Chapter 25 No Third Wheel

Rana and Ethos started eating. Rana happily chewed on the meat as she savored every bite.

"I miss this place, Ethos," she said with nostalgia. "I'm so glad we dropped by here after we went to Karitt. I didn't realize I'm already starving."

She picked more meat and noticed Shane's plate was still left untouched.

"Shane, are you okay?" Rana asked before she energetically chewed more meat and picked some more from the grill to her plate. "Are you not hungry? We're already past lunch."

Shane looked up at her. The golden orbs behind his glasses looked at her passively. Rana was oblivious to anything but the meats that were being grilled at the center of their table.

"You're not eating at all. If you're not taking any meat, I'm getting them all," she said with a naughty smile on her mouth.

"No, don't hug them all to yourself, Ran," he said as he picked the meat from the grill and put them on his plates, and silently put them in his mouth. He chewed the meat and swallowed it. "This is good."

Shane said gamely and asked for more soy sauce.

He looked at Rana who was animatedly discussing the peach pies for the Harvest Festival. Ethos was simply nodding as he ate or grunted in disagreement. As he silently observed Rana and Ethos he could see the unspoken closeness between the two. He didn't realize it at first but now that he's in front with just the two of them having lunch with, he could say Rana must be close to Ethos at some point even when she appeared to be annoyed with him.

Rana seemed to have adjusted quite fine now back in Lunara City compared to when they first arrived when she had almost always sighed and had a faraway looked probably thinking of Julienne at the back of her mind.

He continued to eat as he quietly listened to her talk.

"I'm excited for the Harvest Festival. It would be a perfect time to open the shop. I'm sure Asoka and your peach pies will sell." She said as she picked meat and put them in her mouth. "I'll help you out in making the peach pies, Ethos."

Ethos opened his mouth.

"You don't even know how to make pies, Enara."

He said directly.

"I've learned how to cook while I was living in New York, you know. And Julienne sometimes baked so I caught a neat trick or two on how to make them."

She added enthusiastically.

Rana continued to talk as they had lunch. Once they finished them, they left the meat tavern and passed shops along the way.

They passed a bridal shop along the way and stopped before a glass window where a beautiful lace and sequined wedding gown was displayed.

"It's beautiful." She said with awe.

"Do you want us to get in the shop?" asked Ethos looking at the gown with passing eyes. "So you can check and see the gown?"

Rana looked at him and smiled.

"No, thanks, Ethos." She turned to Shane and said, "Let's go on a date tomorrow and talk about our plans for the wedding."

"Sure," he easily agreed throwing a furtive glance at his brother whose face remained passive and stoic as always.

They continued on their way home.

The next day Shane fetched Rana in her house and they went on a date. They talked about their plans for the wedding as they walked around the city. They dropped into the shop where Rana stopped by the previous day and she tried on the wedding dress.

"What do you think, Shane? Do you like it?"

She asked whirling the dress in front of him. Its lengthy skirt draped on the floor.

"It suits you."

He agreed looking at her. Rana's slender shoulders were exposed showing her shoulder blades as she turned her back to him. The top was a heart-shaped curve accenting her breast, the gown hugging her slender but shapely waist and hips giving the fitting a sexy look on her.

"Hmmm…" she said thinking. "Maybe we should visit other shops to further check on gowns."

Rana said as she checked herself in the mirror. She went to a room to change back to her dress.

They strolled around the park and had ice cream while continuously discussing the details of the wedding. Rana and Shane agreed to have the wedding held in two months. They talked about who will be participating in the entourage.

"Well, as you see even if Ethos is against us getting married, he will eventually agree to it. Unless you would like Helios to be the best man of the wedding?" she asked Shane with one brow raised.

"Ethiara will be the maid-of-honor though I wish Julienne is here to do it. I miss her, Shane."

She honestly admitted looking at him.

"Do you worry that you will not win over Ethos?" Rana spurned the question on him.

"I choose you, you know. So if you're worried about the Harvest Festival where I will be helping Asoka and Ethos in the process, don't worry about that, Shane. It's just a minor thing."

Shane looked at her with surprise on his face.

"Why are you even asking that?" he asked frowning at her sudden outburst over yesterday's event.

"You went silent while we were eating lunch, Shane," Rana said bluntly. "What do you think caused that?"

He just gave her a wispy smile.

"And don't say you're jealous over me pawning on Ethos about the peach pies," she said with a straight face. "Though I will admit to your face that I love his peach pies. Those peach pies cheered me up when we were lost over you being gone. It was a hard time for me back then to accept that you just disappeared out of the sky. Ethiara, Ethos, and Helios were doing their best to cheer me up and that's when Ethos brought those peaches from Asoka's farm."

"Don't worry, Rana. I will never be jealous of Ethos," he said with reassurance. "You love me more than him, right?"

Rana gave her a wistful smile.

"So back to our discussion about the wedding…."

Rana continued to speak her ideas about their wedding. Shane listened to her and added his own ideas. They decided to hold the wedding by the open clearing close to the cliff where he once disappeared from like a mark of nostalgia. Then, when they were done discussing the wedding, Rana shared with him her ideas about the furniture shop.

Rana was a bit pensive as she talked about it remembering her A&V Shop back in Avenue Street, New York. She talked to him about how it all started, who were her assistants then.

"…Noreen was a shy girl but she was able to sell a red stone snake bracelet to a woman."

Rana said going about the conversation. She mainly monopolized the talk but Shane animatedly listened to her. When Rana was young she was a talkative sort of girl aside from being an easy squealer.

Shane was smiling and released a chuckle as she was talking.

"Why are you laughing?" She asked, a curious crease appearing on her forehead.

"You were talking about me and Katarina then," he quipped. "We were the ones who were in that shop when that assistant of yours, Noreen, persuaded Kat to buy that bracelet. She was planning to wear it when we announced our engagement to our friends the next day."

Rana's eyes went round in surprise.

"That was you and Katarina…?" she asked dumbfounded. "I never knew that. You would have been chasing me then calling me Enara endlessly then, won't you, Shane?"

Shane looked at her with mirth in his eyes.

"You got me."

"But why do you keep on calling me Rana now instead of Enara, Shane?" she asked with curious interest.

"Why do you call me Shane instead of Enos, Ran?"

Shane threw back the question at her.

"I ask you first, Enos."

She said with emphasis.

Shane smiled at her with his usual boyish smile. His hazel eyes sparkling behind his glasses.

"I know you miss, Julienne," Shane said with unexpected profoundness. "And she always calls you Rana or Ran. I know I'm not Julienne but I feel calling you Rana now more than Enara. Enara is a girl I used to know back when we were kids, Ran."

"You're right, aren't you, Shane?" Rana agreed digesting his explanation. She had realized it was a little weird that Shane had been calling her Rana since their return to Lunara. He hadn't once called her Enara anymore even when all her memories have already returned; whereas when she had no memory of being Enara, he persisted in calling her that name.

"Now, answer me, why do you call me Shane more than Enos, Ran?"

Shane said returning to the topic of why their names were now switched to how they were called back in New York than their original names here in Lunara.

"Well, you've got a point there, Shane," Rana replied. "Just like you said Enara is the childhood girl you used to know, Enos was the kid I used to know. I used to know you, Enos, but as Shane, I don't really know."

"I'm still the same old me, Ran, whether you call me Enos or Shane."

Shane gave her a furtive reply.

"Are you?" she asked with a dubious look in her eyes. "Well, anyway, Shane, why don't we go back as we're done with our ice cream here?"

Rana said eating the last bits of the cone of the ice cream.

They rose from their seats and strolled back to the plaza. They walked back home. Shane and Rana live close to the center of the city. It was just a mere walking distance from their house to the central market of Lunara City. But as they traced their way back home, they reached Shane's house first.

As she stopped by Shane's gate to supposedly bid goodbye, she sniffed the sweet smell of the fruit that would easily lure her to the kitchen. It was one of her favorite smells in the world.

"Peach pies!" Rana exclaimed with excitement. "Ethos is baking peach pies."

She turned to Shane and asked. "Can I go inside your house?"

Shane chuckled at her sight.

"You don't have to ask for my permission, Ran. You're always welcome to come here anytime, you know."

She walked beside him as they entered Shane's house.

"I used to come here to see Ethos and Helios. Ethiara was always around anyway."

A thought came into Shane's mind. Before he could open his mouth to ask, Shane saw Ethiara and Ethos at the side of the house.

They were walking to the porch area with Ethiara carrying something in her hand while Ethos was carrying a cold pitcher of lemonade.

Rana walked towards Ethiara in fast long strides.

"Ethiara, you are so mean. Those are my specially-baked Ethos' peach pies you're holding in my hands. Why are you holding them in your hands, big sister?"

Rana asked in a high-pitched not-so-ordinary form of accusatory inquiry. She walked towards Ethos and looked at him with very mean eyes.

Shane was more than surprised by what he had just seen. He was taken aback by what he witnessed in front of him. Of what came out of Rana's mouth.

This is the Enara he did not know about.

Rana seemed to have forgotten about him. Though she just explained about her love for peach pies a while ago.

Shane quietly stayed behind as he watched his brother calmly look at Rana.  

Rana put her hand on his arms.

"Ethos?"

Shane heard Rana calling his name. Her voice changed. He could detect possessiveness in her. Was she jealous of Ethiara?

Had Enara once been in love with him?