Blazed(39)

"Well sure, Emmy. At some point you have to swallow the bitter truth and accept that your friends are arseholes. Not all of you, obviously, but he's really doing more damage than good. Tell me your heart didn't leap into your mouth when you heard his voice."

"It petrified and hit my feet."

"Good, good." He nodded but traded a glance with Jonathan, withdrawing the same way Blaze had before he'd left. It didn't matter that he shook it off quickly because I'd seen it already. Something was going on, some kind of conspiracy, and I wasn't in on it.



ESME'S and Chris' unnatural exuberance didn't improve my state of concern when we hauled into Esme's as usual. She too traded secret glances and smiles, while Chris' cheerfulness had an edge to it, like he was in on some sort of evil scheme that would cause a tragedy of catastrophic proportions. Whatever they all knew, he was happy about it for a different reason and that scared me.

"You know when you just have a really bad feeling about something?" It surprised me how drunk I was feeling. I'd been accosted at the bar when we'd first arrived by a group of people who recognised me from some candid press photos of myself and Blaze around the city, and they'd invited me to join them in a round of shots. I could never turn down a free drink, but I really should not have felt as lousy as I did for one more. My voice didn't sound like my own. I wasn't sure that I was making sense and I was feeling so dog tired. Suspecting it was just a result of my shitty mood, I pushed on. "You're all keeping something from me and it's really not fair. Something is going to go wrong. I can feel it in my gut."

My four friends bristled. My gut feelings were usually pretty precise, capable of picking up on misfortune lingering before it happened. I joked that I was distantly related to the cats and dogs who laid down beside a pensioner in a nursing home because they smelled death coming.

Esme reached for my hand and squeezed it tightly. "You don't have to worry about anything. I promise. Nothing bad is going to happen."

"Whatever." I pulled my hand back, pushing to my feet. Impending doom wasn't the only thing happening in my gut and the crowded room was starting to stifle me. I needed air. I lusted for the dry lingering heat of a dying summer to disappear and grant me with a cool, revitalising blast when I stepped outside. And whether he was busy or not, I needed to talk to Blaze. I needed to know that he'd be there like he promised in the morning and there wouldn't be anything hanging between us.

My step faltered when I edged around the table. Chris leapt to his feet and caught me before I made contact with the floor. "Damn, Emmy. You've been here less than an hour, how are you so trashed already?"

"I'm not. What's the strongest thing here for shots?"

Esme frowned. "I think we still have some Pernod Absinthe but you have the constitution of an ox. One shot shouldn't have— Emmy? Emmy!"





Thirteen



THERE WAS A poker hot body wrapped around me when I woke the next morning. It was attached to a scent I knew well; Chanel perfume mixed with black cherry flavoured tobacco and white rum. It wasn't the way Esme dutifully stroked my knotted hair that woke me, nor the fact that, unlike most of the other times before when I'd woken up this way, she was still dressed. It was more the fact that there was a third person in the room, standing at the foot of the bed.

"Well, this is interesting."

I lifted my head weakly to sigh at Blaze, quickly sinking back at the exertion. He'd still come to me as promised and didn't look as distracted as he had done the last time I'd seen him. I was grateful for that at least. Still, the way I felt detracted my attention away from the fact he looked wicked hot in tight jeans, high-tops and a loose fitting Monday's Miracle t-shirt. "Have I crossed some kind of line by waking up with a woman? 'No, oh no, I'm sorry. It's not what it looks like'." I opened one eye to look for Esme's confirmation. "Is it?"

"Not this time, sexpot. You know I like you lucid and/or sentient. There was none of that, mores the pity." She slid out of my bed and headed in the direction of the kitchen, pausing at Blaze's shoulder. "We had a mishap last night. Emmy's drink was spiked."

"What?" I flinched at the sound of his car keys hitting the floor. In less than a second, he was at my side, taking Esme's place between the sheets and cradling my head against his chest. Being dragged around like a rag doll nagged at my aching muscles and made me wince, but it was a small price to pay for being in what had somewhat recklessly become my most favourite place in the world. "Why the hell would someone go to your bar to do that? Why the hell didn't you call me?" The questions seemed almost like accusations.

"Your girl there has a 'one hit wonder' reputation. She has patterns— she never sleeps with the same man twice. At least she never used to..." Esme shot a pointed look in my direction. "Occasionally, she gets a greedy nut job who wants a second whirl, whether she's conscious or not. Par for the course when you look like her and live her 'lifestyle'. It's not the first time and it won't be the last."

"Are you kidding me?" Blaze glared across the room with enough suppressed aggression to wipe the nonchalance from her face. "This isn't the first time?"

"I had a triage nurse tell me I should have built up an immunity by now," I smiled wryly up at him, then coiled up into the foetal position when a wave of nausea hit me.

"If only you had a sexually exclusive boyfriend to protect you from incidents like this." The bitter sentiment trailed off into the kitchen with Esme, lingering only slightly in the room with us. She resented my liberal attitude to 'free love' and was annoyed that I'd carried on seeking out new lays during my first weeks with Blaze, and I understood that when it got me into situations like this. But what she wanted for us was the full couple package— sharing a home, sleeping and waking up together every morning and being generally inseparable and that wasn't an option for either of us.

Blaze had his own life and I had mine, that was why our 'thing' worked so much better than most other relationships. What we had was a mutual understanding to use each other when we needed to, not a co-dependency or reliance. He couldn't be around to babysit me every night and I wouldn't sit around alone at home like the little woman during the week. In my defence, I hadn't slept with anyone else during Blaze's holiday and I was genuinely crazy about him, but as patient as he was, he wouldn't be able to take all my crazy if I designated him as an exclusive asset.

And that crazy was roiling around now, like it did every time I had one of these 'mishaps'. It took something dramatic like getting my drink spiked for me to start seriously rethinking and regretting the more destructive choices I'd made since I moved to the city. Binge drinking was normal for a twenty-two year old. The level of my promiscuity wasn't and it was dangerous. It was a choice I made through insecurity, not believing that second, third or fourth encounters once would be the same after they saw the scars on my side. I didn't want their interest to linger through pity or a desire to 'save' me when that particular issue was almost ancient history, but I needed that initial allure and driving urge to f*ck me stupid. In that way, I was conceited and arrogant.

Blaze had seen the scars before nailing me in that changing room— that was the loophole he'd unwittingly exploited. Like Esme, Daniel, Jonathan and Chris, he discovered the damage and didn't think twice about accepting it as a part of me. He thought I was beautiful even with them and didn't put out to make me feel better. That's how he earned his place on my list of repeat offenders, even if it would have been way easier to cut him off at the pass and avoid dealing with my ugly emotions.

What I couldn't help was the way I was going to handle the retrospect; the way I'd leap back into unhealthy vices to cope with the negative way I'd start looking at myself again. The times when I was forced to look back at my sexual history were the times I acknowledged that I was a slutty tramp and I was cursing my own life. Nobody wanted to love a whore and I certainly didn't want to love myself when I replayed all the moments I slept with a new man or dragged a friend home just to tick a box in my daily routine. I didn't even enjoy it; I did it automatically without any consideration or forethought. What did that say about the deeper reaches of my true nature? I was headed down a hot road into hell, and the less of that distance Blaze travelled with me, the better.

"You should go," I said, pushing out of his hold around me. From the pause and frown he gave me, I figured that it must have come out slurred and my bid for freedom about as effective as slamming a beach ball against a brick wall.

"Not a chance." He curled around me tighter. "Maybe she's right. "

"Don't. This was nobody's fault but my own. I shouldn't be so loose."

"How many other guys have you been with since we met?"