Page 61 of Burn With Me

So, here I sit with the animals as close as they can get because they can feel how upset I am. My leg bounces, and my brain goes a mile a minute trying to process what’s going on.

There’s no way someone would want to break into my house, right? This is Griffin’s Den. I know everyone in town.

Knowing I can’t sit here in silence anymore, I turn on the television and open YouTube to watch my favorite gaming channel. The list of things I have to do this evening continues to grow, but I can’t bring myself to move from the couch.

I don’t know how much time has passed, but I decide I can’t let this fear keep me from my work or from being comfortable in my home.

It takes everything in me to not text Pam and ask her if I can come over with the animals. My phone keeps vibrating, and I can see it’s the group chat I have with the girls, but I don’t have the energy to answer, so I send off a quick message.

Me: I cannot thank you all enough for coming and helping.

I promise I’m okay, but I’m so drained and have a feeling tomorrow is going to be even more of a shit show. I promise I’ll text in the morning

Pam: you don’t have to thank us. We just want to make sure you’re okay

Luna: Agreed.

Oh, Ann is making you a mound of food, so be prepared tomorrow

Abby: Whenever you need us, we are there.

I vote for a girls’ night at one of our places soon

Me: You guys are the best. While Ann doesn’t have to make anything, I’m not going to turn down her food.

Also, let me get through a couple of days to get everything at the farm back on track, and then we can plan a girls’ night, and it can be at my place

Regardless of what happened today, my heart warms, and I smile at my phone.

For the first time in a long time, outside of Pam and Sam, I have friends who have my back. My phone dings again, and I think it’s the girls, but my chest tightens when I see Luke’s name pop up with a message saying he’s on the way.

I don’t know what to do. He did everything right today. At no point did he go over the top and try to take over, but he stepped in exactly when I needed him to. Is this going to end up being too much for him? Is he going to want to stick around while I try to figure all this out?

I’m going to be so busy getting the farm back in order, I don’t know how much time I’ll have outside of that. It’s one thing to deal with today, but to deal with it until this whole thing is figured out . . . I mean, he just moved here. He might meet someone while I try to figure this out.

Why am I even this upset about it? We just met . . .

I shake my head. I can’t think about things outside of my control. So instead I lean over Penny and grab my laptop out of my bag to document everything from today in the logs for the farm.

I’m halfway through my data entries when I hear a knock on the door. Even though I’m confused about my feelings at the moment, knowing that Luke is here brings a smile to my face. I stand up and stretch before walking to the door to let him in.

I’m bombarded by feelings the moment I open the door but push them away to deal with later.

I’m a mess. Maybe I need to call my therapist to move my appointment up.

As I step out of the way to let him in, relief floods my system knowing I don’t have to stay alone because while I’m an adult and can stay on my own, I really don’t want to.

Lust quickly follows, though, because damn, this man is hot no matter what he’s wearing. Sadness is last to join the party because I don’t know if I’ll be able to devote the time to a relationship while I get the farm back to normal.

“Hey, sweetness,” he says with a smirk as Penny dances around his feet.

“Hey,” I sigh.

“What are you doing? Did you eat?” he asks as he walks down the hall and drops his bag just outside the door to my bedroom.

Walking back to the couch to sit down, I say, “I was just adding the data from the water tests we’ve done over the last week into the program we use and pulling a graph from that to send to Kristen. I want to do a deep dive and make sure we have a couple of different plans in place if something like this happens again. Also, no, I haven’t eaten yet, but I’m not super hungry. So I’m good.”

“Well, I am, so I ordered pizza on the way, and you’re more than welcome to have some. It should be here any minute,” he says, walking back toward me.

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