"Stupid... how could I be so stupid." Colin thought to himself as he sat in the empty parlor room of the Crossroad's Tavern moments after Emalia had left. "At this rate she is never going to want to be around me. It would be so easy to just..." Colin's thoughts cut short there as if running headlong into an impenetrable barrier. "I just have to be happy with what I have, no matter how hard it might be. But her touch..."
Here his thoughts continued unbridled. Oh yes, her touch. The warmth, the soothing calm, the longing it stirred within him, and the tinge of pain that came along with it. But she could not know. No matter what, she could not know. He will be her friend and do his best to forget her words that are destined to repeat themselves over and over in the back of his mind: "Besides. If things don't happen with Hellstrom... who knows what the future could hold."
