Blazed(6)

"Thanks," I said wistfully, wrinkling my nose at the spectacle outside, "I appreciate it."

The minute the clock ticked around to the hour, Blaze was on that threshold looking divine and almost hopeful. He'd shaved and styled his hair back, looking more like the hot stud I'd seen at the bar and less like the ruffled bad boy I'd seen in the shop earlier that day. I couldn't possibly decide which side of him I preferred because both were equally as delicious.

He greeted me with a purr and took my sketchbook from my hand. "Ready to go?"

"Almost, I just—" Esme appeared with my bag and draped it over my shoulder, discernibly whimpering with need for the demigod. "Okay, so I guess I'm ready." With a smile, Blaze lead me out to the path and paused at the passenger door, pulling it open for me to climb in. "Seriously?"

"You don't like my city car?"

I scoffed scornfully, the unwillingly well groomed feline in me unleashing fully sharpened claws. "That's not a car. It's a Cygnet." My form had graced the back seat of many fine vehicles over the past twenty-two years, and this boxcar didn't make the grade.

"It's an Aston Martin," he objected.

"It's a gremlin car." Shuddering, I resigned myself to my fate and stepped past the open door to get it, flinching when he slammed it behind me.

Climbing into the driver's seat, he started the engine before I had chance to fasten the seatbelt. "Do you have something better than this tucked away?" I bit my lip. I'd never confess to anyone that I had an untouched cobalt blue Bentley hidden away in a private garage. It was another token of Henry's 'affection' that I refused to touch. "Don't worry, I don't fill her up after midnight, so she won't mutate and eat you."

"Unless 'she' secretly transforms into Optimus Prime in the dead of night, I'm withholding any hope that this thing won't put me in a coffin." He stopped to look at me and laughed before pulling out into the dense city traffic, tutting at my white knuckle grip on the seat either side of my legs.

"So how's the elbow?"

"Fine, just stiff." A blatant and pitiful lie. The amount of analgesics pumping around my system might have just been the reason why I could string coherent sentences together around him, but there was still a searing pain in my elbow every time I moved. Luckily, I think I cried so much over my teenage years that my tear ducts were paralysed through over use.

"You need an aloe vera plant," he mused, tossing an arm around my headrest to bridge the gap between our seats. I wanted to scream at him to keep both hands on the steering wheel but fear for my life kept me quiet. "Don't worry, I checked our route and there are no open flames."

"Our route?" There was a glint of mischief in his eye that he didn't put words to. I shuffled uncomfortably, hands moving from the seat to my bag where I had a better grip on something— anything— to steady my nerves. "So you don't hang out with women." Shrugging apologetically, I tried to not get preoccupied with the way his eyes darkened like something bothered him.

"You've been doing some research?"

"Well, you know. A guy you meet in a bar strolls into your workplace and bluntly tells you that he's picking you up when you finish without really asking if it's okay. It pays for a girl to be armed with information. 'Knowledge is power'."

"I suppose you're right. How very prudent of you."

"Ah well..." Scratching the back of my neck, I lifted one shoulder in an awkward shrug. "I kind of had it forced on me the minute you left. I'm really more a fan of blissful ignorance. But for curiosity's sake, uh... Why?"

His gaze flickered over me then settled back on the road ahead. "Why don't I hang out with women or why you?"

"Yes."

He sighed, almost amused at my response and shook his head. "I made you set yourself on fire. I suppose this is the least I can do."

"That's all it takes? Stop the presses, I need to let the entire female population of Great Britain know it’s that easy."



WE drove in silence for the next ten minutes, my unease at travelling in the gremlin car fading with each mile. My gaze stayed fixed out of the window, watching the stop-start rhythm of the sea of cars around us. Despite living there for a little over four years, I didn't know London well enough to take it's chaos for granted like the other suits and stiffs roaming the streets between dinner appointments. It still amazed me that anyone could live comfortably in the middle of all the noise.

I'd not once perused the crowded arenas of Piccadilly Circus or Trafalgar Square, so I was daunted enough by being so close to the action before Blaze pulled into a small private car park and retrieved another nightmare mode of transportation from the boot of his 'car'.

"Rollerskates?" I snapped, crossing my arms defiantly as he pulled off his shoes to slip on a pair of red and white skates of his own. "This had better be your bad sense of humour at play."

"Nope. It's rush hour, this is faster."

"You're f*cking crazy, man." He shot me a sterling grin and pulled my door open, swiftly crouching to pull my feet from the foot-well. I was horrified when I realised that he was genuinely serious. "Oh god, I'm going to die today. Without a doubt, this is my last day on Earth."

"I've got your back." He looked up at me and winked, pulling my shoes off and replacing them with the ludicrously clowny skates. "I had to guess at your size, so I went for a five." I tried not to focus on the fact he'd guessed right. He was turning out to be weird enough without the words 'foot fetishist' flashing over his head in neon lights. "You ever been on a pair of these bad boys before?"

"Sure, when I was about nine." And I'd felt like an idiot then.

"Great! No tutorial necessary then." Grabbing me by the waist, he hauled me to my feet and tossed my bag down on the seat behind me. It seemed like I was totally at his mercy in the middle of a relatively alien place, separated from familiar company and any way of contacting them. On rollerskates. Why wasn't I feeling a little more apprehensive than I should have been?

"For interests sake," I murmured, testing the stability of the wheels underneath me, "you know how to keep under the press radar, right?" My question had less to do with his lone wolf reputation and more the fear of being identified as a Tudor.

"Why, are you camera shy?"

"If I say I'm camera shy, do you promise not to ask questions?" His eyes narrowed with suspicion but he nodded, agreeing to play along. "I'm camera shy."

"Righto. Ready?" No.

"As I'll ever be."



WITH one of his hands wrapped around my wrist, Blaze pulled me along behind him at unnerving speed, weaving between the pedestrians that filled the pathways. Occasionally, he glanced back at me to laugh at the hand I had firmly clapped over my eyes and called back insults based around me being cowardly. Watching him move so confidently and fluidly, there was really no way to avoid being envious of how comfortable he was in his own body— completely refined and controlled in a hectic environment like it stemmed off from him and had been constructed specifically for his enjoyment. He was more 'London' than Jonathan and the thrill of being literally dragged along for the ride distracted me from the fact that we were being an absolute nuisance.

"I thought you said we had a route," I yelled after shouting an apology to the fifth person finding themselves on my collision course. Blaze spun around and ground to a halt in front of me, cheeks flushed and pupils wide with adrenaline.

"We do, I just wanted to see how many times I could take you around in a circle before you noticed."

Stepping back to look at the surroundings, I realised that I was looking at Nelson's Column for the third time. "Oh! Ass."

Grinning, he grabbed my hand and pulled me in front of him, pushing me forward at a much slower and safer pace than before. His fingers innocuously thread between mine like it was the most normal thing he could have done, and somehow that encouraged me to move my legs. I might have thought it was because I wanted to escape if I couldn't feel the goofy smile plastered to my face.

Everything in my life at that moment felt askew, turned upside down on it's head and showing no signs of righting itself. There was no way that we would actually avoid the media when Blaze, of all people was circling the capital on rollerskates with some ragtag brunette beside him, but that was okay. The time for bitter retrospect and mourning my mistakes would be later. It was impossible to think logically when he had such a stupefying effect on anyone who looked at him. As soon as we parted ways, I was sure I'd be instantly plunged into a deep regret for being so foolhardy, but when he looked so urbane and free, it was hard not to get a little carried away in the moment.

And then I remembered an old cliché I'd heard so often before but never really put value to; 'Be careful what you wish for'. If I really thought about it, Blaze might just fit the description of the tall, dark and handsome stranger I'd wanted to mess up my life, and maybe I'd dreamed of him so hard he just sprang into existence. Hardcore Buffy The Vampire Slayer fans might call him my 'key'— a complete fabrication of something else moulded into human form, creating false memories of his fame and popularity for everyone else but me. Admittedly, I probably wasn't subconsciously protecting me from a psycho goddess, but my being there with him seemed just as unlikely.