Page 56 of Burn for You

As I walk through the empty tables, it doesn’t feel like mine. It never has, but it gets worse and worse with every passing day—the feeling like I’m not where I’m supposed to be. I’ve got half a mind to shut this place up and get a simple job down at the local market. At least there I wouldn’t be spending every day with the ghosts of family passed.

I know I sound pathetic. I should be grateful for this, for what I’ve got here. A thriving business and an amazing team to work with. And I am grateful, but I’m also exhausted.

Out. I need out. I need a break. Maybe some time away will give my mind the rest it needs, and I can be back fresh and ready to go on Monday morning.

I pull my phone out of my back pocket and flick a text through to Gianna, letting her know I’ll be out of the office tomorrow and that she’s the boss. I’m lucky enough to still have her around, despite my grumpy pain in the ass. Knowing I can take a day off when I need to, and that Olive&Vine runs just the same, eases any guilt I have of taking a day for myself. I walk back to my office and grab my keys before locking up. I need a day away, far away. And I know the perfect place.

I can hearthe music playing from my house before I even shut the door to my truck. I swear May listens to the same six artists on repeat. All of them singing about men being trash and all that independent women shit.

Trust me, I’ve got no problems with an independent woman. But when I have to listen to these songs about it every day, it gets a little much.

I push open the oak door and the music just intensifies. May doesn’t even hear me arrive over her music. She just continues to float through the kitchen, opening every drawer she possibly can until she finds what she’s looking for. But the thing that's got me standing here at the door like an idiot is the way she’s swinging her hips with every beat of the song.

I’m paralyzed by the sight of it. Her sexy hips giving me the view of my life. It’s taking me straight back to that night in the club, seeing her move with such ease, like she was born to dance. Except this time instead of a dress, she’s wearing a pair of dark blue sweat shorts and a gray singlet, her hair in a damp mess, like she’s just walked out of the shower.Fuck, now I’m thinking about her in the shower.

“Oh my god!” I break out of my trance as May hurries over to turn her music down. “How long have you been standing there?”

“What are you doing?” I avoid her question. Partly because I don’t want her to think I was standing here perving at her, and partly because I don’t know how long I’ve been standing here perving at her.

“Uhm,” she tucks her short hair behind her ears. “I’m making dinner.”

“You’re making dinner?” I ask, moving to put my keys down in the bowl beside me and shut the door, instead of continuing to stand here like an idiot.

“I thought I’d try my hand at it, considering you’ve been cooking all day.”

I frown as I walk further into the space. The smell coming from the kitchen is surprisingly delicious, but something I can’t pinpoint.

I walk around the island and into the kitchen, floating towards where she’s cooking on the stove.

“It’s probably the one good thing my mom taught me to dobefore she left, apart from the whole ‘don’t trust men’ thing,” she laughs under her breath, but it’s devoid of humor.

“Where did she leave to?” I come up behind her, looking over her shoulder at the chicken cooking in the pan in front of her. She doesn’t answer. In fact, it feels like she’s holding her breath at my proximity. Her body is as still as a lake at dusk.

I’m so close I can smell the coconut of her shampoo and see the few light freckles that smatter over the bridge of her nose when she ever so slightly turns her head to face me. The urge to reach out and run my finger across them overwhelms me. Every time I’m near her now, that urge to touch her intensifies, and somehow, I've managed to hold myself back so far. But I don't know how much longer I can keep it up.

She hisses and her head jerks forward as she pulls her hand away from the stove. “Ah, fuck!”

I snatch her hand into my grip. “Did you hurt yourself?”

“What do you think?” She narrows her eyes at me, but it doesn’t last as she looks back down at her hand where a blister is now forming along the side of her hand.

I roll my eyes at her, turning off the induction. “Come on,” I say, walking across the kitchen to run the cold water. With the ingredients scattered around the island, and the chicken she was cooking in the pan, it looks like she’s making some form of chicken parmigiana.

“Don’t I need to put ice on it?” she asks.

“No, cold water, never ice.”

“Why?”

I sigh. “Would you just come here and put it under the water?”

She looks like she wants to say no, to go against my suggestion, but the pain that I can imagine is still searing her hand must win her over.

Once she’s got her hand running under the water, she hisses, flinching away from it. I guide her hand back under the water, pushing her arm by the elbow. “It’ll help, I promise.” She looksover at me with skeptical eyes, but she leaves her hand under the water.

“So, your mom?” I ask, distracting her from any pain, and picking up the conversation she dropped earlier.

“She left to anywhere and everywhere,” she sighs. “She’s been traveling around the world for about three years now with her boyfriend, Dave.”

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