Page 94 of Things We Burn

She was yelling now.

Kane was still staring at me as I digested his words.

I chewed on my lip. His scrutiny was unyielding. I could barely breathe under it. “Well, I didn’t want to be in therestaurant after … everything,” I explained. “I tried at first, but I couldn’t. Because of what happened, and because the smell and any and all food made me hurl then pass out.” I was trying to make a joke at the end.

It didn’t work.

Kane’s gaze was even stormier. “You passed out in the kitchen?”

I swallowed past the boulder in my esophagus. “Not really. I mean, I caught myself.”

A beat of silence passed as he just stared at me, me looking out the window when his scrutiny made my skin begin to itch. “You caught yourself,” he eventually murmured, almost to himself.

My cheeks were flaming for some reason. I couldn’t stand the silence, so I started talking again. I’d always been comfortable in silences, even awkward ones. My ability to withstand them was a power move, so I’d never balked. Until then. “It became clear the restaurant wasn’t going to work, New York wasn’t going to work. Without my kitchen, the city was ….” Suffocating. A prison. A reminder of every memory I’d made with him.

“Unsuitable,” I said finally, touching my stomach lightly. “And the apartment wasn’t baby friendly.” I didn’t add that after Kane’s sentencing, it became impossible and unsafe to be at my apartment. Due to the mobs, my number being leaked, my heartbreak. I’d pretty much gathered my meager amount of belongings, did frantic googling about small towns then just left. “So…” I didn’t know what else to say, afraid to incite him even further.

“You bought a house. In Maine,” Kane stated flatly.

I shrugged in response. “I did. I, um, like it here.”

It wasn’t a lie. Not really. If I had the ability tolikeany place, it would’ve been here. If I weren’t numb and broken, I would’ve appreciated it. As it was, for the past five months, I had beennumb and broken and couldn’t really like anything. Therefore, Jupiter, Maine, was tolerable. The best I could do.

Kane clicked his tongue and looked out the window at the crashing waves. More silence followed. More coldness radiating from him.

I steeled myself to remain in the silence. No more babbling to fill it. It seemed to only make things worse.

“Can I get you a drink?” I eventually offered lamely, unable to stand the silence for a moment longer. “Coffee?”

Kane’s head whipped from the windows. “You have a room for the baby?” he asked instead of answering my question.

I nodded, uncomfortable with the way he spoke of the baby. There was no warmth in his tone even though he seemed to have softened some. Same with his gaze when it floated to my stomach.

Even though it turned icy the second it returned to my eyes.

“Show me,” was all he ordered.

I didn’t have it in me to argue with him, to assert any kind of dominance in my own home. I didn’t know what to do but turn my back and hope he followed me.

The thump of his footsteps told me he did.

I didn’t pass out ascending the stairs, so I was obviously breathing. But for the life of me, I couldn’t seem to feel the oxygen in my lungs. They were tight, burning, my stomach swimming with nausea. Worse than first trimester morning sickness. And that was saying something.

Kane didn’t speak. But he was behind me. Right behind me. I could smell him, feel the heat radiating off his body as it almost brushed against mine.

I was aching for his touch. For the feel of his hands on my skin, his lips. His arms around me. But he hadn’t touched me. Not since he arrived. He hadn’t seemed like hewantedto touch me. Kane, the man who’d made it his business to have our skintouching before he even knew my name. That thought was a knife to my heart.

I thought I’d made my peace with Kane never wanting to touch me again. Never wanting anything to do with me. But that was when he was absent; it was so much harder in his presence.

“Here it is.” I leaned in to turn on the light before stepping aside so he could walk through the door.

He brushed past me. The doorway was narrow, and I wasn’t exactly small these days. Plus, he was even bigger than he had been before, all of him pure muscle. But somehow, he made it so even our clothes didn’t touch. He didn’t look at me either.

It speared my insides, but I stayed upright. Somehow.

Kane walked to the middle of the room, still silent, looking around.

Yet again, I couldn’t stand the silence.

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