Page 36 of Burn

I jump, grabbing at my chest and trip over his shoes landing on the floor. “Holy shit, you scared me.”

Owen winks, his arms behind his head but at this angle, from the floor, the pillow isn’t covering too much of him, and I can see his balls. Not the angle I wanted this early.

I stand, rather quickly, grab my coffee and head to the bathroom.

“Want me to tell Caleb you’ll call?” Owen asks.

“No!”

When I’m in the bathroom, my back pressed to the door, I’m sad. I want him to tell Caleb to call me. There’s just something about that guy I can’t shake. But I can’t call him. Not with everything going on in my life. The last thing I need to do is bring him into this mess of shit I call life.

Knowing I need to get in the shower, I finish the rest of my coffee and stare at myself in the mirror. It’s a good damn thing Caleb wasn’t awake this morning. I have mascara all over my face, and my hair looks worse than Scarlet’s. It’s matted on one side, and the other looks like I have I stuck my head out the window during a hurricane.

Just as I’m unbuttoning my jeans, Scarlet opens the door without knocking. “So . . . tell me about Caleb.”

It’s her apartment. I can’t really complain about the lack of privacy. I only just started sleeping over. “I need to shower and get over to my parents’.” All that really translates into is me being afraid if I start talking about Caleb, I won’t shut up. “It’s already ten, and I was supposed to be there by now. Aren’t you going to see your grandma today?”

“Yeah, later. It’s not like she’ll know if I show up or not.” Scarlet rolls her eyes, attempting to get the tangles out of her curly hair, still naked. I think she’s making the knots in her hair worse but I don’t say anything because she’ll ask me to brush it for her if I do. “My grandma doesn’t even know who I am anymore. She thinks I’m the little neighbor kid from her childhood.”

“I still can’t believe your mom up and moved away and left her alone in that nursing home.”

“You shouldn’t be surprised. When my dad was dying, she made sure to up his life insurance and then skipped town when they wouldn’t cash it out to her.” Scarlet gasps from behind me when I have my shirt off and turning the water on.

“What?” I don’t look back at her because I’m half naked and not as open as she is with showing off my goods.

“You lucky bitch, did you get his number?”

I cover my boobs with my hands and face her. “What? Why?”

Did he brand my ass or something?

“Dude, you have bruises all over. Was he rough or something?”

I recall pieces of the night, that parts where he’d pull my hair or when he had me on the floor on the second time around and my face buried in the ground as he slammed into me from behind. Heat spreads through my body and the remembrance of his touch.

Was he rough?

I couldn’t remember his hold being too much. “I guess. Maybe a little.” Twisting around, I wave my hand back at her. “Seriously, I have to get ready or my mother is going to kill me. Then you won’t have a job because you know damn well the only way you’re still working there is because of me.”

In the mirror, I can see Scarlet frown behind me. “You’re right.”

I’M NOT SURE how but I make it to my parents’ house on Elliot Bay about an hour later and they haven’t started brunch yet.

You’d be surprised to know my parents’ place isn’t as fancy as the hotel. My father, Weston, he’s a man of simple tastes at home. And my mother, I think she goes with whatever my dad agrees to. While she makes most of the home decisions, they surprisingly complement each other well and have a relationship noteworthy of a storybook.

They met as kids, married after college, but when it came time to start a family, my mother found out she couldn’t have kids. She’s never had a period. While I envy her on that part, I know how badly it hurt her not being able to feel life growing inside of her.

They never dwelled on it though and eventually when they were in their mid-thirties, they adopted me. I was six months old when I came to live with them. My biological parents were from Hawaii and tried to take care of me, but they were young, really young. I think my mother was fourteen when she had me and my father was sixteen.

I don’t remember them, but I saw a picture once, and from what I can tell, I look identical to my father with my mother’s smile.

“Milena, you’re here, honey.” Mom greets me with a smile when I walk into the kitchen with their Christmas presents. Pushing up the sleeve of my red sweater, I hug her tightly to my chest and then wince when she does the same because, yup, I totally have bruises from Caleb.

And just like that, my thoughts move back to him. Goddamn that controlling bastard wrecking my brain today.

“Hey, Mom.”

We part, and she holds me at arms-length. “Why were you late?”

---