Cold Storage (Prologue): Tiffany
The dinner rush at Stella Cucina was usually loud, humid, and frantic. Riley and I moved in a practiced dance, weaving around each other. When it finally started to die down, he caught my eye from across the salad station.
His gaze flicked to the back of the kitchen, towards the walk-in, then back to me. I replied with a quick upwards twitch of my lips. Our quiet signal to slip away.
I carried the salad bowl and the cheese grater out to my table, delivered it with friendly, practiced ease, and returned to the kitchen. To the rest of the staff, we were just two coworkers who had built up an easy efficiency after six years in the same building. To me though, there was a secret thrill underneath.
When I made it back to the walk-in, the cold air and the sudden silence should’ve felt sharp against my skin. The only thing I thought about though was the warmth of Riley’s body that would soon be pressing me against the produce creates.
Riley was already in there, waiting for me, his brother’s weed pen pressed between his lips. I closed the gap between us as he slid the pen back into his pocket.
His arms were immediately around my waist, pulling me flush against him. His lips moved to my neck in an instant while his fingers teased the hem of my button down free from where it was tucked into my slacks. A soft hum escaped me as my eyes fluttering shut as I leaned against the boxes. My fingers tangled in the short hair at the nape of his neck, holding him there.
My hips rolled against him, and when his lips finally found mine a moan was muffled against them. As his hands moved under my shirt, I started thinking about Orlando again. The weekend trip I wanted to take. I imagined us in a hotel room, not surrounded by people we knew. Not having to hide the secret of what we were.
“Rye,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. I couldn’t hide the hope I felt. “I’ve been thinking… wouldn’t it be nice if we could get away for a weekend? Just the two of us? We could be free to not have to worry about anyone catching us. It could… it could be romantic.”
Riley drew back just enough to look at me, his fingers still warm as they lingered on my ribs. He blinked at me.
“This isn’t supposed to be romantic, Tiff,” he finally said. “Remember? I told you in the very beginning I didn’t want a relationship.”
“I… I know that… I just… I thought it would be nice to spend a couple of days together where we don’t have to hide.”
I could see the shift in him, from warm and affectionate to cold and sterile in a second. His hands dropped out from under my shirt as he just stared at me.
I shivered, and whether it was due to the temperature or his scrutiny, I wasn’t sure.
“We can’t do this anymore,” he said abruptly. “If you can’t keep your feelings out of this, we need to end it.”
“I know what we said, Riley,” I started, my voice rising slightly as my embarrassment started to surface. “But I can’t just flip a switch on my heart. It’s not like I wanted to develop feelings for you.”
My heart was pounding hard against my ribs now. Riley didn’t even look angry either. He just looked bored. Or inconvenienced. “Well I don’t have any. I told you what this was. If you thought you were going to get a fairytale, you picked the wrong guy.”
I sucked in a breath that was nearly caught in my throat. I refused to let him see me cry. I refused to cry. Not over a guy like Riley Holland.
My hurt shifted into a searing, righteous anger. In the harsh, flickering fluorescent light of the walk-in, I determined that he was unremarkable. Short, auburn hair, blue eyes, glasses. Nothing special. His brother at least had a quiet intensity to him. He had tattoos and gauged ears. And his eyes were green! He was at least interesting to look at.
I squared my shoulders and stepped past him, back into the kitchen. I moved past the line cooks, headed for the manager’s office while I took the name tag off my shirt.
The sound of my fist against the door sounded more like hammering a nail in a coffin.
“What’s wrong?” Eli asked, taking one look at my wrinkled shirt no longer tucked in.
“I’m done,” I said simply, tossing the name tag onto the desk along with my server book. I didn’t even bother to separate my tips from the money owed to the restaurant. I just wanted to escape. I want to create as much distance as I could between me and Riley.
I didn’t clock out either. I just headed for the heavy, wooden double doors. Eli trailed behind me wanting to know what had happened, but it wasn’t worth it to me. After what had happened with Jay Dawson a couple of years ago, and now this, I knew what kind of name I’d make for myself. I wasn’t about to become the thing everyone gossiped about.
By the time I made it to my Jetta, I was shaking. I felt drained and empty, but I still refused to cry. I just leaned my forehead against the steering wheel instead. Slumped forward, defeated. But I would not cry.
