Free Burn by Crystal Hubbard

of beers from the refrigerator and handed one to Chip. “They’re so different, but they’re so much alike.”
    “You think so?” Chip followed Gian back into the media room.
    Gian sank into a loveseat while Chip took the recliner. “I want to be wrong,” Gian said softly. “I hope to God I’m wrong.”

Chapter 4
    “Is there something wrong with you?”
    Zae had stopped in the middle of the baking aisle in Freddy’s Market to bark her question. Mindless of stares from housewives dropping flour or sugar into their carts, Cinder drew to a halt, her response to Zae’s question suc cinct. “No.”
    “Chip Kish asked you out, and you’re only telling me now, two months later?” Zae started piling two-pound bags of confectioner’s sugar into her cart.
    “What are you going to do with twelve pounds of powdered sugar?” Cinder asked.
    “Make twelve pounds of frosting. Why did you turn down Chip? What did he do wrong?”
    “Nothing.” Cinder moved closer to Zae, almost top pling a floor display of discontinued brownie mixes in the narrow aisle. “I haven’t felt anything for anyone in such a long time, I’m not sure I’m capable of it anymore.”
    “You need to see a doctor,” Zae deadpanned. “Chip Kish is sick.”
    “Sick with what? He looked fine when I saw him at Sheng Li last night.”
    “Sick means good,” Zae explained. She chose two packages of shortening sticks and set them on top of her confectioner’s sugar. “It means fine. Handsome.”
    “ You’ve been reading Dawn’s e-mails again, haven’t you?”
    “Yes, once Eve translated them into English for me.”
    They left the baking aisle for the Deli & Meat counter at the back of the store. “Why don’t you go after him yourself if you think he’s so sick?”
    Zae bent over to peer more closely into the glass case housing the prepared salads and heat-and-eat entrees. “It doesn’t sound right when you say it.”
    “Why don’t you ask him out?”
    Zae stood and, with one hand planted on her hip, said, “Woman, heal thyself. Once you pull a Lazarus on your own love life, then you can try to rebuild mine.”
    Cinder held Zae’s gaze. Cinder’s experience main taining a blank expression served her well, but she had never been able to cloak her feelings from Zae.
    “I’m sorry.” Zae ran a consoling hand along Cinder’s bare upper arm. “I shouldn’t be so defensive. Or so resistant to . . .” She took a deep breath to force out her next words. “Starting over.”
    “You don’t have to apologize,” Cinder assured her. “You’re right, about all of it. There is something wrong with me, and I’ve known it for a while now. I just don’t feel right. I don’t feel at all.”
    “It takes time to fully recover from what you’ve been through. It hasn’t been two years.”
    “I don’t mean that way.” Cinder lowered her voice. “I haven’t had that urge, in so long. I can’t remember the last time I felt . . .” She widened her eyes and tipped her head to one side, hoping Zae would know what she meant.
    “Horny,” Zae blurted.
    The apron-clad butchers behind the counter looked up from their cutting and wrapping.
    “Mind your meat, man,” Zae directed them before turning back to Cinder. “You have to do something about that. You can’t let what happened back East perma nently change your life.”
    “But it did.”
    “You’re in charge, kiddo. You can determine how it’s changed you. Whether it’s for the good or the pitiful. You’ve already made positive strides toward putting the you back in you. You moved to Webster Groves, you’re learning at Sheng Li. You won’t ever be the woman you were before everything went down back East. You’ll be better.”
    “If I can rebuild my life,” Cinder started pointedly, “then so can you.”
    “I set myself up for that, didn’t I?”
    “Good advice works both ways.” Cinder smiled. “It’s been eight years since Colin died, Zae. You’re still