Page 62 of Burn for You

I hear rustling behind me and as I turn around, I’m suddenly staring straight at Rafael’s abs. His beautiful,beautifulabs. His shirt is discarded on the ground along with his baseball cap.

“Are you coming in?” He asks before he begins unbuckling his belt. My stomach heats when I watch his corded forearms flex as he pulls on the leather, letting his pants fall down his legs.

“Like what you see, Whitley?” My eyes flick back to his and I see the mischievous glint in his eye. Toying with me just like I toyed with him that day at the festival. To be fair, he was clearly looking at my tits, and I am now clearly looking atallof him.

He walks past me and up onto a higher bit of ground before diving into the pool. I gasp as his body hits the water, expecting him to have hit the bottom, but I can see his form moving under the water, getting further into the middle of the water. He finally comes up, flicking his hair around like a dog, with a smile on his face. A real smile. It’s obvious how relaxed he is out here, awayfrom everything else. It makes me wonder what has him so tense back in Ruby Cove.

I decide to follow suit. Pulling on the hem of my shirt and shuffling my shorts off, leaving me in my mismatched lingerie. It’s not like I was planning on taking off my clothes today. I walk up to the spot he dove from and make my jump.

The arctic water burns my skin as I fall under the surface. I scramble to get my head out of the water. “Fuck!” I scream as soon as I can take in any oxygen. “It’s freezing!”

Rafael laughs across from me, and I have to look over at him to see the smile on his face to make sure I didn’t imagine it. That the cold water didn’t burst my eardrums, but no. Rafael is laughing.

“It gets better quickly. Don’t worry.”

I puff as I look up and around us. A canopy of trees hangs over us, leaving this place almost entirely in the dark. With only slivers of sunlight peeking through the leaves. No wonder the water is so damn cold.

“There’s no one for miles to hear you screaming,” he says.

“When you kill me, you mean? I knew coming to a cabin with you was a bad idea.”

“Sometimes I just come here to scream.” I look over at him now, but he’s looking up. “To let the water swallow the sound of it.” He closes his eyes as he leans his head back into the water.

I can feel a small smile creep up my cheeks as I think of it. Him coming out here for a release. Sometimes it feels like that’s all you need and the world will be right again. You just need to scream. So I do.

I scream. Raw and guttural and straight from my core, letting the shelter of the leaves around us carry it away.

When I open my eyes, Rafael is looking over at me, and not like he normally does. No, he’s looking at me like he knows exactly where that scream came from. I puff as I look back at him, catching my breath back after I screamed it away.

“Did that help?” he asks.

I nod in response. “How often do you come here just to scream?”

“More often than I care to admit.” He runs a hand over his hair.

“What are you screaming about?” I ask, cautious of crossing any lines between us, not that I know exactly where they lie.

He turns away, swimming deeper into the pool. I don’t know whether to follow or stay where I am, but my body makes the decision for me, and I move after him.

“I hate Olive&Vine.”

My eyes snap to the back of his head. “What?”

“Okay, I don’t hate it,” he turns around to face me. “I just… don’t love it. Not like I used to.” His voice is thick with shame, regret.

“What changed?”

He sighs, running his hand through his hair once more. “My nonna died two years ago. Olive&Vine was her restaurant.”

The floral wallpaper makes a little more sense to me now.

“Ever since she passed, I just… I can’t help but see her everywhere I turn when I’m there. I hear her laugh in the kitchen, see her dancing between the tables when one of her favorite songs plays on the radio. It doesn’t feel like mine. It felt more like mine when she was still here, even though that doesn’t make any sense.” He shakes his head.

“It makes total sense,” I say, swimming closer. “I get the idea that she was the heart of that place.”

He nods. “My whole family was. It dulled more and more over the years. First after my parents died, then again after nonna...” He shakes his head, and my heart breaks for him. I never imagined that he’d been through so much pain. My mind works over everything I know about him, everything I thought I knew.

“I wanted more than working in the one place where my memories haunt me. I wanted to go places, to meet people, to share this passion all over the world.”

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