Sunday was a day of reflection. A day of amends. A day for Lyle to rally his senses and tape them back together in preparation for whatever disaster might befall him, seeing as how his life seemed to be on a downhill spiral all of a sudden. His call to Orlando had not been answered, leaving Lyle to suspect that either the man was extremely busy or he was afraid to call back because Michaels had called and left his own condemning message.

During breakfast Lyle had received a call from Dieter. The ensuing chat allowed Lyle the opportunity to explain yesterday's situation in more detail, which Dieter accepted with a sympathetic ear and that helped Lyle's fallen mood. Unfortunately, Dieter had less enlightening news. Michaels, he claimed, was still on the rampage and this news both angered and frightened Lyle. The very last thing he wanted to do was to become a disappointment to either one of his friends, and yet Michaels himself was becoming a disappointment to Lyle by not allowing him the opportunity to explain the misunderstanding. Why the man had taken this so hard was impossible to say at this point so all Lyle could do was assume that he had been placed on a pedestal and his perceived, though wholly misunderstood, actions had been his downfall.

In spite of Dieter's comforting words that Michaels would come around in time, Lyle felt even more miserable than he had prior to the call. If only Orlando would call him back it would help Lyle in this quest to feel whole again. In fact, it was beginning to feel as if Orlando were avoiding him, making Lyle even more suspicious and fearful that Michaels had gotten to him first. Why Orlando had not called prior to this misunderstanding was frustrating enough, but after the fact was even more devastating since Lyle did not know whether or not the misunderstanding was now a contributing factor.

The more Lyle stewed over this the more concerned he became, and the more concerned he became the more his mind wandered into forbidden territory, leading him from one horrifying thought to the next. Perhaps Michaels had not called him at all. Perhaps Orlando's lack of a response was due to an accident and this awful thought sparked a whole slew of terrible feelings. Being no stranger to the death of the loves in his life Keon dying from a brain aneurism and Bucky having been lost to a deranged, vengeful bank robber Lyle's mind was rife for the assumption that Orlando had been next in line to pass. Why the idea had not occurred to him until now was probably due to hopeful thinking, but without word one from his guy in this widening period of time Lyle was now fearing the worst.

It was at that very moment that his cell began buzzing in his pocket and Lyle quickly fished it out to find Orlando's name emblazoned across the top of the screen. Instantly a smile crossed his lips and Lyle found that he could not press the Answer icon and raise the phone to his ear quickly enough, and in a sexy, breathy voice he said, "Hey there, handsome."

"Hello?" an unfamiliar voice asked.

Immediately Lyle's smile evaporated from his face and he felt a little flushed over his apparently incorrect assumption that Orlando would be calling from his own cell phone. "Hello?" Lyle asked back.

"Who am I talking to?" the unidentified young man asked.

"I have a better one for you; who am I talking to?" Lyle countered.

"Sorry, my name is Randy. I found this phone and yours was the ICE listing so I figured I'd call it and let somebody know that I found the phone."

Lyle's fears of Orlando's demise returned, this time with reinforcements and a heaviness began forming inside his gut. "You found the phone?" Lyle asked, immediately afterward regretting the redundancy. "I mean, where'd you find it?" he quickly corrected himself.

"Outside my apartment building. I'm in San Francisco."

While this would explain Orlando's failure to return Lyle's recent calls, it did not explain the man's inability to pick up any other phone in the city and check in once in awhile. "Thanks for letting me know. I appreciate it."

"What do you want me to do with the phone? I can mail it to you if you want."

"No, that's all right. It was a cheapo phone anyway. Just dump it. I'll call the cell carrier and have them deactivate it. Um, can you tell me approximately what section of town you found it in?"

"The Castro."

Odd, from what Lyle knew of San Francisco that was supposedly the gay area of town. What would Orlando be doing there, and what activities would he be involved in that he might lose his phone, he wondered? "What area of The Castro, specifically?" Lyle asked with his worry now turning to suspicion.

"Actually, it was just outside the door to the Blow Hole," the man said.

"The Blow Hole… That would be a… what? A whaling supply store?" he asked innocently while trying to understand the connection to Orlando and the whaling industry.

"Whaling?" Randy said, laughing. "No, it's a gay baths."

Selected text copyright 2011 by Timothy Lee