A Promise I Intend To Keep
Thea’s point of view-
A few days have passed since I told Professor Kiernan to be friends but also trying to respect the boundary that we have. I don’t know about him but it’s been really hard for me to suppress my feelings for him. It’s Saturday morning and I am sitting at the cafe opposite our university, trying to do my homework.
The cafe is quiet, cosy and comfy as the tv is playing in the background with very few people as I am preparing a statistical report for my business homework. I extend my hand towards my coffee and notice that the cup is empty. Sighing, I get up to stand in the line to fill my second cup of the morning and also felt myself craving for donuts.
The bell chimes announcing the arrival of someone as I feel the person standing behind me.
“Is their coffee good?” I hear a familiar voice ask as I turn my head to see Professor Kiernan standing in the flesh but I am unable to recognise him for a few seconds as I notice he has completely gotten rid of his beard and he looked so dazzling, all clean-shaved as I just stare at him, my heart thumping in my chest.
“Are you okay, Thea?” He asks, giving me a devilish grin as I just nod my head. His usually gelled hair was casually falling on his forehead, damp and messy, he was looking even younger as I bit my lip trying to control my thoughts, of running my hand over his clean shaved face.
“The coffee is good.” I answer his previous question and look away, utterly embarrassed. Just friends, well have fun achieving it now, Thea Quinn. The line moves forward as it was my turn and sees the guy who returned my book last time.
“Oh hi, it’s you. Thank you for giving my book back, otherwise, I would have been in trouble.” I say, before handing him a cup and ordering my usual.
“I am glad to be of help.” He answers, “So you’re a student?”
“Yeah, right at the front of the university.” I answer and he hands me a filled coffee mug back and hands me the donut.
“The donut is on the house.” He says, passing me a friendly smile.
“Oh wow. Thank you so much.” I say, before moving on the side to collect my order.
Professor Kiernan places his order and as the friendly guy prepares his order, I saw him struggling to find something and he closes his frustration before saying, “Do you mind cancelling-”
“Here, I will pay for his order.” I interrupt as I hand my card to the billing guy.
“Thea, you don’t have to.” He says, as I just pass him a smile before he takes his order and decides to sit opposite me.
“Thank you, Thea.” Professor Kiernan says, before taking a sip of his coffee as he gazes out of the window, watching the view while I watch him. He was dressed in a plain white t-shirt and blue jeans and yet he looked like a runaway model.
“I can feel you staring, Thea.” He says, turning to look at me with a teasing smile as my cheeks turn warm, pretty sure that he could see my blush. He really needs to stop smiling like that, I might end up getting a heart attack. Why is everything about this man draws me in and makes my heart race?
“You look good.” I breathe out as I clear my throat and look down at my notebook, mentally slapping myself. I could feel his eyes on me as I struggled to concentrate while feeling his gaze at me. Not sure what else to do, I glanced up to see him already staring at me with his brown eyes as I got lost in his eyes, unable to look away.
“I don’t want us to be friends.” He declares as I widen my eyes in surprise. I was about to say something, but he put his hand on my mouth, just one inch away and I shut up. “I have already told you that I like you and I just keep on liking you. The more I want to stay away from you, the more I want you and that desire to have you is so much stronger than anything I have ever known. Not to mention the fact that we cannot stop bumping into each other, no matter how far we are, we end up standing right in front of each other. But I won’t force you to feel the same way about me or feel bad for me. I just want you to know that I am falling for you…and the way you’re looking at me doesn’t help things, it keeps on making me even more confused. I am trying not to cross the line but I need your help too.”
How am I supposed to help you when I want to erase that stupid line too? But there are so many risks, Kiernan and you’re unaware about them all. How can I be this selfish and drown you along with me in the dark side of my life? Would you still like me if I wasn’t the shining sun but the cold blizzard?
“And I would like you, every single bit of you including those bits that you don’t like about yourself.” He whispers, as he gets up, leaning towards me as he places a soft, lingering kiss on the side of my cheek as I sit there stunned. “This is the last time that I pestered you. I promise that this is the last time.” His skin brushing against mine, it was so soft that I let put a gasp.
He whispers in my ear and I didn’t want to let him go. It took a lot of willpower for me to not stop him from walking away. I touched my cheek where his lips had been a few seconds ago and got butterflies in my stomach. My subconscious was asking me to run behind him and tell him how I feel about him too but then I reminded her of my mom finding out and she shut up, hiding in the corner somewhere.
I shake my head, focusing my attention back on my homework. After a few hours I was done. Putting my books in my backpack, I step outside walking towards my home, when suddenly, it starts raining. I look up and notice the grey clouds turning darker as it starts to pour down heavily than before. Where should I go? The cafe is already way behind and there is no place to shelter in. I was about to make a run for it, when I heard someone honking as I turned to look behind and saw a car pulling in my direction. The window rolled down and I saw Kiernan, as he motions for me to sit down.
I sit down in the passenger seat as he rolls the window up and starts driving as I shiver lightly, noticing the interior of his BMW. I could smell his perfume mixed with the scent of leather on the car seats.
“You were right,” I turned to him, while putting on my seat belt, “we keep on bumping into each other, somehow.”
He chuckles, “I guess we want something but fate wants something else.”
“Where are we going?” I ask and then wonder why I ask that.
----------------------------------------
Kiernan’s pov-
I was on my way home, when I noticed it had started to rain and luckily, I found her walking in the rain. She asked where we were going, as I shrugged and replied to her place. She just nodded and looked outside the window. As I stopped the car waiting for the light to go green, I glanced over at Thea and noticed that she had tied up her hair in a bun, exposing her neckline and collarbones, with water droplets slipping down as I quickly looked away, my heart racing. Why did she tie her hair up?
I hand her a small towel to wipe herself from the corner of my seat. She passes me a smile as she wipes her neck and I couldn’t help but stare at her. And she looks up meeting my eyes as I immediately look away and drive as the light turns green. Swallowing hard, I try to ignore her gaze as I focus on the road ahead. I cannot believe I kissed her cheeks a little time ago.
So much for not trying to act on impulse and now we are in the same car. And she is completely soaked, her top is hugging her body and her jeans are drenching my seat. I stop the car outside her building as I finally look at her and she is still staring, contemplating whether to say something or not, whether it’s the wrong or the right thing to say.
She sighs, “Thank you for the lift, Professor Kiernan.” But she doesn’t show any movement of leaving as if she wants me to stop her but I cannot do that or maybe it’s just my imagination. She doesn’t want me and she made it clear. Infatuation, it’s just infatuation which hopefully if we both ignore, we will be safe.
“I intend to keep my promise, Thea.” I say, looking down at her mouth which parts to say something but she purses her lips and then nibbles on her lower lip, I quickly look up, drowning those insolent thoughts.
She looks away, embarrassed as she shakes her head and gets out of the car without looking back at me. I drive my car back to the direction of my place as I turn on the radio to listen to the news.
‘Michael Preston, who was admitted to the hospital, for causing self-committed injuries has vanished into thin air. The police detectives are looking for him and we want everyone to be on alert as we will be sharing his physical appearance so please listen attentively and immediately call the police.’
That bastard has run away. How is that possible? I need to go home and call the detective in order to know if Thea is safe, wandering around like this. I don’t even wanna think about her being unsafe while he is loose around the city. He might try to hurt her and I don’t want to see her lying in the hospital bed again.
Reaching home and taking out the business card, I called the detective who explained to me what had happened and on asking him if it was safe for Thea to be casually roaming around in the streets, he said it would be better for her not to stay alone. I requested him to give Thea a thumbs up about this situation because something told me that she wouldn’t like me talking about her safety. She would rather stay alone, maybe even bleed but she cannot watch anything else happening to her closed ones.
After that tense call, I decided to call up my elder brother to check up on him. He got married last year and his wife was now six months pregnant. He informed me that they were in town because of an important conference of his and were looking for a hotel. I invited him and his wife to stay over at my place instead. Some company would be really nice and they happily agreed.
They decided to come for dinner and stay for tonight and leave the day after tomorrow. His conference was tomorrow in the afternoon. I decided to order something special for dinner while also deciding to take a two-day leave. A much needed break will be good for me. Hopefully, Thea will look after herself during this time and stay safe. I got an instagram notification and saw that Thea has followed me on Instagram. She had posted another picture where she is watching the rain, her hands extended out, feeling the droplets and the caption says, ‘the rain falls for you, the same way I do, unapologetically over and over.’
I kept my phone away while walking over to prepare the guest room and then went on to grade the papers. By the time I was done, it was already evening as I watched it had stopped raining. The bell rings, grabbing my attention as I saw my brother Lucian and his wife, Mia standing on the door.