Love Untouched (Unexpected) (7 page)

“Did you park all the way to Timbuktu?” His tone was serious, but it also held a light chuckle.

I didn’t answer him. We were now in the middle of the almost empty lot. I switched direction and made a beeline for the spot that I stopped by routinely on the way to my car, the sidewalk that ran along the side of the lot.

Upon reaching the sidewalk, I recognized the familiar figure huddled in a blanket. It was warm tonight so he wouldn’t need much to keep his body warm. I slowly placed the soda, chips, and chocolate bar a few feet away from him, and walked away.

Kieran stayed by my side the whole time. I could not see his face so I just continued to walk to my car.

Remembering his earlier dig about me parking far away, I teased, “Timbuktu’s in the Sahara Desert, about fifteen kilometers north of the Niger River in the country of Mali. It would take me years, maybe decades, to reach it, if I traveled on foot...” I smiled in between my words. My shift was boring today, but Kieran’s presence was energizing me.

“Whoa. Studied geography much?”

“No. Just Timbuktu. The name fascinated me. And I had a feeling that one day, a guy was going to use that country against me.”

He let out a full laugh. I stopped walking and turned around to face him. Under the fluorescent lighting in the parking lot, I could see his face pinched in laughter, and as our eyes met, the laughter slowly died. His face became serious as he said, “You’re funny, Brynn.”

“Thanks. I’m here to make you happy.” Where did that come from? I was acting and speaking all kinds of strange tonight. I blamed it on the hotness before me. Just looking at him burned all the neurons in my brain and made me sound crazy.

His face became darker and he closed the gap between us. He reached his right hand out and caressed my cheek. “Are you tired?” He asked, his eyes searching mine.

“No.” It was the truth. I had a light shift today.

“You have time for coffee?” He was making his intentions clear. For some reason, I was thinking that he was not just asking for coffee, he was asking for time with me.

I shook my head. “No coffee.”

He dropped his hand from my face. “Ok, I understand.”

We walked the four remaining steps to my car. I counted my steps because I didn’t know what else to do. Here he was, standing, walking beside me. It was so uncharacteristic of me to be attracted to a guy I barely knew but with him my nerves tingled with awareness, every time he was near. I couldn’t explain it.

I pressed the alarm on my Toyota Prius and unlocked the door. I slowly slid into the driver’s seat. He was still standing to the side, waiting for me to go. I lowered the window, and called out, “Coffee will keep me up all night. I have time for a hot cocoa, though.”

His face broke into a reserved smile.

“Get in. I’ll drive you to your car.” He slid in and the tiny space in my car just got tinier. His long legs were folded in as he adjusted the seat. We talked about trivial things during the two-minute drive to lot 7B.

When he instructed me to stop in front of a silver Range Rover, I asked him, “Why did you wait for me tonight?”

His eyes sparkled and the right side of his mouth turned up. “Because I had to make sure that the nurse who admitted me went home okay.” Technically, Jason was his admitting nurse but oh well, who was I to argue?

Before stepping out of my car, he added, “And just so you know…that nurse? She makes my pulse race.”

I gasped, as he smoothly exited my car.

I followed his car as he led us through the small amount of traffic. We stopped by Cafe Ole, one of the small, but cozy, coffee shops in the city. Once inside, per my request, he ordered me a steaming cup of hot cocoa and I asked for powdered beignets to go along with it. He didn’t drink any coffee, tea, or cocoa. He just ordered a bottle of water and shared the beignets with me. We talked about the most random things, from his love of books to his friendship with Zander and Sedona. I told him about my best friend, and about how life was going as a newbie in nursing. He asked me why I gave food to the guy on the street. I told him that I just felt bad for the guy, whom I had dubbed as ‘Mr. X’. Mr. X was always huddled in a blanket and I couldn’t see his face but I’d heard him singing more than a few times. His songs made me feel melancholy, agonizing pain evident in his voice – it was piercing, longing, as if he was trying to find some peace but couldn’t. Kieran just listened, and during our conversation, when he asked me for my number, I didn’t hesitate.

Kieran made me feel at ease. He unnerved me because he made my pulse pound each time his deep brown eyes stared at me, and when those twin dimples made their presence known, I was a goner but with him, I felt safe.

At the end of the night, he tailed my car to my apartment and waited for me to get inside. He wanted to walk me in, but I told him there was no need, plus he had an early training. Once I was inside, he called my phone, and I answered on the first ring. “I had fun Brynn.”

“I did, too, Kieran,” I replied.

He was quiet for a minute. “Thanks for taking care of me tonight.”

“I didn’t. Jason did.”

“Well, you got to me before he did.” Humor lined his voice.

“I guess I did.” A soft sigh escaped me. “Goodnight Kieran.”

“Goodnight Brynn.” I hung up the phone before I said anything more. Kieran was off-limits. He knew it. I knew it. And my brother could,
no
, would never know about what happened tonight.

“I’d like to see a dolphin.”

~N.B., age 7, acute myelogenous leukemia

Over the next few weeks, I found myself repeatedly waiting for a particular nurse to come out of the emergency room unit. I had my spot now. I sat on the third row, kitty-cornered to the hospital entrance. The security guards had come to refer to me as “Swim Guy.” They had asked for my autograph the first few times. I told them I hadn’t won anything, like a World Championship or an Olympic gold medal. One of them just shrugged, and said, “It’s only a matter of time.”

I was not one to boast of my achievements. What I did in the pool was left in the pool. As far as I was concerned, I was still a novice at swimming. Without a World Championship gold medal, or an Olympic gold medal, it didn’t matter if I swam more miles than from here to Hong Kong every week, or if I was the number one swimmer in the country. I was nothing without a gold medal. I was settling for nothing less.

I was sifting through the app on my phone, analyzing my lap times. It was a very useful app. It allowed me to see how bad or how good I was performing. My coach had tried to delete it from my phone because he thought I was overly involved in it and I needed to chill. I didn’t heed his advice. I chilled
while
I was scrolling through my lap times, and in the morning, I’d let Smith know that I could shave off 0.02 if I increased my forward speed when I kicked underwater during my freestyle swim. In that way, I would be more efficient when I pulled out after the end of my dolphin kick. The new fins that Smith ordered were really helping with the strength of my kicks. Maybe we could change them for shorter fins. I wondered how it would affect my kicks then.

“Hey, you’re early today.” Her soft voice cut through my concentration.

She was standing in front of me. Her golden locks hung loosely around her face. When she worked, she tied it up in a sort of bun, but once she got out, she let it down. The golden waves bounced off her neck, down past her shoulders, and her blue eyes were bright.

I stood up and leaned close to her.
Vanilla
.

“Yes. And you’re out early today, too.” I grinned and she held out her purse to me. It was a habit now for her to give me her purse. Well, her purse looked more like a shoulder bag. Instead of her swinging it around, she gave it to me to stop herself.

I took it from her and let it hang on my left hand, careful not to have the bottom touch the floor. Some guys had problems with carrying women’s purses. I had none. Well, only Brynn’s, because it looked like a bag and well, it was Brynn’s.

She talked about her day. She had some very interesting stories and I found myself laughing with her, sometimes to the point of tears, at the craziness that she had to deal with. There was a guy that had an erection for seven hours because he took an herbal medicine. I pitied the guy for a moment then found it way hilarious. A woman whose head got stuck in the toilet bowl, and a guy who got beat up by a lady three times smaller than him because he called her a “man.” She never mentioned their names, but when Brynn described her ER stories, I could not help but wonder how and why people put themselves in to these comical and almost unbelievable scenarios.

Since the night when I first saw her in the ER, I didn’t miss one opportunity of “fetching” her from the hospital to walk her to her car. The main reason was that, for me, it didn’t seem like it was safe for a woman to be walking alone to her car at 11:45 at night. Brynn said that the security guard watched the video surveillance camera feeds of the parking garages, and that many nurses walked around the garage at that time of the night. Regardless, I just could not reconcile it with myself so I made it a part of my schedule to walk with her and drop her off at her car. I convinced myself that it was the only reason why I did it, but if I was being honest, my day was not complete if I didn’t see her. When she was off, she hung out with her friend and her brother so I didn’t get to see her. During the day, it was easier for me to fight the urge to talk to her because I was busy with training, or dealing with the business venture that I was laying the groundwork for with SwimFit. Nevertheless, at night, I caved. I had to talk to her, had to at least hear her voice. It must be the same for her because sometimes, she called first.

Some nights, when we were both exhausted - me from a grueling day of training sessions and her from a busy day in the ER- I’d follow her car to her place and just watch her walk inside her apartment building. Other times, we would go to a coffee place and just talk. I liked listening to her talk. She was full of life and her eyes turned from light blue, to darker blue, to an even deeper, shinier blue, when she got excited. Her face always glowed, even when she was tired, and when she smiled, her pearly white teeth showed and she bit her bottom lip in a way that made me think of things that one should not be doing with a female friend.

“Kieran, do you want to stop by for breakfast tomorrow?” Her tone was inquiring and unsure. She had never invited me to her place before. She was staring at the space ahead of us. We were now stopped between our cars. When I asked her why she liked to park so far away, she said that she wanted to de-stress after a workday by walking to her car.

“Breakfast? Are you asking me out?” I hid a smile. Unsure Brynn was cute. Ninety-nine percent of the time, she was self-assured and made no qualms about expressing her opinions.

“No...Forget it.” She took her purse from my arm and started looking for her car keys.

“Why?” I raised an eyebrow, and inside, I was smiling.

“Have a good night Kieran,” she said hurriedly and walked a few steps towards her car.

I followed her and before she could get inside her car, I slowly pulled on her left arm. She had no choice but to face me. “I asked why, Brynn.”

“Because I make good pancakes, muffins, and a mean cinnamon bun, and you said that you had late practice tomorrow.” She was avoiding my eyes.

I advanced on her, inched closer, until she was leaning against her car. I slowly grabbed a fistful of her silky strands of hair and she turned her gaze on me. She bit her lip and that action just undid me. “I’ll be there for breakfast tomorrow. But right now, I think I need something else.”

Her breath hitched and her bottom lip started quivering slightly. She was nervous. If Brynn played poker, this would be her
tell
. “What do you need?”

“I need a kiss to go,” I said quickly before I covered her mouth with mine. God, she tasted good. She tasted minty, fresh, and all woman. Her vanilla scent assailed me.

For weeks, I’ve been wondering what she tasted like. Every time she took a sip of that hot cocoa that she liked so much, I found myself wanting to be the lid of the cup. When she smiled and lowered her eyelashes, it hit me straight in the gut, and there were numerous times that I went home and became very friendly with my fists. We didn’t talk during the day, and when she was off work, I wanted her to make the first move and ask about hanging out with me. She never did. She spent a lot of time with her brother, and I didn’t want to impose on their time. Plus, Milo and I didn’t get along. So, I waited for her to make the first step. I still had a difficult time accepting the fact that she was Milo’s sister, but her presence made me forget that she was. I knew I would have to deal with the fact that she was his sister, and one day, if we became something more, I’d have no choice but to let him know about us. Just for now, though, I wanted to feel her lips against mine. She licked her lips that were
oh-so-soft
and I wanted more. I didn’t just want a kiss to go. I wanted to kiss her in a way that she would ask me to stay.