Sunkissed Serendipity

Chapter 5

Julian

I'm not sure what I was expecting after letting Isla know about my staying back for a while, but it wasn't this.

"Really?" she asks me, and I take notice of the way the smile that she wears lights up her entire face. The remenants of the sickness she had yesterday disappear with the length of her happiness. I place my hands inside my pockets and give her a sheepish, "Yeah."

There is a second of her just smiling at me, and then she moves fast on her feet, and a second later, she has her arms thrown over my shoulder. I feel myself stiffen under her touch because this is foreign to me. No one has ever just thrown their arms over me because they were merely showing gratitude.

I don't think Isla notices that I haven't been hugging her back because she only tightens her hold on my neck and I feel her hair in between my neck. She makes a small squeal and then whispers, "Oh, my god. You don't know how happy that makes me."

I really didn't.

I was only staying behind because it felt weird to leave a girl under the age of eighteen all by herself in a house that was way too big for her. It didn't feel right leaving after finding out that she didn't even know the doors to this house either. I had made the decision this morning when I got an update that the flight was full and that if someone moved theirs back, the price would be discounted. I immediately took the deal, even if I needed to be home as soon as possible.

She's still hugging me, but she doesn't think it's weird as she whispers, "Thank you, Julian." Then she takes her hand off my shoulder and lowers herself down to the floor. I'm not necessarily tall, but she is around 5'3, so she looks shorter to me in comparison. She steps back a little, and only then must she realize that she had hugged me because she looks at me up and down and says, "Oh, shit. I'm sorry about that."

"It's okay," I let her know, even though hugs have never been something I've gotten used to in my life yet. I brush past her and head toward the fridge. I put on a smile and looked past the open fridge and toward her. "After how scared you were last night, I thought I'd stay for you."

"Ha-ha," she says in mock laughter with a roll of her eyes. I smile at that and then grab two oranges from the fridge while the waffle is cooking. I hear her speaking from behind me as she says, "But thank you for that. I really appreciate the gesture."

"It's not a big deal," I let her know, keeping in mind that I didn't know how this change in news would play out once I got home. But I'd just have to deal with that later, even though I knew it would eat at me for a while here. I walk back over to my workplace and take out the waffles. I put in a new batch and then peeled the orange in my hand. I place that on a plate and take it over to where Isla was checking her phone at her seat at the counter.

She looks up at me once I slide the oranges at her, and her face flahs with horror for a moment. "Why'd you do that?" she asks, and before I can ask her for clarification, she says, "I'm feeling better today. I could have handled peeling my own oranges."

"It's easy," I say to her with a shrug. "It didn't take more than a minute."

"But," she says, chewing on her bottom lip and looking at me, seemingly irrated that I had a good point. She places her hand on the edge of the plate and says, "But I could've done it."

"For sure," I say to her, and then add, "But I thought I'd do it."

"Hm," she says, and I walk back over to where my waffles were starting to get too heated up. I pull the machine up and hear her say, "Wow. Do you just randomly choose to be kind to strangers?"