Free Burn for You by Annabel Joseph

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    Eliot looked stricken. “I’m sorry. You have a good reason to be upset then, and here I’m buying you pie like an idiot.”
    Molly smiled and took another bite. “It’s really good pie.”
    She wanted another of his easy grins, but his face was different now. Not pitying. That would have irritated her. Just a little more gravity in his gaze. “How long were you married to him?”
    “Eight years.”
I was his slave. He kept me like a piece of property. I loved it.
She choked a little on the bite in her mouth, and washed it down with a big drink of water. “I miss him. I feel like I lost a little of who I am since he left. Well, a lot of who I am. Or who I was.” She waved a hand. “I don’t know.” How weird, to be spilling out all this stuff to a perfect stranger, but now that she’d started she couldn’t seem to stop. “I feel like I’m in this weird Neverland between lives. I feel lost.” She shut her mouth. She tasted cherries and misery on her tongue. She didn’t want this. She wanted his brightness, not her sob stories. “Are you married?” she asked to change the subject.
    He laughed. “Not even close. Although my mother wants me to get married.”
    “But you’re too much of a flirt to settle down,” Molly guessed.
    He gave her a look of feigned outrage. “Me, a flirt?”
    “Worse than a flirt, I bet.”
    He laughed then, and Molly trembled a little inside. With fear, with power. With the novelty of a man’s appreciative laugh. “Look, I don’t buy pie for every woman I meet,” he said.
    It was her turn to laugh. “Only the sad ones.”
    “Yes, only the sad ones. So I can see them smile.”
    Not flirting now. Sincerity. Such kind sincerity. Their eyes met, Molly’s forkful of pie arrested halfway to her lips. She’d smiled more in the last five minutes than the whole previous week. “It feels good to smile,” she said. “It really feels good. So thanks.”
    He seemed embarrassed now. He tucked into his pie with renewed vigor. “So what do you do, Molly? You work?”
    “No. Well...” She thought a moment. “I guess I’m searching for a position right now. Deciding what to do with my life.”
    “I hope you’re okay since...since your husband died.”
    “Oh, I’m fine. He left me with plenty to get by,” she said, in gross, gross understatement. “But I need to figure out where I go from here.” She didn’t want to tell Eliot the truth, with his earnest kindness and helpfulness, that she had more in her slush account than he’d probably make in a lifetime, and untold more tied up in investments and real estate.
    “Well,” he said, scraping his fork across his plate, “you should definitely take the time now to consider your options. This has got to feel like a crazy time.”
    “Yes, it does.” She couldn’t eat anymore. She was full. She could see across the diner that Eliot’s friends were squaring their bills and preparing to leave. “Still, pie helps,” she said.
    “Pie helps everything.” He looked over his shoulder. “Well, I have to go. It was a pleasure meeting you. Maybe I’ll see you here some time again.”
    She nodded. It took so little time to scarf down a piece of pie. Yes, maybe she’d see him again. Did she want to? She felt conflicted. He started to leave but then came back toward her table.
    “Listen, is there a day you’re usually here?”
    “I’m usually here on Fridays. Around noon.” The lie came out so easily. Eliot grinned.
    “Cool. Maybe I’ll see you then.”
    She watched him leave. He wasn’t her type, really. He was young, so much younger than her. Maybe twenty-two or twenty-three, for God’s sake, and she was thirty. Maybe next Friday at noon she’d be miles away from here, doing something reasonable. She hoped so. But she doubted it. She really, really adored his smile.

Chapter Five: A New Friend
     
    Mephisto watched Molly across the table from under his lids. She was fidgety, nervous. Something had happened. He