The Sunset Prophecy (Love & Armageddon #1) (15 page)

“
I think I have titanium on the front of these heels. I could probably puncture a soccer ball with these. You want try it after dinner. I saw a soccer field on the way over here.”

“
Maybe,” he playfully grinned. “How’s your mom?”

Keelen drew her eyes to the side.
“She’s sick.”

“
What’s wrong with her?”

“
The doctors don’t know.”

“
Do you mind me asking what her symptoms are?”

“
She’s had body aches for over a month now. She has recurring night sweats, and her back pain won’t go away.”

“
Have they run tests?”

“
They’ve tested for lymphoma, MRI’s, blood tests, CAT scans...nothing.”

“
When do you plan on seeing her again?”

“
Well, I was thinking around Easter. Hopefully, I should have enough money saved by then.”

Logan pulled out his phone and began scrolling.
“I’ll buy you a round-trip ticket for Easter.”

Keelen smacked her lips and grabbed Logan
’s hand. “No. You’ve already done enough. What gives with you?”

Logan tried concentrating on buying the tickets on his phone, while Keelen tried to wrestle the phone away from him.
“There,” he said, as he pressed the confirmation button. “Your mom is going to be very, very happy to see her daughter, come Easter. Make sure you buy her something nice with the money you’ve saved up so far.”

Keelen threw herself back into the booth. She let out a sigh and crossed her arms.
“Logan, seriously, what’s going on? You’ve gone from being extremely generous to possibly being a revolutionary,” she said. “Wait a minute,” she laughed. “I’m having dinner with a revolutionary.”

“
You make me feel warm, you know?” said Logan, with soulful inflection.

“
Excuse me?” Keelen responded, nervously.

“
You wear your emotions on your sleeve. You are indisputably human. You make me cheer.”

Keelen shook her head slightly.
“Wait a minute, are you complimenting me? Is this some sort of compliment?”

“
Yes. I’m complimenting you. Your faults are charming. Your mannerisms are contagious.”

“
My faults are charming? What the heck is that supposed to mean?” she asked, sneaking in a burp. “Excuse me.”

“
You’re not afraid of mixing it up. It makes you fun to be around. You’re loyal and also have an honor code you live by. On top of all that, you’re physically beautiful. Stay true to yourself, promise me,” Logan said, impassioned. He bit into a large chunk of steak from his fork and flashed Keelen a pair of innocent and smiling eyes.

Keelen sat still, stared at her wine glass, anxiously stirring the red liquid in circles.
She hypnotized herself away from Logan’s sincere analysis of her entire being. She didn’t know how to react. A beautiful, noble, brilliant and chivalrous young man just tore straight through Keelen’s entire soul. She felt vulnerable.

“
Do you remember why we broke up?” asked Logan.

Keelen looked up at the ceiling, refusing to make eye contact with Logan. Compose yourself, she thought. Matt
’s stink was all over her. A selfish and sometimes immature stink, but Keelen saw herself as a one-stink woman.

She reluctantly looked down from the ceiling and blinked her eyes rapidly at Logan, trying to deflect any sort of connection.
“What did you ask?”

“
What’s on the ceiling?”

“
Nothing, I thought I saw something flash.”

Logan
’s eyes widened. “You saw something flash?”

“
No, I mean like a shadow.”

“
A shadow?” Logan said, forcefully throwing his fork down at the table and tensing his shoulders.

“
No, listen, there’s nothing up there. What are you doing? You look like you’re going throw-down with the ceiling.”

“
Nothing,” he said, as he scanned the restaurant with intensity.

“
Why we broke up?” Keelen asked, snapping her fingers at Logan, reverting back his attention.

“
Yeah, do you remember?”

Keelen paused.
“We just drifted apart and I guess…I guess I didn’t want to get hurt...it was strange, you know? Like I knew we weren’t going to be together, but I knew and felt you’d still be around. You can call it the cleanest breakup ever.”

“
You’re a free spirit, uncorrupted in some ways. I think that’s why you can’t get acting jobs. They don’t see someone they can take advantage of. Are you sure you want to continue trying to make it an industry where you possibly have to sacrifice a part of yourself? You have a wonderful heart, how about trying something larger than yourself?”

“
Did you listen to anything I just said?” Keelen asked, ignoring his furthered analysis.

Logan sipped his glass and took his time with an answer.
“I was hurt when we broke up. I really thought we were going to take this town by storm, you and me and the limitless future.” Logan then cleared his throat. “Do you remember being with me before you met me?”

“What?” Keelen asked, clearly bothered by the question.
“What kind of Buddhist, Hindu, and Eastern thought process loaded question is that?”

“
Never mind,” he said, taking a bite form his fork. “Listen, have you ever spoken to a child who was terminally ill?”

Keelen
’s eyes sagged; surprised that he would take the conversation into a macabre direction.

“
They look into your eyes and they don’t see mortality like you and me, like an adult.”

“
It’s because they don’t know better,” Keelen added.

“
No, they sense a goodbye coming. They subconsciously feel some sort of end, because everyone treats them nicer. They receive more hugs, kisses, gifts, and more love than they’ve ever seen. But you ask some of these children what they want and soon you find out, some of them weren’t the most optimal human beings. They want things to numb their pain; they want more toys, more video games. More stuff, but the noble ones. The ones who you knew were going to grow up to be something special, the ones who were going to propagate humanity for the better, felt an insurmountable feeling of loss for their family, for their mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters. They somehow saw past the distractions, beyond the material things that had the potential to suck out what it means to be human. But there was no panic in their eyes. Calmness. Serenity. No regrets. Just a sense of loss. A pure sense of loss with no strings attached. All they felt was love all their lives. No struggles. They didn’t have years and years of life’s ugly side knocking them down, over and over again. They were leaving Earth’s plane knowing what love was. Humanity at its best. This is the natural state of man. Leaving the planet peacefully. We’ve lost that. Before everything happened, every human being left the planet like how a noble child leaves this world. In essence, that is why I broke up with you. I wanted to protect your innocence to some degree. I want to bring that peace back to this world.”

Keelen
’s eyes began watering. She sensed something deeper within Logan. Something he wasn’t inclined to tell her. “Is there something you’re hiding from me? I don’t understand. I’ve been knocked down by life. It’s not hard. I can handle anything.”

Logan grabbed Keelen
’s hands and peered into her deep blue eyes. “You’re still not jaded. You haven’t given up on people who you should give up on. Those are who I’m fighting for. Those are who I’m trying to protect. You don’t deserve to be used over something you can’t quite comprehend.”

He
tightened his grip and pulled in Keelen’s arms. He maintained intense eye contact with Keelen. However, it wasn’t one of lust, romance, or paternity, but a longing stare, a contemplation of sorts. He wanted so desperately to tell Keelen everything, but Logan felt it wasn’t time just yet.

As Keelen placed her hand up Logan
’s arms, a flurry of quick footsteps interrupted the rhythmic sounds of the calm and predictable melody produced by the customers and staff of the restaurant. Logan looked up and saw a sweating and huffing Matthew Nix.

“
What the hell, Keelen?” Matt yelled.

“
Oh, hey Matt,” she said, with an insincere smile, hiding her sudden bout of anxiety.

“
So, this is what you’ve been up to?” Matt chided. “So predictable. I thought you were above these types of scenarios.”

Logan calmly stood up from the booth and tried putting his hands on Matt, attempting to calm him down.

“Don’t put your hands on me, freak.”

“
Hey, dude, calm down. Nothing is going on.”

“
Why were you holding her hand, huh?”

“
Matt, calm down. Nothing is going down or went down,” Keelen said, as the patrons surrounding their booth began noticing the rapidly escalating argument. “You’re making a scene.”

Matt ignored Keelen
’s pleas. His forearms tightened and his scowl remained. “I saw you hold her hand. You guys have history with each other, and we’ve been ice-cold, you think I was born yesterday?” Matt castigated, putting his rigid index finger squarely on Logan’s breastbone.

Logan instinctively slapped Matt
’s hand away from his chest. This was all the physicality Matt needed to trigger what he came down to the restaurant to do, dominate Logan physically for coming between Keelen and him. Matt wasn’t quick-tempered, but he had the tendency to let things build up. Despite relishing the confrontation of another human being at the sound of a bell, he disliked confrontation outside the ring. But as soon as he saw Logan’s hands on Keelen’s, Perry’s was officially a venue with spectators.

The emotional buildup was too much for Matt to handle. Logan tapped into that inadequate part of Matt
’s psyche. Matt was the polar opposite of Logan Drake; a physical brute, incapable of nuance or self-reflection. But Matt knew that in the end they were just men with needs, who were the same age, and on the same career path. In Matt’s mind, he wasn’t the bully. He was protecting what he held dear, a chance at Keelen’s heart.

Matt
wind-milled his arm toward Logan with an open hand. Logan stood still and emitted a quick flash of light that temporarily blinded Keelen, who was still sitting in the booth.

“
Matt!” Keelen screamed.

Logan absorbed the blow. He remained unmoved. The only movement
s his body produced were the vibrations of his cheeks upon impact. Matt stepped back, surprised at Logan’s resilience, his eyes wide in shock. Professional fighters would usually stagger if hit with the same force, but here was this wiry-framed artist with the face of male model who looked as if he was cocooned since birth to feel and evoke comfort, taking the slap better than anyone Matt had ever fought or witnessed fight.

Everyone in the restaurant gasped. The restaurant manager ran toward the table and lunged at Matt
, desperately trying to hold his arms back. With the flinch of his shoulders, Matt fought off any external attempts of restraint. The restaurant manager fell to the ground and eyed Keelen, desperately looking for an answer.

Matt lunged at Logan again, this time with a closed fist. Log
an deflected the punch and kept retreating backward.

Paparazzi
, which had been camped outside for most of the night, waiting for the perfect picture, noticed the commotion inside the restaurant and began snapping away. “Who is that?” asked one of photographers, a tubby pony-tailed freelancer.

“
No way,” said the other paparazzo, whose specialty was hounding sports stars. “That’s Matthew Nix, the boxer.”

Matt kept swinging at Logan with the same relentless energy he used to tr
ain for his fight on Sunday as they staggered their warrior-like choreography of swings and misses outside of the restaurant. A small crowd gathered around the fracas and snapped pictures and video on their smartphones.

Keelen was behind the melee
, yelling at the top of her lungs. “Matt! Enough, dammit!”

Logan absorbed and dodged the punches.
Matt took one last swing before landing on his hands and knees onto the sidewalk. His eyes dimmed with exhaustion. His exaggerated pants were fodder for the advanced microphone technology phones possessed—uploads commenced.

Some in the crowd began looking at their screens as they
filmed; they began chattering and murmuring among themselves.

Logan calmly noticed the strange looks from the crowd. The rabid excitement they expressed over a potential street
brawl was now subdued and filled with collective bewilderment.

Logan flashed a grin and lifted his arms, embracing the crowd.
“How was dinner?”