Page 23 of Downpour

“Jesus! What the hell is going on in here?” Cassandra stood in the doorway with her hand clasped over her nose and mouth.

She stomped over in her high heels and pantsuit, turned the burner off, yanked the towel away, dropped it onto the floor, and stomped on it until the fire was out.

“I was just trying to fry an egg,” I said as I scrambled to clean up the charred tea towel.

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Whatever. You’re Ray’s problem.”

“Gee, thanks,” Ray grumbled.

Cassandra stabbed a finger at him. “You, however, are my problem.”

“What crawled up your ass?” he sneered. “Trouble in paradise with your Griffith brother?”

“Nope,” she snapped. “You were an ass to my girls the other day. That means I get to be an ass to you. Get the picture?”

Ray scoffed and pushed on the wheel to turn his chair away from her. “I didn’t do jack shit.”

“You locked them out.”

“The door wasn’t locked.”

“Yeah? Well they were raised to be respectful, unlike you. Now get your head out of your ass or you’ll have hell to pay.”

I stared, wide-eyed, as Cassandra stormed out in a tornado of blonde hair and expensive perfume.

“I think I’m in love with her,” I whispered.

He didn’t say a word.

“Why won’t you see your nieces?” I asked, tossing the corpse of a towel into the trash and used a paper towel to wipe the black streaks off the floor.

Still no answer.

“Are you close to them?”

He flinched. It was barely noticeable, but it looked a lot like guilt. “Used to be.”

“What happened?”

Ray arched an eyebrow. “Do you really think that’s any of your business?”

I laughed. “Come on. We need to get to know each other.”

“We don’t.” He grabbed the handle of the frying pan and dumped the charred remains of the egg into the garbage.

“I’m great at keeping secrets. This one time, my roommate told me that she worked her way up to being the general manager of the restaurant she’s at and has never changed the paper towels because she doesn’t know how to unlock the machine and put the new roll in. So, she just tells the new staff to do it and pretends to be busy. And I never told anyone.”

Ray tipped his chin back and huffed. “Brooke.”

“What?”

“You just told me.”

“Come on,” I begged. “You don’t talk to me at all when I’m here. It’s been days, and I’m going crazy.”

“You talk enough for the both of us.”

“If I promise to stop talking, will you tell me?”

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