Burn for You (Slow Burn Book 1)(106)

Eeny came in from the parlor and looked at me like she was wondering if I needed to take a nice, long vacation in a place with barred windows and padded walls.

She wasn’t the only one affected by it. Trace flipped his lid. He roared, “You’re fucking stupid!”

I hooted, positively giddy. “And you’re proof!”

Apoplectic, he sputtered, “You need me! You told me you’d always love me! ‘I will always love you’—those were your exact goddamn words!”

Then it was like something inside me was just done with him, dusted off its hands, and turned tail without another look back.

I said calmly, “I’m not Whitney Houston, you silly goose. I need you like the word knife needs the letter k. The only thing you ever gave me was dick and a headache.”

I hung up.

Eeny and I looked at each other.

“Who on earth was that?” she asked, wide-eyed.

“Snake oil salesman. I told him to find the nearest tall building and go stand out on a ledge.”

She narrowed her eyes at me, leaning in to look closer. “You okay, boo?”

I stared at her as several things became clear all at once, like a light switch had been flipped on inside my brain and a thousand bulbs glowed white-hot, illuminating what had been standing there in the dark all along, waiting for me to open my eyes.

I was a damn fool. A stubborn, blind, hopeless fool.

The worst part was, it was myself I was fooling.

With wonder in my voice, I said, “Eeny. Jackson Boudreaux asked my mama for permission to marry me when he didn’t have to. He gave me a seven-carat Tiffany diamond ring when I said I wanted a simple gold band. He gave me a million dollars in cash, for nothing. And bought an entire building so a man who’d hurt me couldn’t hurt me again. And told me his deepest, darkest secrets—things he’d never told anyone before.”

Eeny blinked at me, unimpressed. “What’s your point?”

I inhaled a slow breath. My nerves tingled almost painfully, like they’d been frozen for years but were finally coming alive.

I whispered, “I think Jackson Boudreaux is in love with me.”

Eeny made a face like I was the world’s biggest moron. “Of course he’s in love with you, dummy! A blind man could see that! Stars above, don’t tell me you didn’t know?”

When I just gaped at her silently, she threw her hands in the air. “How I’m supposed to deal with this kind of ignorance I surely don’t know! Heavens to Betsy, Bianca, sometimes you can be awful dense!”

My throat raw with emotion, I said, “I thought love was supposed to be weak knees and butterflies in your stomach and a terrible longing that could never be quenched.”

Eeny shook her head, chuckled, came over and embraced me. “No, child,” she said gently, patting my back. “That’s romance. Romance is built on doubt. Love is solid. Constant. If you’re not careful, you might mistake it for bein’ boring because it’s so reliable. Love is warm and deep and comfortable, just right, so you float in it peacefully without ever being scalded or frozen, like a perfect, relaxing bubble bath.

“But it’s also fierce and strong and demands all the best parts of you, the parts that are giving and honest and true. Love makes you a better person. It makes you want to be a better person. You know it’s love when you feel comfortable just as you are, when you feel seen and understood, when you know you could tell all your darkest truths and they’d be accepted without judgement.”

Eeny pulled away and gently smoothed a hand over my hair. “Love isn’t butterflies, boo. It isn’t weak knees. It’s a pride of lions. It’s a pack of wolves. It’s ‘I’ve got your back even if it costs me my own life,’ because unlike romance that fizzles at the first sign of trouble, love will fight to the death. When it’s love, you’ll go to war to avenge even the slightest offense. And you’ll be justified.

“Because of all the marvelous and terrible things we can experience in this life, love is the only one that will last beyond it.”

A car with a bad muffler rumbled by on the street outside. I heard the distant hum of a jet plane flying somewhere far overhead. And deep, deep down inside my soul, a calm voice said yes.

“Oh God,” I blurted, my eyes going wide. “I love him, Eeny! I love Jackson Boudreaux!”

Eeny sighed deeply, tilted back her head, and beseeched the ceiling. “Honestly, Jesus, how can you burden me with such stupidity?”

“I have to call him, I’ve got to call him right now, oh Lord what is the matter with me, I’m an A-plus idiot,” I babbled, scrabbling wildly at the phone on the wall like it might launch itself into outer space to escape my insane clutches.