Page 32 of Burn With Me

But that isn’t what I step into at all.

The walls are a light gray, host to a few obscure paintings that are by artists whose work I don’t recognize. Floor-to-ceiling windows let in the sunlight, shining on the simple glass coffee table and large dark gray sectional in the living room. The hardwood is a light walnut, warm beneath my bare feet since I slipped my ballet flats off once I stepped inside.

With all the sunlight streaming in, the lights are off, but the fixtures are recessed and spread throughout the large area. There’s a staircase off to the right of the living room that leads upstairs, with the kitchen—where Claudia went—nestledbeneath it. That areaisdark. The charcoal cabinets and island match the stairs, and all the appliances are a black stainless steel.

Above the island are silver glass pendant lights that hang from the ceiling. It’s the only extravagant lighting fixture in the whole place.

I don’t know why I expected chandeliers shaped like boobs.

“Mr. Jackson will be in his game room. But I doubt he will hear us go in. Follow me,” Claudia says, leaving the bags on the kitchen counter.

She leads me down a hall and opens the second door on the right, the noise hitting us like a bullet train as he yells at something. When I step in, I notice it’s like a large theater. With a flatscreen that takes up nearly the whole wall, a black couch that sits four cushions wide and two deep, and a minibar in the corner, complete with an impressive array of liquor.

Jackson is playing some sort of game, yelling at someone through his headset, and looking the most comfortable I’ve ever seen him in gray sweatpants and a plain white shirt.

“Coming up on our flank. Watch our flank! Tripp, what the fuck are you doing?!” His hand flies out toward the screen as if whoever is on the other end of his headset can see him.

Claudia grabs the remote from the minibar counter and points it at the TV. Suddenly the giant flat screen goes dark, and Jackson yells out, “What the fuck?!”

“Hold on, the TV went black.” Pulling his headset down around his neck, he starts to look for the remote.

Claudia clears her throat, causing him to spin around and see us standing behind the couch. Standing quickly, something that looks like horror flashes across his face, and I reach up to stifle my laughter behind my hand.

He looks embarrassed, cheeks growing bright red as his eyes bounce back and forth between me and Claudia—at a loss for words.

“Nerd.” It escapes my mouth through a fresh fit of giggles.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, throwing his controller and headset down on the couch. I can barely make out someone on the other end yelling at him, but he ignores it and continues to stare at me.

For a moment, I forget why I decided to come here as I take him in. His casual shirt is stretched over his muscles, his hair mussed up instead of perfectly styled. I’ve caught him off guard, and as much as I don’t want to admit it, off guard looks good on him.

Then I rememberwhyI came.

“You’re a jerk!” My voice is loud and shrill, making Claudia jump.

“I’ll just be going back to the kitchen now,” she says, scurrying out the door and closing it behind her.

“Why am I a jerk?” Jackson asks, still staring at me as if he doesn’t quite believe I’m standing in his home.

“Because you told Jacqueline you were taken and made it seem like it was by me! Now the girls at work won’t stop being catty bitches, and they are saying and doing ridiculous things. One of them tried drowning me with her coffee!” Swinging my arms out, I point to my hair. “Do you know how many times I had to wash my hair to get it all out?!”

Jackson blinks, then erupts into laughter. It catches me by surprise never having heard him let out a genuine laugh before. When he sobers up, he looks at me and shakes his head before collapsing back onto the couch.

“You know, you’re the only woman alive who would get mad at me for saying I was taken by you,” he says to the blank screen in front of him.

Marching around to stand in front of him, one hand finds my hip as I point at him with the other. “Jackson, this isn’t funny!”

“Sure it is. Tell the girls to get a life. Better yet, I’ll tell Carmela to fire them all.” He rubs his face before swinging an arm above his head to rest on the back of the couch. He’s halflying down, one leg propped up with a clear outline of his penis against his sweats.

My eyes dart back to his face, but I know he caught me looking by the look he’s giving me. “Carmeladidfire the one who dumped coffee on me. All it’s gonna do is make my job harder.”

“You’re making something else hard right now, Red.” He grins at me and wiggles his eyebrows.

I will myself not to look back at his dick. “I can’t stand you.”

Claudia reappears with a tray filled with bowls of cut fruit, yogurt, and granola. None of us say anything as she rounds the couch and sets the tray on the cushion at Jackson’s stretched-out feet.

As she leaves, he singsongs, “Thank you, Claudia.”

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