Kiran laughed at me, at some inside joke about my questions and I ignored him. I walked to the kitchen and rummaged through the now stocked fridge. I found a Dr. Pepper and said a prayer of thanksgiving before opening it.
“Would you get me a can of that please?” Kiran asked, standing up from the table to join me in the kitchen. He leaned against the kitchen island. “What do you think about Seraphina and Sebastian?”
I opened the refrigerator and grabbed a can of soda for him, tossing it to him across the kitchen. “I think he’s wasting his time, she doesn’t like him,” I answered.
“Really? Then what was all that about in the library?” Kiran pressed.
I laughed out loud, remembering her ridiculous test to see how a boy feels about you. “Nothing! Believe me! Seraphina has this crazy idea that you can tell how a boy feels about you by how they watch you walk away. She calls it the “Walk-Away-Watch.” It’s outrageous, believe me!” I laughed again.
“What do you mean, how they watch you?” Kiran didn’t laugh, he grew more intense.
“Like, her point was with Sebastian. He didn’t just watch her…. like he didn’t just watch her body. He watched all of her, he got this dreamy look in his eyes and this smile on his face like, he knew a secret about her…. and then stared at her as if she were the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. That’s her point. If they just think you’re hot, they usually watch just one part of you. If they actually like you, they…. I don’t know, they watch all of you,” I clarified.
“But you don’t believe in it?” he asked perceptively.
“No, but Seraphina says that’s because I’m oblivious…..” I grumbled, feeling like a small child for whining about what Seraphina thought.
“Ah, I see,” Kiran set his drink down and stared at me for a moment.
I stood with my back leaning against the refrigerator and my soda in my hand. He walked over to me, slowly. I instinctively set my drink down on the counter just in case I needed to run. I didn’t trust the consuming look in his eyes, the way he held my attention as if he were about to devour me.
He stopped just inches from me and lifted my face to look into his turquoise eyes. “Eden, I don’t think you’re oblivious,” he encouraged and for a moment I internally cheered with him on my side of the argument, but then he continued, “I think you’re stubborn as hell.”
I wanted to slap him, truthfully, but his eyes held mine in their deep ocean of blue and I couldn’t move. He wasn’t making fun of me, he really felt that way, and yet his magic pulsed heavily against mine, asking to be let free, to be joined together. I swallowed the lump in my throat and pressed a shaking hand against the cold refrigerator to steady myself. He stood there, towering over me, waiting on something. Waiting on me….
I knew what he wanted. I knew what the frantic beating of his heart in rhythm to his magic wanted, what the twitch of his lips and the hungry, desperate look in his eyes begged for. I knew he stood next to me with only a thread of willpower keeping us apart, keeping his hands from reaching forward and pulling me to him. I felt how he desperately clung to his last strand of restraint, the only thing keeping his mouth from crashing against mine and sweeping me away in the passion that burned in his blood.
What I didn’t know was what the twisting of my own stomach and the shallow breathing that seemed to catch in my lungs meant. Because I loved another man, I loved a better man. No matter how confusing this life had become, how unclear Kiran pictured our feelings for each other in his head, I still stopped loving him months ago. I still needed to avenge my grandfather and destroy the Kendrick bloodline.
So why couldn’t I move?
A knock at the apartment door shattered the moment and I exhaled, relieved. I moved around Kiran and headed straight for the door. At the last moment I turned back to make sure it was Ok to open, irrationally needing his approval, and then decided that was a huge mistake. He stood there, in the kitchen, with his eyes on me. I sucked in a sharp breath, feeling every one of his intense, fervent emotions that I refused to name. From across the kitchen he showed me how he felt, he opened himself up to me, raw and naked, and my heart slammed into my ribs knocking what little breath I had left out of me.
The world stopped spinning. Time slowed, preventing us from moving anywhere from this moment. Life did not exist outside of his eyes. We stood in our own universe, our own reality. Some small, hidden part of me reminded me that moments like this didn’t happen with just anybody, that only Kiran had the ability to make entire worlds disappear and convey the depth of his soul in just one look. Some small part of me reminded me that he called us star-crossed once, that he inferred even Fate would try to keep us apart, that the forces of this world were working against us. Some small part of me, whispered that Fate should be damned and the past burned. And my mother resounded in my ear that the best loves are the ones worth working for. In that small, fleeting moment I began to question everything I built my life on….
Pounding at the door snapped me back to reality, forcing my eyes from Kiran’s hold and toward the door where Lilly and Talbott waited on the other side. I composed myself quickly, straightening my clothes unnecessarily and scrunching my hair nervously with one hand. I opened the door. Lilly stood on the other side; her cheeks already flamed to match her vibrant curly red hair. I took three steps and wrapped my arms around her tightly. Tears sprung to my eyes and slipped out the corners and down my cheeks without permission. With someone I loved so closely, I realized how confused I felt, how utterly distraught I was becoming. She hugged me back, concerned and soothing.
Talbott pushed us into the apartment and closed the door behind us. When I finally let her go, I wiped the tears quickly from my eyes and tried to smile. Talbott stared at me as if I were the most unstable person he’d ever met and Lilly glanced at me every other second just to be sure I didn’t break down into hysterics. I didn’t know what Kiran thought, I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. Or in his general direction. I felt like a coward, and for the first time in my life I congratulated the coward for winning.