Blazed(8)

"Fucklust?" I settled back in my seat, impressed by the new expression I was definitely going to add to my vocabulary when he was out of earshot. "So why all this rollerskating bullshit? Why not just invite yourself back to my flat and have done with it?"

"Well for a start, you set yourself on fire and left pretty quickly," he smirked and started the engine, pivoting in the car park to head back in the direction of Double Booked. "And I'm not a misogynist. I have no objections to forging friendships with women who don't pose some sort of threat of wanting 'more'. But you know, with this face,"—he pointed—"it's difficult to avoid running into complications. Better to steer clear completely and avoid the stress."

Nodding to the sentiment, I rested my head back and narrowed my eyes at him. "That doesn't explain the rollerskate torture. Are you seeking petty vengeance on the inherently clingy womankind through me?"

"Shit no. I like rollerskating, it's fun. I like to have fun with friends and the people I hope will become friends. I get the impression that you're at your best before you've swapped bodily fluids. I'm in no hurry to become disposable to the first woman I've felt comfortable being around in a long time."

That hurt because it was true. With a few minor exceptions, my attitude towards a lover had a tendency to cool significantly after I'd kicked them out of my bed or made a dash for their front door. It wasn't intentional, just a method of self-preservation that stopped me from getting too close to anyone who wanted to chase a commitment. Blaze couldn't have been more right when he said I couldn't get attached to someone. It simply wasn't an option.

But I didn't know if adding him to my circle of friends was either. Could I simply socialise with a man who screamed SEX, not succumb to weakness and not turn arctic like I could with only four others? I didn't trust that I could.





ESME'S JAW DROPPED when her eyes fell on my bloodied slacks and raw palms. She seemed so appalled that she didn't stop to eye-f*ck Blaze, who lingered in the doorway to my flat after insisting that he had to make sure I made it inside without falling over. In fact, she glared at him icily and demanded an explanation for me looking so dishevelled, which he volunteered casually with no hesitation while he walked aimlessly around my small open plan flat, stopping occasionally to check out my displays of movie and video game memorabilia.

"Rollerskating, are you f*cking kidding me?" She spat her words like venom, tugging the knot of my shirt free because she how crazy it must have driven me. "Who does that? You take a woman out for a nice meal, maybe a drink if she's not hungry, then if you must sate your libido, a cheap hotel for a quickie."

"What can I say, Esme? I'm out of practice." Blaze raised his hands like she had him at gunpoint and edged over to the dining room table to set down my bag and sketchbook. "She'll deny it, but she had a great time. Isn't that right, Emmeline?"

"No," I lied, but he saw my betraying smirk. There really was no denying that a part of me was disappointed to come home, even if he did insist on using my full name like some kind of manager or scholar. "Just promise me there'll be no extreme sports next time."

He cleared the space between us in five strides and grabbed my hands, pulling them up to his lips and staring into my eyes with faux-seriousness. "I swear to never put your life in danger again. I have something way better in mind."



WHEN he left shortly afterwards, I had no expectations of seeing him again. We hadn't traded numbers and I didn't know his surname, age or anything people usually discussed early into a 'friendship'. He knew my name and where I lived and worked, but what use was that if he'd decided I was too much of a klutz to be seen with?

Our Hyde Park disaster obviously got snapped, but thankfully I wasn't named. That didn't stop me being recognised by the 'coven' who ribbed me mercilessly for the petulant scowl permanently etched across my features. Esme still didn't believe the whole affair hadn't been a disaster, and those pictures and Blaze's prolonged absence didn't really encourage her to change that opinion.

But not even my nearest and dearest had the attention span to pick something to death. We went back to our usual routine of working by day, drinking by night, and spending our free days at Daniel and Jonathan's swanky loft watching horror movies and munching popcorn. Esme went back to her own flat above the bar after four days and threw herself into a new cabaret project, auditioning burlesque dancers and big bands. By the time a week had passed, my knees and elbow had healed enough for me to not think about Blaze when I looked at them.

And if I wasn't thinking about Blaze, I was thinking about Hunter. Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place.

"You sound like shit, Emmeline." I rubbed my chest over my heart that broke every time he called me. The nine hour time difference between us was brutal, and I knew he'd taken the evening shift so his bitch of a fiancée couldn't listen in on us. Unlike me, Hunter wasn't too proud to abuse the opportunities of family connections and had taken a job in Tokyo at his father's hardware company without a second thought so his 'woman' could be near her family. How the hell he'd expected me to take it well, I had no idea. That's probably why I didn't find out until he was already there.

"It was payday yesterday. You know what it's like."

"Yeah, you go out and get drunk with those reprobates."

"They're good friends, unlike some." I heard him wince. We knew how to hurt each other too well. The occasional phone call and email wasn't really enough for him to earn the privilege of still being what I considered my best friend, but I gave it to him anyway because I loved him enough to see past the distance. Why couldn't he extend the same gesture to me? I knew I was only a minor blip on his radar.

"I deserve that," he confessed, "work has been insane. Siobhan is being insane. I'm sorry, I really can't deal with any more crazy." Story of my life. He never had time for my crazy. Nine years of my life spent agonising over him and not once had he made the time I needed. Never said the words I needed to hear. There was only so much Daniel could offer in lieu Hunter and whatever it was he had inside him that drove me to the limits of my sanity.

"Yeah yeah, I get it. But you can't expect me to sit around on my tod staring at my phone waiting for you to spare me a minute. Reprobates or not— and I'm not denying that we are— they still accept me, even knowing what they know."

"You're not a reprobate, you're just confused."

"Fuck you, Hunter. I'm not confused about anything and that's what makes it so god damn hard to deal with." I took a breath, knowing that if this discussion continued, I'd end up doing something reckless. He kept me sick— I knew it and I'd never get past it. There was nothing in the world that could take away the power of something self-inflicted. Couldn't live with him, couldn't live without him. I'd be messed up over him for the rest of my life. "Maybe one day we'll talk about why I collapsed in that gym."

"Don't bring that shit up. You have no idea how much I hated seeing you like that. You're my best friend, Emmeline, I love the bones of you."

My stomach churned at how he used the L word with me. No matter how many times he said it, it was never enough. Loving me like a friend was nothing. Not even loving me like a sister could satisfy me. I wanted him to look at me like he wanted to be inside me in every way, possessing me heart, body and soul— the way I looked at him. But it would never be that way because he was wasting my love elsewhere.

There was a loud snap that made me jump. I looked down to see that the pencil in my hand had split and splintered after being pressed so hard into a sketch I had no idea I'd been drawing. Two cartoon versions of me were torturing a cartoon Hunter in all gruesome manners of disembowelment and garrotting wire decapitations. All of my fraught conversations with him could be documented by the disturbing images that subconsciously formed on the paper when I wasn't really paying attention, like a medium who drew the faces of death she channelled. Not really trusting that the behaviour wouldn't earn me another sectioning, I'd never told a soul that I couldn't control the impulse to picture him suffering horribly for what he'd done to me without even knowing it. I loved him enough to hate and resent him.

"So why are you really calling?" I asked, pushing the sketchbook away and changing tack.

"Come on, Emmeline, you know why. I want you to come to the wedding." I suddenly wished I was still drawing. "Give me one good reason why you won't come."

"I could give you a whole cart full," I snapped evasively, knowing that telling him the real reasons why wouldn't help my 'crazy' case, "but mostly I just really f*cking resent flying over to Japan because the bitch demon won't get married over here. It's your wedding too, Hunter, why the hell did you give her carte blanche on location?"