Page 25 of Watch Me Burn
“Where the hell are you going?” I growled. She didn’t say anything, her attention consumed with grappling the boots she slid over her ankles.
Snatching her wrist, I lowered my voice. “Anna.”
When she finally looked up at me, I was stunned by the face I saw staring back. Anna glanced at me with contempt, struggling out of my grip before she flung her condo door open like it was a measly object.
“Anna!” I shouted after her. Besides the disgruntled cries of her neighbor, nothing was returned. She stomped off to the elevators, tapping her phone impatiently as she waited for one to arrive.
I idled by her condo’s doorway cluelessly, not sure of what I should do. Run after her? Make ourselves look like the crazy couple that fought in the hallways, sabotaging whichever reputation she had in this building and town as a lawyer?
By the time I got close to an idea, she’d disappeared into an elevator. Not saying a word of where she was going or who she’d be with.
I gazed down at my watch. It was way too late for her to be wandering out in the streets of Boston.
“Fuck.”
Taking my flip phone from my pocket, I dialed her number. One time. Two times. No response, until the third.
“Hi, this is Anna—”
“Anna, I—”
“— Unfortunately, I am unable to reach my phone at this time. If you leave a message, I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”
Hitting a wall, I cursed, “Fuck!” I couldn’t wait for her to check her damn voicemail while she was wandering the dark streets of Boston. My brain was racing at a thousand miles per hour, and my pulse was even more overworked.
I began searching for clues where she could be going at this hour. Starting in the kitchen, I figured I might stumble upon some old takeout boxes from her go-to spots.
It was a flimsy choice, but my arms moved ahead of me. I flung the fridge door open, and there I found all the takeout bags she’d piled up over the weeks. I took a note of the diner: Boinette’s Skillet. Considering Anna didn’t touch a speck of food tonight, she must’ve been starving by now.
She had to be at the diner.
The nightscape blurred before my eyes as I sped down the road. I ignored honking cars and rattled pedestrians as I drove to the address attached to Boinette’s Skillet on Google Maps, my mind nothing but a scarlet frenzy.
The way she looked at me with those tear-filled eyes—it was pure torture.
“You piece of shit,” I hissed to myself.
My hands anxiously smacked the wheel when I met a red light. It felt like hours before it turned green, but I finally was on my way to the diner again.
Chapter 12
Anna
My fingers clacked against the keyboard of my laptop. They moved in a thoughtless pattern, vomiting out whichever words came to my mind.
Pressing my temples, I reclined in my table’s chair. The backrest was as painful as the café’s glaring lights and the anxieties whirling inside of my head.
“Are you okay?” a passing waitress asked. She bent to my eye level with concern, her signature white apron shining brightly under the store’s lights.
“Oh, yes, I just need some time for the coffee to get to me.” I smiled. It took a while for me to realize I hadn’t ordered coffee—or anything at all—which was likely why the waitress had bothered to ruffle my table in the first place.
Jolting for the menu, I stammered, “Uh, can I get your burger with fries, please? And a coffee?” The waitress smiled firmly, whisking away from my table.
Sighing, I focused back on my laptop. I couldn’t kid myself—no matter how many coffees I chugged, nothing would erase my mind of the restlessness that came from my fight with Ethan.
I didn’t even know how I felt about him. What I knew was that my lips still tingled from the brush of his lips, and that my thighs would instinctively clamp whenever his piney musk neared my nostrils. His presence was so overwhelming. I craved his touch the longer we spent time away from each other. He couldn’t imagine how much I wanted to be with him when I was instead locked away with my work assignments, and my mouth would probably never articulate how I genuinely felt about him. But what I also knew was how much he pissed me off tonight and that I honestly had no clue if anything of the old Ethan was still in there.
“Your coffee. Burger will be right up,” the waitress from earlier chirped. I accepted the mug graciously, cupping its heat to refresh my mind.
