S.E.C.R.E.T.: An Erotic Novel Read Free Page A

around
     for a meal and a visit with Will. If Tracina was running late, I’d start her tables
     for her. I never complained. I always kept busy.
    I could have made more money in the afternoons, but I liked the morning shift. I loved
     hosing the night’s dirt off the grimy sidewalk first thing in the morning. I loved
     how the sun freckled the patio tables. I loved stocking the pastry display case, while
     the coffee brewed and the soup simmered. I loved taking my time to cash out, spreading
     my money on one of the tippy tables by the big front windows. But there was always
     something lonely about heading home.
    My life began to take on a steady, reliable rhythm: work, home, read, sleep. Work,
     home, read, sleep. Work,
movie
, home, read, sleep. It wouldn’t have taken a superhuman effort to shift out of it,
     but I just couldn’t make a change.
    I thought that after a while I would automatically start living again, dating even.
     I thought there’d be a magical day when the rut would fill itself in, and I’d join
     the worldagain. Like a switch would turn on. The idea of taking a course crossed my mind. Finishing
     my degree. But I was too numb to commit. I was slouching towards middle age with no
     brakes on, my fat calico cat, Dixie, a former stray, aging right along with me.
    “You say you have a fat cat like it’s something that
she
caused,” Scott used to say to me. “She didn’t get here fat. You did this to her.”
    Scott didn’t give in to Dixie and her constant whining for food. Me, however, she
     worked over until I caved, again and again. I had no resolve, which is probably why
     I put up with Scott for so long. It took me a while to realize that I didn’t cause
     his drinking, nor could I stop it, but there was this lingering sense that I might
     have saved him if I had tried hard enough.
    Maybe if we had had a baby like he wanted. I never told him how secretly relieved
     I was to learn that I couldn’t have kids. Surrogacy was an option, but it was too
     expensive to be a viable one for us, and thankfully Scott wasn’t keen on adoption.
     That I never wanted to be a mother was never in dispute. But I still hoped for a sense
     of purpose in life, for something to take up that space that a yearning for children
     had never occupied.

    A few months after I started working at the Café, and way before Tracina stole his
     heart, Will hinted that he could gettickets for a coveted show at the jazz festival. At first, I thought he was going
     to tell me about a girlfriend he was getting the tickets for, but as it turned out,
     it was me he wanted to go with. I felt a flash of panic at the invitation.
    “So … you’re asking if I’ll go out with you?”
    “Uh … yes.” There was that look again, and for a second I thought I even saw hurt
     flicker through his eyes. “Front row, Cassie. Come on. It’s a good excuse to put on
     a dress. I’ve never seen you in a dress, come to think of it.”
    I knew then that I had to shut it down. I couldn’t date. I couldn’t date
him
. My
boss
. There was no way I wanted to lose a job I actually liked for a man who would, when
     he spent a bit of time with me, see just how dull I really was. Also, the man was
     way out of my league. I was paralyzed with fear and the prospect of being alone with
     him, outside the context of our working relationship.
    “You haven’t seen me in a dress because I don’t own one,” I said.
    Not true. I just couldn’t imagine putting one on. Will was quiet for a few seconds,
     wiping his hands on his apron.
    “No big deal,” he said. “Lots of people want to see this band.”
    “Will, look. I think being married to such a wreck for so many years might have rendered
     me kind of … undatable,” I said, sounding like a late-night radio psychologist.
    “That’s a nice way of saying, ‘It’s not you, it’s me.’ ”
    “But it
is
me. It is.”
    I rested my hand on his forearm.
    “I guess I’ll just ask the