Page 10 of Breaking Blaze

Her blood froze in her veins as a shiver rushed over her.

“I don’t know how you do it, man,” AJ drawled, and Sally’s expression pinched, still holding the phone over their heads. “I don’t know how you can just fuck around like that. Doesn’t it get tiring having to be on like that all the time?”

“That’s what I’d like to know, that fucking slut,” Sally hissed, dropping the phone to clutch it against her ample chest. Anna had given up trying to get the phone from her, the conversation going on between Blaze and AJ one she couldn’t stop listening to.

Anna could practically hear Blaze smirk and then shrug before he replied, “I don’t get tired because I am doing exactly what I want to be doing. I’m enjoying myself, brother. Why shouldn’t I let the ladies of Jackson Key have what they want most?”

Sickness rose into Anna’s throat, twisting through her. God, she’d never heard this side of Blaze before, this arrogant, heartless, careless side. What else had he been hiding from her? How well did she really know the man who’d been her best friend for eight years?

Beside her, Sally placed a gentle hand on Anna’s arm, her deep green gaze pouring warmth and comfort into Anna. Sally knew what was going on, what Anna was slowly coming to realize—and God it hurt so damn much.

“What about Anna?”

Anna and Sally gasped, growing still. Anna held her breath, desperate to hear what Blaze would say in this unguarded moment.

What does he really think about me? Is there really anything at all between us? Have I been holding on to a friendship that really means nothing to him after all this time?

“What about Anna?” Blaze asked, his voice sharp.

“What does she think about all your ‘ladies’?”

Blaze chuckled darkly. “What does she have to do with it? We don’t have that kind of friendship.”

“I thought you two were best friends. Don’t best friend tell each other everything?”

Good question, AJ. Keep ‘em coming.

Anna could hear Blaze blow out a breath and could picture him running his fingers through his already mussed hair.

“No, we don’t have that kind of friendship. She’s like my sister, man. Do you tell Sally about all the women you fuck?”

“Hell no,” AJ responded and Sally hissed.

“He damn well better not,” she muttered.

“Well, I don’t tell Anna about the women I fuck,” Blaze finished, apparently making his point.

But AJ wasn’t done. “Isn’t she the one who bails you out all the time when you get stuck with the crazy bitches or the drunk bitches? Last I remember, you called her when Cordelia Moss locked your ass—buck naked—out of her house because you called her Summer while you were balls deep in her.”

Anna exhaled a ragged breath, nausea rolled through her. Why was she still listening? How could she ever unhear all of this? How would she ever look Blaze in the eye again? Despite all she’d already heard, it hadn’t weakened that sense of rightness about him, that sense that he was meant to be with her…if she just held out a little longer.

Fool.

“In my defense, I’d fucked Summer the night before, and she and Cordelia look almost alike when they’re naked. I think they go to the same plastic surgeon. Those tits—”

The sound of a hand slamming into a table cut him off, which only made Blaze chuckle.

“Come on, man,” AJ griped. Despite being friends with Blaze and a few of the other ladies’ men among the construction crew, AJ had always been a little more circumspect in his womanizing. With a sister like Sally, he’d learned to keep his conquests quiet, else he’d be hearing about it all the damn time.

“Yeah, she does all that, okay, but that’s just how Anna is,” Blaze replied.

“What do you mean?”

Silence filled the small kitchen around Anna and Sally, and the space between Blaze and AJ. Anna held her breath, her heart limping along, and Sally shifted from one foot to another nervously. Sally was never nervous.

Finally Blaze broke the silence, taking with it Anna’s world. “I’ve known for a long time that Anna has a crush on me. Might be even more than a crush. But…I just don’t see her that way, ya know. I look at her and I see…well, I see Anna. She’s just there. I know that no matter how many women I fuck, she will be there to bail me out. I can count on her to listen to me rant about work or family or whatever—”

“So, she’s like the emotional part of a real relationship, without the mess of sex,” AJ offered unhelpfully.

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