Page 5 of Firestorm
I took a sip even though I knew it would be too hot and hissed when my tongue burned. Zephyr only shook his head at me.
“You do this every morning. Why don’t you just cool it?” he asked.
I ignored him. He knew why I didn’tjust cool it.
“Want me to take a crack at it?” he offered.
I visibly shivered.Hell no, I didn’t want that. I’d just deal with my burnt tongue for the next few days like always.
“Why the early start?” I asked, changing the subject. “I thought you were out late.”
I’d been up late, too. But that was because I was preparing the café for opening this morning, not because I was out on a hook-up adventure like Zeph.
Zephyr winced. “Iwasout late, so I decided I’d start early today to make it up to you.”
I arched one of my eyebrows. “Then why am I awake?”
Sure, my alarm had woken me, but that was my reading alarm. I woke up thirty minutes to an hour earlier than necessary every morning so I had time to roll around in bed and fully wake up before I had to get ready. I usually spent that time reading on my phone. Since neither of us used social media, there wasn’t anything for me to doom-scroll, so I chose to do research.
“I was hoping you could help me with him,” Zephyr said softly. “He hasn’t been in a good mood this week. I uh…need a break.”
I nodded before Zephyr even finished explaining. We never hesitated to lean on each other when needed. He’d been going strong for the last two weeks and hadn’t reminded me to switch on Sunday likeusual, so this was the least I could do. I took another sip of my coffee before making my way back to our utility room.
I glanced around the room, even though no one was there except me, and then with a flick of my wrist, the several locks on the heavy basement doorsnickedopen.
I made my way down the stairs, only flicking on a dim lamp.
Good morning,I projected with a smile.
No reply.
I swallowed thickly. So hewasin a bad mood.
I took a small sip of my coffee as the bed shifted into a sitting position. I remained quiet while I started a syringe with distilled water for flushing, then moved to the IV with some of the blended formula Zephyr had prepared.
Ordinarily, I’d be a sniffling mess when this happened, but my eyes remained dry. No tears greeted me at the lack of response since I was still too raw from my nightmare.
I took a seat on one of the plush chairs during the feeding. I sipped my coffee slowly as I scrolled through my latest medical journal, though it wasn’t keeping my attention at all.
When feeding was done, I cleaned up my mess, waited another thirty minutes, then cleaned the skin around the tube before laying the bed back into a reclined position.
See you for dinner,I projected once I made it to the door. I gripped my empty coffee mug between my hands to keep them from trembling.
No reply.
“Where’s Serena?”Zephyr asked, his tone short and irritated.
Tears had finally found me. I’d taken two breaks to go cry in the bathroom since seven, and it was now almost noon and I could feel that my eyes were still puffy.
“Not here,” I replied, placing another rack of pastries into the oven. Zephyr sighed dramatically like his day was suffering from thisrevelation alone. I only snorted. My brother had no idea what happened around the café lately.
Serena hardly showed up for work. It had become a huge issue among our other new hires ever since Zephyr turned into a man-whore and started fucking anything that moved and identified as a woman. At least…
I glanced at my brother, eyeing his broad chest and his muscled arms he worked overtime for in the gym, his dark hair which was perfectly coiled due to the twist-out he’d worn overnight…
We had the same eyes, though his took on a greener hue while mine remained silver. The other obvious difference was our skin – mine was pale without even a blush while his was a rich, caramel brown with freckles across his face. My brother was attractive, I could admit that while not being attractedtohim. Whether or not he liked boys was a mystery to me.
“She’s supposed to be here.” Zephyr snapped.
