Page 297 of John + Siena: The Complete Duet

“What?” she asked.

Her sleepy confusion might have been cute any other time if John wasn’t so goddamn fixated on finding the cake she had mentioned the night before. He felt her come closer as he peered into the fridge again, and moved things around.

There wasn’t even that much in there. It wasn’t like the fucking cake had got out, and walked away or some nonsense.

“Did you put it in the cupboard or something?” he asked.

Because it wasn’t on the counter in a dish, either.

Standing, he shut the fridge door, and turned to face Siena. She had leaned one hip against the kitchen island like it was going to keep her standing. Her droopy eyelids spoke to how tired she was.

“You want cake?” she asked.

John shrugged. “Yeah, the chocolate cake. You had it out yesterday when everybody was here. Where is it?”

He had pretty much gone through his office, and then the living room on a cleaning spree. Everything was meticulously shiny again. There was no dust to be found, but he only felt marginally better, really.

“You want the cake,” Siena said again.

John just stared at her. “That’s what I said.”

“Holy shit, John, it’s …” Siena looked at the clock on the wall, blinked twice, and then looked at the watch on her wrist. “It’s three in the morning.”

“Is it?”

What did that matter?

“I still want the cake,” he told her.

Siena shook her head, and rubbed her hand against her eyes. Finally looking a little bit more awake than before, she took another look at him, too. “When did you go to bed, John?”

Well …

“I didn’t.”

“Why does the living room smell like bleach?”

“I cleaned.”

Siena smacked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, and nodded. “You didn’t sleep last night, either. I saw the shelves on the way down the stairs, too. You moved everything around again.”

“I didn’t like the way it was.”

“Yeah, I bet.” Siena tightened the belt on her thigh-high, white silk robe, accentuating her tiny waist a bit more. “You just, what, suddenly wanted cake?”

“Listen, I’ll just go drive around until I find fucking cake, Siena.”

“It wasn’t a big cake, John. They finished it off. I’ll make you one tomorrow.”

No, he kind of wanted one now. And when he fixated on something—like cake at the moment—he was willing to do just about whatever he had to in order to get it. It was not as simple as a promise of eventually getting what he wanted.

“That’s not going to work,” John said.

Her blue eyes showed no surprise, and little concern at that point. “Do I have to take your keys from you?”

“Why would you—”

Siena started ticking things off her fingers in that calm, sweet way of hers that always lulled John into a sense of comfort. “You’re not sleeping. You’re fixating on different things. Your energy is through the roof. If and when you sleep, it’s maybe an hour at a time. You’re watching clocks like time is the only thing tangible to understand at the moment. You’re distracted at every turn unless it’s something you’re obsessing over. You’re not quite nasty—yet—but your moods are flipping up and down depending on who’s around at any given time.”