The Caged Princess

Keir

Keir

I exhale the breath I've been holding since my outburst at Dusan. What the hell was I thinking? Apparently not straight because the one man who's always stood by my side hated me.

And Tala?

Everything was different about her. She was curvier than I had last seen her in a more womanly manner with wide hips, a smaller waist wearing a cropped sweatshirt and yoga pants that would probably give any red-blooded man a hard on. Her voice had grown softer with a hint of huskiness that was very different from the cheerful voice that I remembered. Her hair was curly, framing her face in an almost angelic way with the length that reached her waist. The colour of her eyes were more brown than I could remember and she still smelt the comforting fruity smell that I had come to identify with her.

But that could also be my doing. To test her patience and remind her of those memories that haunted my daily thoughts I had stocked her room with products she used when she was with me. I still remembered the craving it left in me every time she went back to her apartment and my nose searched for the pillow she had laid on, just to get a whiff of her sweet smell.

My thoughts return to the present, specifically to the visual where I saw Dusan caressing her face like she belonged to him. In that second all I could think of was breaking Dusan's nose for touching what belonged to me.

Belonged to me? Shit. I was so fucked.

All those memories that I had kept hidden only to unravel them when the world slept was now surfacing because she was here. The love of my life, the one whose memories haunted me every second of the day was here. To help me heal from my wife's and child's death.

As a friend. Because we were the three musketeers.

Shit. Shit I was so so fucked.