Burn (Songs of Submission #5)(4)

“You look good.” He stood three feet away. Why could I feel the heat from his body? How was his gaze so physical on me?

“Thanks. You too.” He wasn’t moving away. Just standing. I couldn’t even look at him. “I get your texts,” I said.

“I know,” he whispered and raised his hand, his fingertip touching my sleeve. “You can go in to talk to Debbie. I’ll wait out here. You’re at work. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

My laugh was a gunshot on a yesterday’s bloody battlefield, so short and awkward that I cast my gaze up to see if he’d noticed. His eyes, tourmaline with blue flecks I’d see if I got close enough, had that bemused look, as though nothing happened in his purview that he hadn’t predicted, and the hurt I’d caused myself was simply something I had to get control over.

Until that look, I hadn’t wondered, or even thought about, who he was f**king now. But with his heat on me and under the pressure of his presence, I had to ask myself if he breathed her name at the height of his pleasure, if he touched her with all the violence and tenderness he’d touched me with.

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

Debbie had moved behind her desk. She’d been looking older lately. I’d been led to believe her real age was thirty-eight, but that was never discussed. “Sit,” she said.

I stood. I didn’t need to stay long. I didn’t want to keep Jonathan waiting outside. The thought of him existing on the other side of the wall was painful.

“I need these days off.” I handed her a slip of paper. She checked it against the calendar on her desk.

“This should be fine.” She looked back up at me. “How are you doing?”

“All right.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

She leaned back in her chair and indicated the leather chair where Jonathan had been sitting. Anyone who hadn’t been attuned to his lingering smell might have missed it. “You took it seriously, didn’t you?”

I sucked my lower lip between my teeth and nodded.

“I told you not to,” Debbie said.

“Yeah, I kinda forgot.”

“Understandable. Just keep it together on the floor. Yes?”

“I’ll be a woman of grace.”

Debbie looked at the schedule again. “Thursday, Doreen needs to leave at ten. Can you do half a shift?”

“That’s Thanksgiving.”

“Do you have plans?”

I shrugged. “I can be here.”

She scribbled my name in the schedule and dismissed me.

When I went back out into the liquor room, Jonathan was gone. I didn’t know whether to be relieved or sad.

CHAPTER 4.

JONATHAN

I don’t know what I must have looked like to her. She looked more feral, hungry, and proud than she ever had. On edge, too. I knew if I touched her, she’d calm down. If I put my lips on her face, her breathing would slow. If I put my body close to hers, she’d stop twitching.

But I had to wait. She had to come to me. And she would.

Even as we stood outside arm’s distance of each other, I felt the space between us mold into something perfectly matched. I’d thought she was on edge, but the fact was, I hadn’t felt right since she rode away in that cab. Two weeks had stretched out into an endless horizon. I was on a path getting smaller in the distance, but always staying the same in reality. She chose to walk away, and she would have to choose to come back. I was a patient man. I could wait, but I didn’t have to like it.

“What are you going to do with her?” Debbie asked after I let Monica leave without seeing me again.

“Wait like a good boy.”

“How long?”

“I don’t know. Why?

“Because you’re here, talking to me about bulk ordering liquor and borrowing staff, when you have a bar manager to liaison with me.” She waved her hand dismissively. “Go run your empire.”

I threw myself into the leather chair. “What if the bar manager at K is a douchebag?”

“You’re saving me from a douchebag? Have we met?”

“In fact—”

“Did I not help you get through that nightmare with your ex-wife?”

“You were a godsend.”

“So stop bullshitting me. You come during her shifts and stay with Sam and me in the back, or you come after her shifts to drink at the bar. How long are you going to wait?”

“You want an exact date?”

“I want an event. Something that has to happen.”

“Fine. When I meet someone as close to perfect as she is.”

“Better start looking, my friend. She’s already moved on.”

“What does that mean?” I leaned forward. I felt myself getting pissed as the bottom dropped out of my chest.

“It means if there’s not someone else already, there will be soon. I can see it when she talks to customers.”

Debbie was always right about people. Usually, that was beneficial. Today, it was a problem. Today, I wanted to hurt someone, starting with myself. I left before Sam even got there. I could drink at home.

My phone rang as I turned onto my street. Margie.

“What?”