Her Safe Haven

Chapter 17 - Gossips

Previously on Her Safe Haven: Winter and Rohan were again at the Institute of Mental Health for one of their sessions. Winter was going in for her session and Rohan invited her for lunch after her session. The dog Rohan adopted in Chapter 10 was still not named yet. Rose and Tria were preparing for a girls sleepover with Riley, Winter, and Helena tonight. The boys were thinking of plans to get Gray closer to Rose, and Seth suggested that Gray should do something for her birthday next week.

In all seventeen years of his life, Jacob swore he had never ever, not even once, seen his younger brother being gentle.

No, Rohan Garrison was a lot of things: he could be aloof, stern, sometimes cruel even; but he was always cold — never ever affectionate nor seemed to be capable of showing any hint of emotion behind that indifferent facade of his. But there he was, sitting on the table across from Jacob and Lennox, silently watching the McHalen girl playing with the Garrisons' new puppy with a look like she was some sort of the most fragile precious thing on earth.

He was not staring, no. Rohan Garrison would never do something as ungracious as blatantly stare. Rohan was just very subtly paying attention to the way the McHalen girl would cuddle the dog and lift it to her face, above her head, petting it on her lap. He gave glances every now and then towards how her face would beam at the dog, and his eyes would give a slight twinkle and his lips would very slightly pursed in what could be interpreted as half amusement and a hundred percent curiosity.

However, though these movements were definitely huge gestures on Rohan's part, the motions were very subtle that, if they were some other people and not his siblings, Jacob and Lennox would not have noticed them. But after living with Rohan for sixteen years, it was impossible for Lennox and Jacob not to notice the change in their littlest brother's demeanour.

On a more obvious level, Rohan even gave more open gestures that he would not have otherwise given under normal circumstances: extending his arm to help when McHalen seemed to about to drop the puppy, and, to the absolute shock of Jacob and Lennox, actually touching her forearm instead of just calling her name to get her attention.

Though he only did it once, and the gesture was so minute and the touch so feather-like that it was almost non-existent, nonetheless their littlest brother had reached out for some kind of physical contact from McHalen. Lennox and Jacob would be damned before Rohan would be comfortably open to receiving any kind of touches from them, let alone actively seeking one; yet there he was, actually full-on-skin-to-skin-contact touching McHalen.

They could only think of one thing of this new profound discovery:

'Bloody hell, apocalypse is upon us!'

Jacob was in absolute shock, to say the least.

Yet, after roughly knowing how his brother usually think, Jacob realised that he understood that look his brother was giving McHalen. It was not one of mere attraction. It was a look of curiosity, definite interest but still with hesitation — like a pup seeing a kitten for the first time. Rohan was confused, it was very obvious to Jake that he was confused, because McHalen for him right now must feel like some itch (though not necessarily a bad one) that he couldn't scratch and didn't really know what to do about.

It was not a matter of Rohan 'liking' the girl, no, definitely not 'like'. Not yet. If Rohan had developed some kind of romantic interest in McHalen, his reaction to her wouldn't be this unnoticeable; his confusion to a feeling as new as romantic attraction would be even more obvious, and in that situation Rohan would more likely run away than approach her directly like this. But there was definitely something, and he was sure that Lennox could see it too. Something was brewing inside Rohan Garrison towards this girl — this girl whom they have met only about a month and a half ago, the mute girl sitting with them on their table right now — and Jake was sure that Rohan was going to go through a labyrinth and back trying to figure out what it was that he was currently still oblivious to.