Never Lost

Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 20

You know there is always that awkward moment or should I say silence every time people meet. I mean I have had an awkward silence before when I met my crash, that’s just a joke. Shane walked to Kundai with the scarf in his hand. Kundai could easily recognize Shane at a distant; she wasn’t one to forget people’s faces. On the other hand Shane already knew Nyasha and when he saw Kundai, it was like seeing Nyasha.

‘I assume this belongs to you,’ he said with a big smile spread across his face while handing her the scarf.

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‘Yes, it does,’ she warmly responded while taking it from him, ‘thank you.’

He just nodded his head in agreement; there was another silence between them.

‘So,’ they said in unison and both smiled.

Kundai was looking down on the ground; she wasn’t able to look him in the eye. Shane was a cute man and with beautiful eyes that just made you feel so tongue tied; completely make you run out of words.

‘You are Shane right?’ she broke the silence.

‘Yes and you must be Kundai.’

‘Of cause I am, twin sister to Nyasha.’

She had a beautiful voice too, not so different with Nyasha’s voice, thought Shane to himself.

‘What are you doing in town so early in the morning?’

‘I ran away from home,’ she wasn’t about to lie.

She wasn’t a liar after all. Shane smiled, he just thought that she was being sarcastic but with the serious look she maintained on her face, she just made him clear his throat with both of his hands in his pocket now.

‘Why? What happened?’ the 2 questions just accidentally ran out of his mouth.

He didn’t want her to think that he is now interrogating her. For someone he just met, he ought to be very careful with his words towards her. She just smiled; she didn’t think he was being too much. No, he just wanted to know.

‘It’s a long story,’ she just said and felt her stomach growling.

It was such an embarrassment to her, the growling from her stomach told him she was hungry.

‘Come on,’ he said taking her hand and they walked to the restaurant, ‘what would you like to eat?’ he asked unlocking the door.

‘Do you work here?’ she asked ignoring his question.

He just smiled while opening the door for her and gestured her to walk in first. She walked inside and this was always her best restaurant. She just didn’t know that he owned the place. In his spare time, let’s just say that during weekends Shane loved going over at his restaurant to help his chefs. Being a good cook had always been his passion but you know sometimes in life, you just end up doing something that was never in part of your list, that’s how life is like. He pulled the chair for her and she sat down.

‘Breakfast will be served soon,’ said Shane and walked to the kitchen to start with the cooking.

He put the sign, ‘closed,’ at the door. He wanted to cook for Kundai first before opening the restaurant for the day. Kundai was getting bored siting alone and decided to follow him at the back. She just found him busy cutting his tomatoes. He hadn’t seen her watching him busy doing his things. When he finally turned to look at her, she was engrossed with what he was doing that she didn’t even notice him looking at her. He just smiled and continued. He had never seen someone with so much good action in the kitchen especially a male figure. He was something else, she thought to herself. Whatever he was cooking, she needed to learn also.

‘Morning boss,’ said one of the workers as he walked inside the kitchen.

He had opened the door when he realized it wasn’t locked.

‘Morning,’ responded Shane whilst cooking.

He greeted Kundai but she just replied without looking at him, her eyes were still focused on Shane as he was busy putting something in the plate. The guy just looked at Kundai and back at his boss. Shane just smiled. He finished his breakfast course as I would call it and placed the plate in front of her. She just grabbed the plate and started eating.

‘I knew this would taste nice,’ she said with food in her mouth.

‘Can I try?’ asked the guy who had walked in on them and Kundai hit his hand when he was about to take the food from her plate, ‘Ouch!’

‘Serves you right,’ she said and took the plate with her.

She walked back at the front and took a sit.

‘Make sure you…,’ Shane explained to the chef before he took the coffee to Kundai.

He sat down beside her as she continued eating her food. The food tasted good, Shane had done a great job in the kitchen, and he had impressed the lady. She finished having her breakfast.

‘Thank you so much Shane, the food was just amazing. I am so jealous of you.’

Something that differentiated Kundai from Nyasha, Kundai was a very funny person. If her biological father was still alive, people would be saying, she was just like him. Nyasha’s father was a comedian, that’s what people back at the village called him. He just made everyone laugh, even a stranger. The same goes with his daughter.

‘I should get going now,’ said Kundai as he grabbed her bag, ‘thank you very much with the food,’ she said getting up, ‘I will send you your money if you can just give me your banking details, I don’t have cash with me.’

This could have been a date, Shane cooking for the lady and she complimenting her food but they hardly knew each other. Shane didn’t want her to pay, he just did it out of humbleness, I guess.

‘No, its okay. You were my first customer to taste my new recipe and so I don’t expect you to pay anything.’

‘Are you sure?’

Such a liar Kundai, she didn’t even have her bank card with her. She accidentally left it at home.

‘Yes,’ Shane smiled at her.

‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘I will see you around then. Bye,’ she said waving her hand at him.

She walked out of the place while Shane just stared at her with her arms on his chest.

‘Who was that?’ he asked startling Shane in the process.

‘No one,’ said Shane and walked at the back.

Kundai walked at her car feeling very much relieved, I mean un hungry anymore. Shane had helped her big time. She unlocked her car and her phone had already switched off due to low battery. She got inside and sat. She took out her car keys from her bag and when she was about to start her car, it wouldn’t start. The car had no bloody furl and the worst part she had left her bank card at home. Sandra had already found out and hoped that Kundai was going to come back for it. Was she?

‘D–n it!’ she hit the steering wheel so hard and buried her head on it.

Shane wanted something from the market and so he told the chef to open the restaurant since they had cooked some food. He walked out of the restaurant to his motorbike that he had parked a few meters away from the restaurant. He noticed Kundai sitting in her car with her head on the steering wheel. Kundai was busy cursing inwardly, calling herself a fool and not clever at all. She had forgotten to take the bank card. Shane knocked at her car window and Kundai quickly raised her head up high. She had thought maybe they were the men from city council making her pay a parking ticket but it was Shane. Instead of lowering the car window, she opened the car door and got out of the car.

‘Hie,’ she said to Shane and this other part of her was so much relieved.

She didn’t know who to ask for help and the worst part her phone had switched off.

‘Hie,’ responded Shane and he saw the bags at the back of the car seat.

He wasn’t in a position to ask and Kundai noticed that Shane had seen the bags.

‘I have nowhere to go,’ she actually said without thinking first.

She had thought leaving home will be easy and a very good idea for her since she wanted to take down Diablo and didn’t want anyone to stop her from going after him but now she was stuck in the road, with no money or anywhere to go. She didn’t know some of her relatives and when she left her parents’ house, she didn’t know where she was heading too until she decided to sleep in her car. She was still mad at her mother and had no plans of going back there.

‘I left home because my mother…,’ she paused; she wasn’t just ready to open up to him or anyone.

None of these people understood what she was going through. She wasn’t obsessed with Diablo, no but she wanted Diablo to face trial and pay for what he did to her real family, mostly to her twin sister she never knew. Shane wasn’t one to judge people, he actually felt for her.

‘I have a spare room.’

He just let the words out of his mouth. He didn’t know if this was a good idea, let Kundai move in with him but what if she needed his protection. What if he can be able to save her from whatever she was running from? Kundai met Shane, she had met him before and he was just a good man, she thought to herself. They won’t be any harm if she moves in with him; maybe he can help her take down Diablo, she thought to herself while calculating her next words.

‘If it’s not okay for you to move in with me since I am stranger to you, I understand,’ said Shane trying to make the awkward tension disappear, pretend as if he hadn’t ask such kind of question.

‘I wouldn’t mind moving in with you,’ she said and cursed inwardly, did she just make it seem obvious that she wanted to be with him? ‘I mean like..’

‘I understand. We can take my bike and I would ask my driver to pick up your things and your car.’

‘The bike?’ she said in a question.

No that simple meant she had never been on a bike before.