Where To Find It
// The Florencia Lozano Homepage
// The Burning Lake ~ Todd and Téa Online
Excerpts courtesy of The Florencia Lozano Homepage
Excerpt from Chapter 13
Tea had to get away from Todd, out of the penthouse, before she could no longer control her emotions. Her feelings were starting to get the best of her. If she stayed in a room with him for any amount of time, he would know what she was trying to deny, her love. In a perfect world, with a different man, she could have let her guard down, let herself love and be loved. He was just so damned difficult, so damned different so damned exciting. The very things that she loved about him were the very things that would prevent them from being together.
She paced around the living room, wringing her hands. Her eyes wandered around the room, looking at her nice, orderly life; the life that she had always dreamed of having. She had everything that she wanted, and what she didn't have, she could go out and buy. Still, she was so miserable. Hell could not possibly be worse than what she called a life.
The walls started to close in on her, causing her breathing to become labored. Her eyes began to burn and fill with tears. Just like with every other time she was about to sob, her face contorted as she tried to fight the inevitable. She could feel her chest convulsing, at the same time as her tears began to fall.
Excerpt from Chapter 37
He looked away from her, but she could see the tears in his eyes. She stared at him, thinking how sad it must be to be so hopeless. When she had nothing else, she had hope…and faith…he didn't even have those things. She wanted to give him at least one of them, at least a little hope, and the only person that could supply that was Tea. Tea was the best thing, besides Starr, that ever happened to him. She could only imagine how devastating losing her must have been for someone as isolated as Todd. She made a decision then, to tell him about the messages that she retrieved from his answering machine. There were three from Tea, each one sounding a little more desperate. In a sense, she was using Tea, but that was the only way she could think of to get through to him.
"Todd, I was at your apartment and I listened to your messages."
"So?"
"So, Tea called for you…three times." She let her words hang in the air, and could have sworn she saw his chest visibly leap at the mention of her name. She could see the relief in his eyes, and how they softened.
He tried to pretend it didn't matter, that he was okay with living the lonely life of solitude. But Viki knew him better than that, and no matter how hard he tried to hide his feelings for Tea, she could see right through his disguises. The fact was, not since his mother had he trusted a woman with everything he had. The truth was, he didn't want to live without her…he didn't want to live at all. Yet he did, with the deep hope that one-day they could fix all that was broken between them and within them.
"She said she'd keep trying to reach you. She's worried Todd."
"Viki, she moved on…and so have I." He sounded so unconvincing, even to himself.
"I don't believe that for one minute, Todd. Neither of you have moved on from anything. You've moved around, but you haven't moved on. I suspect neither of you will, but you're both too stubborn to do anything about it. If you want to be a lonely, bitter old man, that's up to you. What I want to discuss is your drug use."
"You should be happy that I have something to take the edge off. You know me when I get a little, how would you put it? Bored? Anxious? Whatever…I hurt people." There was no way he was going to allow Viki to walk, back into his life telling him what he could and could not do. She wasn't there when he was a kid, so why the hell was she trying to tell him what to do? He was a grown man, old enough to make his own decisions. He looked at her with his hardened stare. Looked as if he was trying an intimidation tactic, when he was really searching her eyes for something else. He saw her love, her concern, her devotion…but he was looking for his mother's eyes. Those understanding eyes that she had. The gaze that could calm him like no other drug he had ever taken. Or like Tea's eyes. Those big, brown shiny eyes that could bring him to his knees in a flash. Those eyes that spoke a language without words, or touches, but touched him like nothing else. Viki, with all her love and compassion, did not have those eyes. So he turned away, crinkling his face.
Excerpt from Chapter 53
The cafeteria seemed to be the calmest place in the hospital. Tea saved a small table in an isolated part of the cafeteria while Todd paid for the coffee. As she waited, she watched him struggle to make her cup just the way she liked it. It never occurred to her before, but he obviously paid a lot of attention to her while they were married. She could practically read his lips as he counted the exact number of packs of sugar that she used, the exact number of packs of creamer, poured them in the cup and mixed the ingredients counter-clockwise, exactly as she did it. She lifted her eyebrows, impressed at his attention to the little things. He also remembered that she loved to drink her coffee with a croissant, no butter, with the edges slightly browned. She watched as he rejected croissant after croissant because they were too brown, or not brown enough. When everything was perfect, he brought them over to the table, placing the tray on the middle of the table.
"Can't anybody get anything right?" He complained, removing her things from the tray and placing them on the table in front of her. "Five minutes it took them to make one damned croissant. I tell them lightly toasted, 'cause that's what you like, and they burn it. I tell them lightly toasted again and they don't even get the edges brown. You better appreciate the things I go through for you, Delgado."
"Believe me, I appreciate you more than you know."
As he sat down across from her, he noticed for the first time how tired she looked. Not tired as in sleepy, but tired as in plain worn out. She couldn't hide it under the tough exterior, something was wrong. "Hey, are you okay?" "Me? Yes, I'm fine. What about you? How are you doing?"
"I'm doin' the best I can. You look exhausted. You sure nothing's wrong?" She stirred her coffee more giving her hands something to do. If she stopped, he might be able to see the shaking and if he saw it, he would reach out and try to stop it and if he touched her, she would start sobbing and might not ever stop. So she stirred and she looked all over the room, looking for something else to concentrate on. "I have a big case coming up and I cannot stand the client. Roseanne's a mess." As an afterthought, she added, "I'm a mess too," chuckling the entire time.
You're the most perfect thing I've ever seen, he thought. "Drop the client. Roseanne's always been a mess and you…you're the most put together person I know."
She laughed again, wishing his words had a little bit of truth to them. But he didn't know. He didn't know very much about her when it came down to it. He knew there were things that bothered her, but he didn't know to what extent, nor did he know anything about them. If he could only take off those rose colored glasses that he wore when it come to her, maybe he could see the pained little girl that was hidden beneath the surface.
"Hey," he said, lifting her chin, forcing her to look directly into his eyes, "I may be a totally fucked up person, but I am a good listener. If there's anything you need to talk about, I'm always here."