AllFreeNovel
Share Us
For him, it had probably been a run-of-the-mill, nothing-special kiss, which meant she was the idiot making way too big a deal of it. Simply because it had been a long time since she’d been kissed, and it was probably going to be a very long time before she was kissed again.
“That’s fucking depressing,” she muttered aloud. She talked to herself a lot these days. She had hated the utter silence of the apartment in the weeks after Sam moved out, so she’d started talking aloud in an attempt to fill it.
She was starting to think there might be some value to Liza and Penny’s suggestion that she get a cat.
Wait. Had that been a suggestion? Or a warning?
“Oh, fuck it. It doesn’t matter. You’re not getting a cat,” she told herself, shuddering at the thought of the mess a litter box would make.
She pushed a strand of hair out of her face with the back of her hand, silently chastising herself for what she was doing. She hadn’t come here to clean. She’d come to relax.
The problem was, when she had something on her mind, something that was bothering her, her go-to was to clean. Grandma had taught her that. Told her countless times that there was no worry so big that it couldn’t be scrubbed away with elbow grease.
In the past, Gianna had always found that to be true, but she’d been scrubbing her ass off since September and her worries weren’t fading this time. Between her broken heart, her loneliness, and her dread of entering the dating pool, her no-fail stress reliever was—well—failing her.
“Just keep scrubbing,” she muttered in her best Dory voice, doubling her efforts to chisel her way through what looked like decades worth of grease splatters, overflowing pies, and God only knew what else.
Upon arriving at the cabin, she’d unpacked her clothes in the small dresser near the bed. She’d made the bed with clean sheets, unpacked the groceries she’d brought with her, then carried in a load of wood and started a fire in the large fireplace.
It had been her intention to pour a glass of wine and start one of her jigsaw puzzles before dinner, but then she’d started thinking about Sam and the way he’d lied to her, then she’d relived that kiss from Elio for the millionth time, then she’d tried to figure out what the hell she was going to put on her online dating profile if she gave in to Liza’s nagging, and then…before she knew it, she was on her knees, scrubbing the oven.
The song changed to “Try,” and Gianna felt her chest grow tight, the words reminding her too much of shit she’d come here to forget. When the chorus started, she sang along, trying to let the lyrics bolster her.
She had a terrible voice, which was why she saved her sing-alongs for times when she was alone.
“What the hell?”
“Shit!” Gianna jerked up, banging her head hard on the top of the oven at the sound of a male voice behind her. She rapidly pushed herself out of the oven, rubbing the back of her head as she twisted around on the floor, armed with nothing but steel wool. Her knees were killing her, so rising was going to take some effort.
“Gianna?”
She blinked a few times to clear the gray spots behind her eyes and figure out if she was seeing what she thought.
Elio stood a few feet away from her with a hockey stick raised in his hands.
“What’s the stick for?” she asked.
“It was the only thing in my car that I could use for a weapon.”
“Why did you need a weapon?” she asked, confused. She must have knocked herself senseless. The back of her head was throbbing.
“I thought I was going to have to come in here and drive out whoever was squatting in my family’s cabin. Didn’t expect to find another car in the driveway and smoke coming from the chimney when I pulled up,” he explained.
“Oh. Gotcha. Sorry about that. What are you doing here?”
He frowned. “That’s what I was going to ask you.” His gaze traveled from where she was still sitting on her ass on the floor to the stove. “Are you…” He paused, looking at the dishwashing gloves on her hands. “Are you cleaning the oven?”
She hastily stood up, stripping off the gloves as she did so. “Yes. But please don’t tell Liza.”
“I…” Elio appeared to struggle with the request for a moment. “Okay, I won’t. Why are you scrubbing the oven in my family’s cabin?”
Gianna thought about it and realized she didn’t have an answer to that question that didn’t make her sound like a bit of a lunatic. “I’d rather answer the other question.”
Elio grinned. “Okay. Go for it.”
“Your sister loaned me this cabin for the week. I had some vacation time from work that my boss told me to use, and I wanted to get out of town because I’m so fucking sick of my apartment. It’s just, I don’t have a lot of extra money for travel, now that I’m paying the rent by myself, so Liza suggested I come here.” Gianna was aware she was rambling, but Elio’s presence in the cabin had taken her off guard.
Elio nodded slowly. “I see. This is obviously what I get for keeping secrets from my family.”
