at me and then showed me his middle finger while laughing at me. This was not going to end well for Anna, since Sam was not going to text her at all. For his own sake.

~

❤️ Bella

SONG TIP: Sacrifice by Bebe Rexha