Ever After (The Prince and the Pretender)

Rumbling Hearts

Chapter 4: Rumbling Hearts

Bumblebum's Bundle Buns, Home of Gilead's most delicious fudge and baked Buns

Joselin struggled to keep his invention running straight on the narrow pavement, but when he saw Aramina and Lulu strolling about just a few meters away, his twenty second trial had become a failure just like the ones before it.

Caught by a bush of flowering Azaleas, the red haired boy was lucky enough to have had no injuries. He quickly hid himself and watched if the young baker girl had noticed this humiliating scene. Fortunately, the girls were too busy gossiping about a knight named Varco and how he's stench of rum and strong masculine perfume reeked outside the bakeshop- scaring people and preventing customers to appreciate the smell of fresh bread.

"I've been seeing that baboon around the town lately, I have a strange feeling he's following me. I swear if I shall be seeing... or smelling him again today; I'd puke." Lulu said, swinging a basket of fresh banana muffins as she walked. Aramina laughed and oh, how spell bounding was it for the young inventor behind the pink flowers.

"You have that feeling every time you see a guy twice a day. Remember when you swore Kardirov was following you? Turns out you just have the same schedules and he lives beside the Button's." Aramina pointed at the butcher boy's house, a brick cottage with yellow painted windowsills. "Anyway, you better stay at home. You know how grumpy Varco checks on every corner of the Kingdom like he owns all of Gilead." Aramina waved goodbye and Lulu turned to open the Button's Iron Gate.

After whipping a bead of sweat off of her temple, Aramina placed her thin kerchief back to her skirts side pocket. As she placed both her hands to grip on the rattan basket filled with sugar cookies and croissants, the breeze had somehow managed to send her kerchief flying before her path; unnoticed.

And because Joselin would always notice anything when it comes to the hazel eyed baker girl, he mustered enough courage to pick up the kerchief. He stood on the stone pavement beside the road with the girl walking farther away. He didn't know how to talk to her or how to approach her at least. But as he looked at the thin white fabric on his bare hands, he closed his eyes and prayed for the opportunity to come. Oh how it smelled like honey and strawberries and sweet, sweet Aramina.

He smiled, determined to chase her and return the kerchief. That would be a good start to a good love story, won't it? But as he opened his eyes, he saw Aramina, gawking at him while her kerchief is still against his lips. Her brows diverged in his vulgar act disrespect as he lowered the kerchief, still in shock of the fact that the girl of his dreams had just caught him sniffing her belongings.

"I... I... I" Joselin quickly raised it to her face, nearly hitting her pointy nose. But as he looked at her hazel eyes burning with irritation, he noticed that the pure white kerchief isn't as white as it was before. The sticky black grease from the chains of his two wheeled vehicle were all over the soft fabric like a plague to an infant's lungs. "I'm so sorry." He whispered, eyes glued to the hot mess his hands had made.

"Sorry?" Aramina asked, inserting too much sarcasm in her voice like she never did before. "Do you even know how hard it is to wash mud off of a fabric? How much more black, sticky, smelly, oily grease on a hand woven pineapple fiber kerchief?" Her voice broke before she even ended the second sentence. It was supposed to be as sarcastic as her laundry rant, but when she remembered how her mother had made it for her before she left two years ago, she lost her fire.

As her annoyance turned into anger and her anger turned into hurt, Joselin's eyes widens in emotions he'd never felt before. He watched as her eyes shifted from the kerchief to his face and realized how badly he needed to say something to take away the pain. "I'm gonna fix it." He said as her brow shoots up. "I'm gonna wash it and make sure you won't see a single hint of stain."