Chris took the girl to the spare room in his flat, ensuring he got a few blankets together.
The temperature had really dropped during the transition from afternoon to evening, and he would've hated for her to get cold.
He threw one large, thick blanket on the floor and looked to her as she hung in the room's doorway.
"Make yourself comfortable." His eyes shimmered in the soft dimness when he finished spreading them out for her to slip under.
She knelt down beside him, going down to his level. She wasn't that much shorter than him, although he wasn't that tall to start with. Her piercing blue eyes penetrated his softer ones and she softly cupped his face with one hand.
Chris almost jumped from the contact, but he didn't exactly reject it. His expression took on a more perplexed look and he automatically tilted his body more towards her.
He felt something strangely familiar about the touch and there was a clear closeness between them. It was almost as though she knew him – or that he knew her from a previous life.
He snapped to. Who was he to think that? Exhaustion was probably catching up with him, and so could be making him think all sorts of things. Maybe some sleep would sort it all out.
"Get some sleep, ok?" He got up from his bent-down position. "I'll see you in the morning before I go to work."
She nodded dimly, as he made to leave the room. She took in his slender form, roving her gaze down the sides of his waist to his legs.
She gauged him at no more than twenty-seven and she panicked at the thought that maybe she'd gone to the wrong flat.
After all, if he was as young as he looked, then there was just no way there was any connection between them.
She lay down in amongst the warm blankets, her thoughts struggling to stray from the young male. She couldn't get over how young he was – or looked for that matter, and so maybe her mum had perhaps given her the wrong information about him.
She looked over towards the door where he once stood, finding that he'd gone.
If only he was still there she may've had more guts to talk to him.
Chris stripped himself down after heavily sitting down on the bed. He had a strange feeling that something was going on that he should really know about.
Did she…know him? Did she like him? Or had he completely got it wrong and was simply kidding himself?
Feeling every muscle in his body weigh down from sheer exhaustion and confusion of the whole situation, he slipped into bed and lay down on his back.
He peered up at the ceiling, wishing he knew more about what was going on.
Karen couldn't get Chris out of her mind.
Everything about that afternoon they spent together after work was perfect, and she felt better after talking to him. It didn't even have to be work related but whatever they talked about, the topic never seemed to be out of context for them.
She found him so enthralling to focus on. His posture was fairly relaxed and there was a warmth in his eyes that made her feel like she could talk about anything she wanted.
She wanted to see him more like that – before it got to the stage where it got too much for her to tell him how she felt towards him.
Tomorrow, she thought to herself firmly, tomorrow I'm going to tell him everything.
The next morning.
The young girl opened her eyes, afraid to open them when she felt the bright sun hit her across her eyelids. She managed to feel brave enough to open them and she sat up in amongst the blankets once she'd done so.
She got up out of bed, surprised at the time. A few minutes before seven.
Making herself pretty much presentable, she opened the door to the spare room, finding Chris sitting down in the lounge.
"Hey," he looked to her, his bright blue eyes glistening coolly in the early morning light, "how'd you sleep?"
She smiled a little. "Pretty good." She even surprised herself at gathering the courage to speak that time.
He peered away slowly, knowing that he could no longer inhibit his suspicions towards the way he was feeling about the whole situation. He got up, placing a hand on his hip before gazing over at her.
"You pretty much ready to go now?"
She tilted her head slightly. "Go where?"
"Well…I mean surely you've got to think about heading off to school." He knew she looked older than a schoolchild, but she could well have stayed on an extra year, for all he knew. Some of the kids where he worked did.
She said nothing but realised she was going to have to tell him everything about why she came to him specifically.
"Or work." He added with a hint of awkwardness.
She cast her gaze to the floor slowly when the young male came over to her.
She knew he wanted answers just as much as she wanted answers from him, but that was going to be quite hard if he wasn't staying around and had somewhere else to go.
"You don't have anywhere else to go…do you?"
She shook her head sadly.
"I can't let you leave here only for you to go to where you were before." Chris admitted. "It's not right."
The girl smiled weakly. "I'm not asking for you to let me stay here."
"It's not a problem if you wanted to stay. I don't mind; it'd only just be you and I."
She shook her head. "I'm going to cause more problems for you by staying. You don't even know who I am."
He tilted his head in slight confusion. "It doesn't matter to me who you are or what you've done…it doesn't even matter to me where you came from."
That he knew wasn't completely true, as he would've dearly loved to talk to her parents who let her sleep on the streets like that.
"You haven't caused me any problems by staying and you're certainly not going to if I let you do so from now on."
"So it wouldn't matter to you if I said I was your daughter?"
That threw Chris's assumption right out of the window.
The word 'daughter' was something he hadn't expected to hear from her.
He looked her over, taking in her appearance. She didn't strike an exact resemblance to him, but there were some attributes she had that were similar to his.
He thought back to the previous night, when she placed a hand around his wrist – her eyes meeting his.
Both of them obviously sensed something between them, and he didn't dislike the contact. He couldn't have disliked it anyway, if he didn't pull his hand away from her.
He snapped to and came closer to her, approaching her with an almost weighed down gait.
Swallowing hard, he twirled his index finger around her dried, slightly wavy hair and gazed into her piercing blue eyes.
He didn't want to accept it – however real it was, he didn't want to take on the responsibility of looking after a teenager. He wouldn't know where to begin!
She sensed he was confused, but something told her that he did believe her.
His touch continued through her hair, almost as if he was trying to work things out for himself. The contact between them no longer felt foreign to either.
"I've waited so long to find you," she softly stated, placing her hand around his slender wrist, "and now I have."
It was surreal, he had to admit. After all, it wasn't every day a young girl turns up on his doorstep, stays round his place and tells him the following day that she was his daughter.
He looked over at the time, and he realised he had to think about going.
"I have to go now," he explained, pulling himself away so he could get his jacket on, "I'll see you when I get back, ok?"
"To talk?" She tilted her head in mild hope. She hoped that he'd want to talk with her once he'd gotten back. There were so many questions she had for him.
"S-sure, yeah. To talk." Chris didn't sound overly sure and he certainly didn't feel it.
He got his car keys from his jacket pocket, got his stuff together and left the flat before locking the door.
All through the drive to work, it was almost as if he was running on autopilot.
It wasn't as though he was driving recklessly, but going the same route so often had gotten quite easy to him – especially when certain things were bothering him.
He glided in through the gates, parking up in his usual spot. He sat back in his seat, going over and over again the contact – if not the conversation – between them.
"I've waited so long to find you, and now I have."
He swallowed hard. He dreaded to think in what sort of state she'd be in by the time he got back. He didn't know what her mental state was like, he knew very little about her background and as for when "it" happened he did not have a clue.
For a split second he convinced himself it was all a ploy to get him to develop feelings for her – paternal feelings at that – and then maybe take advantage of him when he least expected it.
But then again, why him? He didn't have anything that would make anyone, be it a girl of her age or older, take advantage of him.
He snapped to. He couldn't think things like that.
She came to him for a reason and he wanted to know what that reason was.
Taking a look at what the time was, he decided not to dwell on it any further, got out of the car and locked it up.
The questions he was burning to ask were going to have to wait.