Blazed(10)

"I don't have time to be here, Blaze. I have to go back to work." The idea of having to traverse through that crowd again made me feel sick. I was suddenly grateful for the water in front of me and made a hasty grab at the glass.

Blaze pulled his chair around the table to sit next to me rather than opposite and pulled the lank ends of my ponytail over my shoulder into his hand. "You have plenty of time, we were only walking for ten minutes." How was that possible? It had seemed like so much longer. "Well, you're not wearing it down but it's much better this way. His fingers combed through my tethered hair gently. I didn't even try to hide my frown at what he was doing— treating me tenderly the way Daniel had done every time I was having a 'saga'. He didn't like the word 'relapse'.

I caught Blaze's fingers in my fist and slowly pulled them away. "Are you always so hands on with people?" He gazed at me like he didn't understand, rubbing his thumb over the pale knuckles trapping the rest of his hand.

"No," he said eventually, "at least I don't think so. I don't really think about it and analyse my actions before they happen— I'm the type to go with the flow. Life is too short to second guess your every move."

"Does your 'flow' usually come with a side order of cliché?" He grinned at me and rested his free hand on my knee. Holy crap... I really wished he'd just bed me then disappear back to whichever smoking volcano he'd erupted from eight days earlier. "You're very intense."

"Am I making you uncomfortable?"

My eyes tracked down to his hand still on my knee, warm and alien, but... "No." I answered honestly. He frustrated me, intellectually and sexually, but once the sand he persistently kicked in my eyes settled, I was no more uncomfortable at that moment than I had been when he'd dropped me off at my flat and said a friendly goodbye. "You say you go with the flow, and yet you go out of your way to avoid women." Except me...

He shrugged. "The irony isn't lost on me but I know where to draw certain lines. However, may I snoop?"

My automatic reaction was to smirk. "You're asking my permission? I thought you had me pegged."

"I do." He pulled his hand free of mine to wave to a waitress hovering around the doorway out onto the mezzanine. She approached us, all luscious curves and auburn haired, and curtseyed politely as she delivered a sandwich to the table. Curtseyed? I waited until she was out of earshot before I laughed at her. Yes, she was definitely one of those women Blaze sought to avoid. "Something funny?"

"Not at all. You were snooping?"

He held out the plate, offering to share his sandwich, but I shook my head firmly to decline. "It's really more seeking supplementary information in regards to an observation."

"Spit it out."

He sighed and ran a finger over the small scar on his upper lip. "Your so called friends— Esme and the egomaniacal pedant— they really seem to talk down to you."

My mouth dropped open an inch. "And?" I got a very pointed look in return for my snapping before he turned and took a large bite from his sandwich. He wanted to know why, of course he did. "It's concern," I sighed, "I suppose it's hard for them to treat me like I'm at my best when they've seen me at my worst."

"Relapses?" He stared blankly at my look of horror. How much had he heard? "You work in a bookshop, Emmeline— a usually empty bookshop, and the guy talks so loudly that you may as well have just had your phone on speaker. I wouldn't want to go to his wedding either if he spoke to me like that." Ignoring my obstinate grunts of objection, he pressed on. "Your other friends don't talk to you like that."

"No, they don't." My mind cycled through the motions of the affinity I shared with the other men in my life. Daniel and Jonathan had struggled to find acceptance over their sexuality and Chris had been dealt a pretty shitty hand in the self-esteem stakes. It didn't take much to knock any of us down to rock bottom, and until you'd been there yourself, you just didn't understand how it felt. "They know what it's like to be damaged goods."

"Damaged goods!" Blaze snorted, but didn't pursue the conversation further. Instead, I watched him snarf down his sandwich with quiet enthusiasm and silently tended to my internal war wounds. I was damaged, inside and out, and it wouldn't be long before that damage spread. I was too far gone to fight it.





Four





EVERY DAY I saw the same face. That washed out, beady eyed, chubby cheeked face caked in chocolate and smudged make-up.

Why are you trying to make yourself look pretty, freak? Everyone thinks you're ugly. You're ugly, fat and everyone hates you. No matter how hard you run on that treadmill, you're always going to have a big doughy backside and five chins. Six years of this and you're still wearing the same sized jeans you wore when you left school. Even the fat chicks are embarrassed to see you in the plus size section. Maybe you can cut it out. Maybe you can remove that fat yourself and stitch it back up. You'd do anything for him, wouldn't you? Just make it go away. Nobody would ever know...

No matter how sharp my tongue was, she stood there sadly and took my insults without ever answering or looking away. She was as bored of hearing it as I was of saying it, but somehow we needed each other. She needed to hear it and I needed to be heard. We were gluttons for punishment. Words were meaningless with no action and neither of us could act alone.

If you looked at us side by side, you'd never guess that we were two sides of the same coin. You'd never understand why we stood so close together. You probably wouldn't even realise that she was there...





"HEY, EMMELINE!" THE loud voice at the door of Double Booked's bathroom made me jump out of my skin like I'd been caught with my hands in the cookie jar. "You have five seconds before I barge in through this unlocked door, White— I have your boss' permission. Wake u-up!" My chubby company returned my quizzical look at the sing-song voice. She wanted to know why Blaze had intruded on my workplace two days running too.

My failure to answer in my time limit provoked an uninvited visitor to my bathroom break. I instinctively took a step backward when the door swung open and leaned protectively towards the wide eyed face standing with me.

Blaze paused, frowning, then sagged back on the spot. "You look upset."

"How do I look upset? I'm not upset. Who's upset? Are you upset because I'm not upset." His lips pursed at my ramble and his wariness to approach me dulled. He reached out for my hand carefully, which I almost surrendered until I saw my fat friend giving me a wholly disapproving look. "What are you doing here?"

"Hoping to take you to lunch actually." I could have sworn I heard her hiss. Lunch? With him? How else would you like to fraternise with the enemy? Her patronising tone made me pale. I was somehow betraying her and Hunter by going with him.

"We had lunch yesterday."

Blaze arched a brow at me and grabbed at the hand I didn't give up willingly. His skin was remarkably soft and warm, almost like he was wearing a suede glove. "That was hardly lunch, Emmeline. Come on, something more substantial."

"I don't—"

"It's a free lunch. Who turns down a free lunch?" The muck-caked face shrugged at me. She'd never turned down a free meal in her life. That was my job. I watched her slide out of view over my shoulder as I was unwillingly tugged from the bathroom, wondering how much worse she'd look in a few hours. Blaze didn't know it, but she'd be lurking everywhere we went. Stalking us. He spun around when he heard me mutter a goodbye to her and frowned down at me. His hair had been left to flop leisurely across his forehead again and, as ever, he looked beautifully male and edible. I doubted he was going to volunteer himself as my lunch though. "Who are you talking to?"

"Nobody." As much as a nobody as I was. "I'm not hungry." Not strictly speaking...

"Then you can watch me eat." He was in I-won't-take-no-for-an-answer mode again. I wasn't confident that he had any others. "But I think you might be persuaded after the journey."

"What does that mean?"

He shot me a wicked grin that made me smile slightly. "It means you're going to sing for your supper." Nightmare visions of karaoke bars and busking flashed in front of my eyes. "Not literally!" He laughed and steered me towards my bag behind the cash desk. "But I meant it when I said this would be a free lunch. I'm not paying for it either."





THERE WAS NO chance to question his cryptic statement before we were ushered out of the door by an only too eager to shut up shop early, starry eyed Mrs Reynolds. She stared after Blaze enviously— I knew that she too planned to live vicariously through me. Hell, if she wanted to go for lunch with him instead she was welcome to take my place. Central London on a Saturday lunchtime was even less desirable than Friday lunchtime, and my already fragile disposition was quivering with the thought of all those people swarming the streets again. There'd be more of them, flocking and swooping at me like scavenging eagles, mentally picking away at my inadequacies...