“Cocoa always makes it better.” Since she was a girl. Didn’t matter if it was summer or winter, it always put a smile on her face.
She rolls her eyes. “Dopamine. Sugar. Antioxidants. It’s science, really. And yes, but only if you make it the right way.”
Her mother taught me how to make it the right way when I was a teen.
When Drew was seven.
After the first time she ran here when her parents were fighting.
Drew watches as I pull together the ingredients, and I hate the somber downward turn on her mouth. This version of her is all too familiar, but it’s also worse. Her parents’ fighting was never about her.
This is.
I don’t usually push her to tell me what happens. She’ll tell me when she’s ready. But something about this situation won’t allow me to let it go.
Melting the chocolate and keeping the milk from scalding keeps me from asking, but once I pour two cocoas and top the mugs with whipped cream and chocolate shavings, I ask, “What did he say to upset you?”
Her back stiffens.
I pass her a cocoa and lean against the counter, taking my first sip.
When she lifts her for her first taste, I can finally breathe. Some things never change. And now, I’m waiting her out.
“His need for control rubs me the wrong way.”
It’s vague, but it’s a start. “How is he trying to control you?”
Drew pulls in a deep breath and lets it vibrate between her lips on a long exhale. “It’s not that he’s trying to control…me. I thinkit’s more about him being in charge. You know how I am around authority figures.”
I do. She buckles under heavy expectations, takes on the weight of them like she’s carrying the world around on her shoulders.
There’s more, so I wait.
Drew swirls her finger in the whipped cream and sticks it in her mouth.
The small action breathes fire into me.
My attraction to her isn’t helpful right now.
It might never be, but I also can’t ignore this growing sense of possession.
I want her to be mine.
Which is probably not at all fair to her.
She swallows hard and sighs. “I—it feels like he rejected me earlier. And I need to set boundaries with him at work. And Iknow, I should have already had them in place. I shouldn’t mix business and pleasure that way, but I don’t have a lot of experience with this. You know that.”
“I do. I know.”
Drew nods, her shoulders relaxing. It’s a giant win for me when I can help her with that.
“And he rejected you? How?”
Now, she shakes her head, her cheeks turning red. That, I’m not so okay with. Not at all happy that he has the power to upset herand so much power over her livelihood—and likely whether or not she chooses to stay in Pinebrook.
Because, damn it, of course I want her to stay. I’ve always wanted her to stay.
She must see it on my face, that talking about him is making me upset. Try as I might, I can’t seem to let it go.
