Burn For You

46

“Well here she is now!” said Mama, setting her teacup on the table beside her chair, which had a huge bouquet of fresh flowers on it that Trace had obviously brought. “Your ears must’ve been burning, chère, we were just talking about you!”

I glared at Trace. “I don’t know about my ears, but my ass is certainly on fire!”

“Bianca!” Mama exclaimed, scandalized. She lifted a hand to her throat. “I did not raise you to speak like that! You apologize right this minute!”

“It’s all right, Mrs. Hardwick. It’s probably just the new influence in her life,” drawled Trace, rising from his chair. He smirked at me. “I hear that Jackson Boudreaux fella Bianca’s been spending time with has really earned his nickname.”

“One more word, Trace,” I said, “and I’m gonna get my daddy’s gun out of the garage and turn you from a rooster to a hen with one shot.”

“Now stop it, Bianca, I won’t have this kind of behavior in my home!”

Mama’s voice was loud, but wavered. When I looked at her, she appeared to be struggling for breath. She tried to rise from her chair but swayed unsteadily. I rushed over and helped her ease back down.

“What are you doing out of bed, Mama?” I said crossly, kneeling in front of her.

She was indignant at being treated like a baby. “I’m sick of being in bed, Bianca, and I’m feeling a little better today, so I got up and had breakfast. Then Trace called and asked if he could come by, and I was in the mood for a little visiting, so I said yes.”

“It’s real nice you’re taking such good care of your mama, Bianca,” said Trace.

I froze. “What?”

“Since she’s been so sick,” he explained. “You know, with the flu?”

My mother and I shared a look, and my shoulders sagged in relief. The last person on the planet I wanted to know about Mama’s illness was Trace. Obviously she’d fed him the same line she’d been feeding everyone else.

Though I doubted anyone had ever heard of any flu that made all your hair fall out.

I said, “Right. The flu. It’s been going around.” I stood, holding onto Mama’s hand, and stared at Trace. “So you were just leaving, right?”

Trace crossed his arms over his chest and smiled at me. With his tight jeans and his perfect face and his biceps popping out from under the sleeves of his painted-on T-shirt, he looked like he should be on the cover of a romance novel. I wanted to take off my shoe and smack a dent in the middle of his forehead.

He said, “Actually I was just telling your mama about the new business I started.”

I looked at the ceiling, praying to God for restraint.

In the three years Trace and I had spent together, he’d started—and abandoned—a dozen businesses or more. A mobile car wash. A vitamin line. A motorcycle courier service. A new energy drink, because God knew the market didn’t have enough of those. Inevitably his new pursuits required an influx of cash, and guess who the lucky “investor” was?

Yes. Me. Gullible, stupid-in-love, working-three-jobs-to-save-for-a-restaurant me.

I said flatly, “Another new business. How thrilling for you.”

Trace’s smile grew wider. He said, “It is, actually. It’s the one we always talked about starting together. You remember, bumble bee?”

My whole body went cold. “No,” I said, but my voice sounded dead.

He nodded, pleased as punch with himself. “Sure you do! A restaurant. Got a few investors with some serious cheese, just signed the lease on the space. We’ll be opening up next month. Right down the street from your place, as a matter of fact. We’ll be neighbors!”

Shocked into silence, I stared at him.

Mama said, “Why that’s wonderful, Trace!” She squeezed my hand, trying to get me to look at her, but all I could do was stare in disbelief at the Benedict Arnold who used to be my man.

Who, in a few short weeks, was going to be my competition.

Because I’d already put Mama through her paces by saying my ass was on fire, I didn’t want to make a stink in front of her about this awful piece of news. So I put a smile on and said pleasantly to Trace, “Isn’t that nice. Would you mind if I talked to you outside for a minute?”

My invitation brought a smug look to his eyes, like he knew it was only a matter of time before I came to my senses.

He wouldn’t be so smug if he knew I was picturing severing his genitals from his body with a pair of pruning shears, but Trace never was very good at reading people. He always assumed everyone had the same high opinion of him that he had of himself. Right now he was probably thinking I wanted to get him outside so I could throw myself at his feet and beg to be part of his new endeavor.

“Of course,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. He turned to Mama and said, “Always a pleasure to see you, Mrs. Hardwick.”

“And you, Trace,” she said, shooting me a glance that said be nice.

He might not know what was in store for him, but Mama obviously did.

Trace held the door open for me on the way out. He walked behind me down the porch steps. When I stopped at the sidewalk, he stopped, too. Then he looked down at me and smiled his heartbreaker smile and proved exactly how dumb he was.

“I was just about to ask your mama for some of her recipes when you came in.”

If the top of my head were a volcano, it would’ve exploded with a fountain of flaming orange magma so huge the entire southern United States would be wiped from the map.