Chapter Fifteen: Timeless by Rosaline Saul
Then everything speeds up again and the surrounding noises seem too loud all of a sudden, it shudders into me. I feel Kieran’s arms still wrapped around me tightly and I twist around anxiously.
A young man climbs hurriedly from the driver side of the
car. It looks as if he just got his driver’s license, he must have turned
eighteen only a month ago. He screams worriedly, “Are ye all right? I am so
sorry. I did not see ye there.”
I look down and there is only a hair's breadth between the
front of the car and Kieran’s leg.
Kieran steps away from the car unharmed, with me still in
his arms. “No, worries.” He smiles sociably. “You stopped in the nick of time.
You should drive more carefully though; you could have killed me.”
The driver of the car walks to the front of his car and
wipes his hand disbelievingly over the unscathed paintwork. He says
apologetically, “I swear ye weren’t there. You just appeared out of mist. I
swear it on my life.”
Kieran steps toward him. He loosens an arm from around my
waist and holds his hand out to the young man. The man reaches to him, and they
shake hands. Kieran says, “No harm done, then.”
He turns me in his arms, keeping his one arm around my waist
and steers me up the hill again.
I look at him anxiously. “I cannot believe we are still
alive. That car barely missed you, it stopped just in time.”
He sighs deeply but says nothing. He looks uneasy and
nervous, and he avoids looking at me.
When we reach the coffee shop and I see the busy flurry of
everybody inside, there is not an empty seat, I feel reluctant to go in. After
what just happened, I needed somewhere quiet to process my thoughts, since we
could have been dead. More so, I could have been dead, if Kieran did not jump
in between the car and me.
He suggests, “Would you rather like to get something to eat
at my house? It’s just up the road from here.”
I nod my head in agreement. The initial shock is starting to
dissipate and now questions are starting to crowd out the awe and wonder of
this apparent miracle. I can swear I heard the crunching of metal, and I am
sure I felt the car slam into Kieran.
We walk away from the coffee shop, my hand twined into his.
I turn to him as we turn up a cobbled alleyway. “I could
have sworn that car knocked into you, yet there was not even a dent in it, and
you are okay.”
I see him struggling with himself. His face is clouded over
with doubt and indecision. He says, “We’re almost there.”
We walk through the busy Saturday market, and I have to look
where I am walking not to crash into other people, so I look away from him. I
have the distinct feeling he is hiding something from me.
When we reach his house, and after he unlocks the door, he
lets me walk in and then he follows me in. I wait in the foyer for him while he
closes the door again.
After he takes my coat from me, he drapes it over the banister. He smiles and says, “Come, sit down.”
I follow him into the lounge. It is a real royal dump. The
large plasma television fixed to the wall above the fireplace and the brand-new
leather lounge suite looks out of place.
My eyes fix onto a body sprawled across the large three-seat
leather couch. The pair of black eyes from this body looks up at me in stunned
surprise.
The owner of the pair of black eyes stands up hastily, and I
cannot help noticing he is only wearing a pair of black sweatpants, hanging low
on his hips. In an instant, I observe his arms, his firm stomach and his strong
shoulders.
He gives me a long, unhurried look, and he smiles slowly,
brilliantly. He keeps my eyes imprisoned with his, and I feel captured by his
gaze, a gaze filled with promises and silent desires.
Kieran breaks this exhilarating moment between us by
shouldering past him. “Put on a shirt, Jayden,” Kieran stresses as he walks
past him toward the dining room.
Jayden pulls his face sourly and smiles at me, as if we are
sharing a joke. His smile is not quite a smile. It is half a smile, half a
grin, hinting at amusement, confidence and mischief.
I feel my face grow warm as he moves toward me. He is mere
centimetres away from me, but he might as well have touched me, judging by the
way my heart speeds up in my chest.
He stops when he gets next to me and lowers his head down to
me. I can do nothing but look up at him. His eyes are dark, changing rapidly as
a cold wintry day could turn into a bright cloudless sky, the wind trailing
light and shadows across the earth.
Kieran calls my name from the kitchen.
One corner of his mouth curls up slowly and he says quietly,
“Welcome to our humble abode, Heather.”
I step away from him. I whisper, not trusting my voice not
to croak when I speak normally, “Thank you, Jayden.”
He moves away from me and distractedly I walk toward the double door separating the lounge from the dining room.
