“I understand if your feelings aren’t on the same level as mine,” Declan said. “But please don’t think you haven't done anything for me.”
I opened my mouth, the words once again on the tip of my tongue. I love you. Just three words and I felt them with my whole heart.
Then we heard a buzz from the kitchen.
Declan smiled, snapping out of his intense mood and switching back to his carefree one. “Dinner’s ready. Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
I downed half my glass of wine as I heard him removing our dinner from the oven. All the noises became muddled, and I almost had to peek in there and see what he was doing. Or rather, how fast he was doing it. His ability still amazed me and I kind of wanted to show him off. He was a miracle of modern medicine, something more amazing than anyone had ever seen. At the minimum, I wanted to show my father so I could share it with someone else who would appreciate it as much as I did.
Declan appeared again after another moment and set a plate in front of me, with delicious looking lasagna right in the center. Then he vanished in the blink of an eye and returned once more with plates of salad and warm garlic bread in a basket. The candles flickered at the speed of his movement.
“Tell me you’re not sitting all the way over there.” I just gestured to the head of the table.
He arranged the plates and then shifted a chair so it was sitting right next to me. “No, that’s not quite close enough for me.”
“Thank you. I know I said it before, but I mean it. And it’s for everything. I never thanked you for looking out for my father before, but I’m so grateful that you did.”
Declan nodded and reached down to take my hand. He lifted it for a kiss. “I would have done it even if you weren’t involved. I owed it to him. But I’m glad I could do it for you too. More wine?”
“Yes, please.”
He vanished again, disappearing so fast my breath caught. And then he was back, filling both of our wine glasses to the brim and giving me a brilliant smile.
He finally sat with his chair close enough to mine that we could both barely move our elbows.
Then he looked at me with that same dazzling smile and said, “Let’s eat.”
Chapter 29
I was still digesting all the information Declan had given me, but dinner was wonderful and Declan was in such a carefree mood that I couldn’t dwell on it for too long.
“How did you first find out about your powers or abilities?” I asked Declan.
He set down his piece of garlic bread and dusted his hands together, thinking. “Well, it was gradual at first. Several years, as I told you before. Initially, I just felt better in general. More energy, less…heavy, I guess. Like my body was in the best shape of its life.”
I ran my gaze over that body, knowing he might naturally feel good but he still had to work hard to look good. When my eyes lifted to his face again, I saw the slow curve of his lips and that he knew exactly what I was thinking.
“And then, I started sleeping less at night,” he continued. “First it was just an hour less and then two and then three—to the point that I started to get concerned. I made an appointment with my doctor but on the way there, I passed by this park I’d driven by dozens of times before. There’s playground equipment right by the street, which wasn't the smartest way to build it and I’ve actually thought of having that place torn down since then. Anyway, there was this girl, probably no more than two or three, who had wandered close to the street. She was about to step out into traffic, and I panicked. I jerked my car to the side of the road and ran over to grab her. A completely normal sequence of events, but it happened so fast, fast enough I could feel the world blurring around me. Like my brain hadn’t quite caught up with my body. I carried the girl to the grass as her mother ran up. She was shaking and babbling about how she had no idea how I’d gotten to her daughter so fast and she kept thanking me over and over again. I could barely even focus on her because I knew something had happened, something I’d never done before.”
“Oh my God,” I whispered. “You saved that little girl’s life. Did her mother suspect anything? Or anyone else?”
“She just kept saying she had no idea how I got there so fast and thanking me over and over again. I figured she didn’t see the whole thing, so I was safe. Besides, how could she prove it? There was no one else around besides the other moms at the park and I felt relatively certain that none of them had seen exactly what had happened either. Needless to say, I didn’t go to the doctor. I went straight home to think through what had happened. It took me a little while to get a handle on everything. My super-fast reflexes had been in a serious situation when my adrenaline had been at its peak. I had to learn how to channel that. So, over the next several weeks, I spent a lot of time in the mountains, kind of close to that trail we hiked this week.”
I smiled at the memory, one I would never forget.
“Now I have a new favorite trail,” Declan said, reaching
