Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Cadence
I wake to bright sunlight filtering in through the windows of the bedroom. Reaching behind me, I press my hand to empty sheets. Zane is gone. Lifting my head, the view out the bank of windows instantly makes me smile. The river babbles away as the sun sparkles off the blue water.
Man, I could get used to this.
I stretch, my shirt falling back down my torso. Zane had pushed it up my chest when we came back to bed, and that’s where it stayed.
The orgasm in the shower had been fantastic, but the one in the middle of the night…it was unreal. I never imagined sex could feel like that.
I hear the clatter of metal coming from the kitchen and then the smell of coffee hits my nose.
It pushes me out of bed, and into the bathroom where my toothbrush sits in a little holder.
I brush my teeth and use the bathroom to freshen up before I step out into the kitchen .
Zane stands at the stove, putting bacon in a pan. He’s shirtless with a pair of low-slung sweatpants barely hanging onto his hips.
“Brave,” I say with a small laugh.
He looks back at me, a sexy smile playing on his lips. “What’s that?”
“Cooking bacon shirtless.”
He joins me in the laughter. “I like a little danger with my breakfast.”
I wrinkle my nose, as he leans to the right and grabs a mug from the cabinet.
“Coffee?” he asks, holding up the mug.
“Yes, please,” I murmur, stepping forward.
He pours out some from the pot on the counter. “Milk? Sugar?”
“Black,” I answer reaching out my hands.
“Really? You sure you weren’t in the armed forces?”
I take the mug from his hand, taking a big swig of the dark brew. I’m not much for breakfast, but I can’t live without my cup of coffee. “I’m sure.”
“How did you find black coffee then?”
I shrug as I turn away. I know it’s tough that he can’t even ask me about coffee without me tensing up. But it’s a sensitive subject.
Every bit of food was a resource in most of the placements I was put in.
Most foster homes didn’t feed me breakfast. Or dinner. Lunch came at school when I had it.
Coffee, however, came in a giant can and it was one of the few things I just got to have. Somedays I survived on only caffeine to keep me going.
Even milk and sugar were frequently rationed unless it was powdered. “Coffee is perfect all on its own.”
He cocks his head, studying me. I don’t like it.
Zane can learn how to play my body like a fiddle. But my mind? No thank you.
“Most people add loads of cream and sugar to dull the actual taste. Black coffee is usually an acquired taste.”
I shrug, taking a big sip.
Zane stares at me for another minute before the bacon starts to sizzle and then he turns back to the stove.
He works at the stove while I drink the coffee, pouring myself another mug .
That’s when he puts the bacon on the small island that acts as an eating area and a prep space. “Help yourself.”
“No, thanks,” I answer, taking the first sip of my second cup.
“No thanks?” he squints at me. “Not hungry yet?”
I shrug, straightening up in a fighting pose. I know I shouldn’t be fighting over bacon, but he’s hit this nerve and my hackles are rising. “Nope.”
He cocks his head. “Should I wait another hour before I make the eggs?”
I shake my head. “I don’t need eggs. Thanks.”
His eyes narrow. “When do you plan to eat?”
“None of your business.” The words are out of my mouth before I’ve thought them through, but I notch my chin just the same.
He slowly sets the spatula down. “None of my business?”
“I’m a grown-ass woman. I don’t need you to tell me when to eat.”
His arms cross over his chest as he grows taller before my eyes. I’m not the only one who knows how to strike a pose.
My spine straightens to match his energy as I glare over the rim of my coffee cup.
“You fought two grown men last night, went to bed really late, and then we had, at least for me, mind-blowing sex. Twice. Why wouldn’t you give your body some fuel?”
My shoulders drop a fraction of an inch. Because that’s actually kind of sensible. But I don’t need him to tell me when to eat. “I can take care of myself.”
He cocks his head to the side. “Are you always like this?”
“Like what?” But my fingers curl into the cup, because he’s zeroing in on one of the ways I’m prickly.
“So resistant to letting people help you?”
My mouth opens in surprise. How did he figure that out so quick? But I snap my teeth closed. “No.”
His brow lifts, but he turns back to the stove, cracking an egg into the pan. Silently, I reach over to the plate and take a piece of bacon, popping the whole thing in my mouth before he can see what I’ve done.
I can admit he’ s right without telling him. I don’t want him to think he gets to boss me around. He doesn’t…
Not ever.
The distance between us lasts until Zane sits down to a large plate of bacon and eggs. I nearly ask him to make me one but then change my mind. I do snatch another piece of bacon when he’s not looking.
Then I flounce off the shower.
The rest of the day passes much more pleasantly. We wade in the river, discuss safer topics like our favorite color.
Though, honestly, even that one holds pain for me.
I’m starting to realize why I so quickly detonate every relationship.
Apparently, I’m a field of land mines.
“Let me see,” Zane says as he immerses himself in the two-foot-deep water, only his head above the surface. “I went through a green phase as a child, then blue. I nearly drove my dad crazy repainting my room.”
I feel the tug, one I haven’t let pull at my chest for years.
I wanted to be one of those kids that had parents who would decorate their room with them.
I’d be lying on some stained mattress in a shit crack house and I’d dream about a pretty pink room with lace curtains, and a canopy, and a mom who read me a story and tucked me in.
I carried the fantasy with me when I moved into every shitty little musty-smelling bedroom in my string of foster homes. I look away, letting my legs float down river. “And what color did you finally land on?”
“Camo,” he answers with an easy smile. “What about you?”
“I’m a red girl,” I say with a shrug. I don’t share that pink was my first fantasy or about how my favorite jacket was red.
I got it when I was fourteen at a thrift store and took it through five different placements and then to my first job interview at a local diner.
It was my first piece of armor that gave me confidence.
I got the job but blew it up three weeks later when I stole from the register after the boss screamed at me for messing up an order.
“I can totally see you as a red girl.”
“Oh yeah, why’s that?” I flip on my side to meet his eyes.
“Flaming hair, dark eyes, temper. Red suits you. ”
That makes me smile. “Yeah. I guess it does.” I let the water pull me downstream a bit. “So, why’d you join the military?”
His smile slips. “My dad died. I didn’t have money for med school.”
I’m silent for a second, processing that one. “I’m sorry about your dad.” But I didn’t miss the fact that med school was mentioned.
“Thanks. It’s been twelve years, and it hurts a lot less than it used to.”
I nod. “What about med school?”
“I went, thanks to the GI Plan.”
“Wait,” I stare at him my eyes going wide. “You’re Dr. Zane?”
He smiles again. “’Fraid so. Though they usually call me Dr. Phillips. The military paid for the degree and then I served as a medical professional when I graduated.”
My eyes cast down. I barely graduated high school. Mostly because of my behavior. I was smart enough. Which is just more evidence this thing with Zane is very temporary. I’m not the girl who lands a doctor. I should have known…
Planting my feet, I stand, wading out of the water before I wrap myself in a towel. “I’m hungry. I’m going to get something to eat.”
I came here for change. A chance to step outside my fucked-up life and try to find a future. But there is no way this is working out.
Zane gets out too, coming up behind me. “What would you like?”
“I’ve got it,” I answer, slipping on my flip-flops before I start for the cabin.
“Are we back to that?”
“To what?” I ask, huffing out a breath.
“This food thing. You get very resistant…”
The words fly out of my mouth before I think about them. “When people starve you, you learn not to let anyone control your food—” I stop, realizing what I’m saying. What the fuck is wrong with me? I never say shit like that.
It’s like my every wound has come to the surface.
But his eyes go wide as he reaches out a hand to me. I slap it away before I turn. I’m too raw, I don’t want to touch or be touched.
I start for the cabin, but I hear him following. “What?” I turn again, my hands coming to my hips as I glare .
He stops too, assessing me slowly. “You were in foster care with your friend, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Did she get treated like that too?” he asks.
I have no idea what he’s building toward. “Yeah. Of course.”
“Does she struggle with this kind of thing too?”
“No. Of course not.” Ava had a real mom for the first eight years of her life who cared for her. Loved her. Most of her issues revolve around her attack.
“Did Ava take your food?”
“What? No. Do I look like the kind of person that a five-foot-four-petite blonde could take from?”
That makes his brows lift.
I sigh out my frustration, not really wanting to talk about Ava. “She’s not weird about people making food for her. And she doesn’t have anger issues either. But she doesn’t date. That’s her issue.”
His jaw drops. “Like ever?”
“Never. She wants to wrap herself around me like a boa constrictor instead.” I turn back toward the cabin, wincing about what I just said.
It’s kind of true. But also, not fair. She’s given me every part of herself in return.
And if anything, my issues mess with her life way more than hers do with mine.
I’m not healthy for her. I’m a shit friend, one. And two, she needs someone to help her see that not all men are like our bastard foster father. I’m not exactly modeling healthy dating experiences.
“I see. You need more space than that.”
Is he trying to figure me out? Fuck that. Like I need to see the reflection of this hot mess in his eyes.