A Step Closer to Love

What?” Kieran stood in awe as he watched her bend to her knees to catch her breath. ” Answer to what?” he asked.

She took a deep breath and stood up straight looking him straight in the eyes. ” My answer to your question is yes”

“Yes?” he asked shocked. If he was being honest he expected her to turn him down but here she was accepting him.

“Yes,” she said as if she was reassuring him.

“What made you change your mind?”

“Change my mind?” she asked.

“Yeah, I was definitely sure you were going to turn me down”

“Why were you so sure?” she asked him and he pretended to think stroking his chin gently.

“For starters, you ran away from me last night and this morning you were quick to leave the house so we didn’t get to meet each other. I was even going to apologize” he said.

She looked at him, his claims were right from all he had said. She did run away and she was tending to reject him even though she claimed she was only thinking about it. In reality, thinking that she might be hurt she was going to play it safe.

“I mean I would have understood but I did not want the friendship we had begun to build to crumble because of my stupid mistake. I could have waited till you healed properly from the hurt you face but instead, I went ahead and asked you out on the same night that you faced a weird kind of rejection”

Kieran rambled, she had never seen him like that before, he seemed so flustered that she thought it was cute. She had never seen him like this before, he was always prim and proper but this time it seemed like she had opened a dimension of him not known to anyone.

She blocked out the rest of what he was saying and took a step closer to him. On the tip of her toes with a stretch, she used her palm to cover up his mouth. His eyes widened as he gulped when her hand came close to him.

“You are rambling,” she said silently.

“What?” he asked trying to stop his voice from shaking. He failed because she could tell and then she let out a small chuckle.

“Did you just laugh?” he asked taking a step back.

“You are cute” she said also taking a step back. The proximity was kind of suffocating for her.

“I am cute? Are you sure you got the right person?” he asked wondering where she got such a conclusion from.

“I mean your rambling is cute, and there should be no back and forth about it. I don’t know what this relationship holds and I have no single idea how it will end. All I know is that for this time in my life, this is what I want” she said.

She saw a smile climb the corner of his lips and how hard he tried to suppress it. They stood in silence before she cleared her throat and looked around.

“I just wanted you to know,” she said before turning around and walking away as fast as she could before he could say anything.

“Oh my goodness”

Kieran stood there watching her walk away. He could not believe that his single act of courage to try had resulted well this way. He had stayed awake all night worrying about what she was going to say and then when he had tried to catch her in the morning to maybe retract what he had said she had been nowhere to be found.

Ryder’s car came in and Aurora was in the passenger seat. Up until now, Aurora had been avoiding him since their last fall out and he knew he had to speak with her and straighten it out.

He wanted to make sure she was not holding onto a piece of hope that would make them end up together. He had never had any interest in her. He had been beside her at first because of Kimberly and after she brutally left his life Ryder was like the glue that bonded the two of them together.

Otherwise, he had never thought of anything higher than friendships between them. Since he was with Arabella now he knew he had to straighten everything out. He was going to stand his ground and not allow Aurora to bully Arabella as she had done with other female staff who had been forced to leave by her.

“Hey man,” Ryder said when he saw him standing outside the car waiting for them.

“Hey,” Kieran replied absentmindedly. “Can we talk?” he said facing Aurora.

She stopped in her tracks and turned so she could face him. “Me?” she asked. Her tone was petty so it was obvious she was mad at him.

She had been giving him the silent treatment all this while but it seemed like it had backfired on her. “What’d this about?” she pushed when he said nothing.

“Let’s talk” he motioned to his car. She gave a low laugh to herself and walked gently to the car waiting for him to unlock it.

“See you inside” Kieran said tapping Ryder’s shoulder before jogging away to the car.

“What’s this about?” Aurora asked as soon as he got into the car.

“This is the final answer for you”

“The final answer?” Aurora was confused. They had not talked in a while and the proper order should be for him to apologise for what he had done and then ask her to be his girlfriend.

“Yeah, I am now convinced even more than ever that I am not in any way interested or attracted to you and I want you to respect that” Kieran’s face was void of emotion while Aurora watched him wondering how and why he could say that with a straight face.

“Why are you telling me this?” she forced out.

“Because now I have a girlfriend and I don’t want her to have a wrong idea”

“it’s that girl right?”

“What girl?”Content property of NôvelDra/ma.Org.

“Arabella, it’s her right?”

“Yes”

“But you just met her…”

“That does not matter. I would not sit still if you trouble her and also please avoid putting me in situations that would make me alone with you” he said.

He leaned into her seat and pushed open the door. “You can get down now”