Phil knew something had gone wrong when you still weren’t home as the clock neared five in the morning. No matter what they argued about before, you were always back before five.

The reason why you wouldn’ be is that something happened to you.

Sipping at his coffee, he stared at the driveway. His car was where it should be. Gaze sliding over, his grip on his coffee tightened.

Empty pavement glared up at him like it was flaunting how much space there was before the two-door garage. It made him remember the time when he used to glance out at that spot, thinking about how nice it would be to have another car to complete the set. The lone car made the house feel hollow. Incomplete.

Which was fixed a year ago. With you being hired, then the apartment building burning down, them offering one of the guest bedrooms to their favorite bodyguard. You, with just a few personal belongings and your car. The car that fit perfectly next to his, sparkling in the sun with the same colour, same model. Already a few days into having a fourth person in the house, he could feel a lightness in his steps whenever he glanced out at the pair. What once was empty became full, and even if the arguments made that pair break up for a bit, they were always reunited come dawn; both the cars and the owners.

And now it was empty again, the sky beginning to pale as the sun got ready to start a new day. The driveway waited as he did. It had happened before: arguing, you storming out, Phil following, them talking, you leaving, Phil watching. And it always ended the same, too: you coming homes, Phil greeting him, apologizing, having breakfast.

Stealing one more glance at the car, he walked back to his spot by the window. Almost as still as a statue, he waited, repeating his mantra of everything is okay, everything will be okay to himself until he believed it again. He was still there, repeating it, when the stairs creaked behind him, making him jolt.

Wilbur frowned at him, glancing out the window over his shoulder. “No {{user}}?”