Page 34 of Breaking Blaze

“What. Are. You. Wearing?” Sally cried, her hands on her hips and her eyes wide. “Seriously, woman! Where the hell are your hips and your tits?”

Anna, flustered after spending three hours trying on and discarding at least twenty outfits already, scowled at her friend, throwing her arms in the air.

“This is the only thing I could find that didn’t make me look like shit,” Anna muttered, rolling her eyes at Sally’s pointed stare. “I don’t have the time or money to go buy a whole new outfit, especially since no matter what I buy I will never look like the women Blaze is used to taking out.”

And there was the truth. Jealousy mixed with frustration with a dash of self-loathing boiled and gurgled in her belly. No matter what happened after she showed up at Happy Jack’s, Anna couldn’t forget how utterly gorgeous Brigit the Bitch was. Tight body, tighter clothes, and the perfect face. At least until she glared at them as though she’d been expecting a different outcome than Anna and Blaze leaving her behind in the parking lot.

Anna rolled her eyes. She didn’t know the woman, but from the looks of her and the looks she was giving Blaze, she was trouble.

Sally clicked her tongue, grabbing Anna by her shoulders and sitting her on her bed. Sitting beside her, Sally took Anna’s face in her hands and gazed at her with warm green eyes.

“First of all,” Sally began, raising a crimson-colored claw-tipped finger, “Blaze never took any of those women out. No need to wine and dine when your goal is to hit and quit.” Sally raised a second finger. “Second, that’s your problem, Anna. You’re trying to be something you’re not.”

Anna huffed. “No need to remind me that I’m not pretty or sexy or seductive—”

“Shut the hell up and let me finish, please,” Sally snapped, dropping her hands to pin Anna with a scolding glare.

Anna pinched her lips shut, wondering when the hell Sally had turned into her fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Gibson. That woman could glare.

“You are not them. You will never be them. You are you, but you, Anna, are still beautiful and sexy and sensual and could bring Blaze to his knees by simply walking into a room. Those women he banged were all about confidence. They strutted into the bar with so much confidence it was oozing from their pores.”

Anna scrunched her nose at the mental image.

“So, what you’re saying is that I should stop being so self-conscious about my flabby ass, wide hips, cottage cheese thighs, and boring hair and face?”

Lord, she knew she was being a bitch—about herself—but she was so tired of comparing herself to Blaze’s women and finding herself lacking.

Tears threatened forming a burning lump in her throat.

“Seriously, Anna…” Sally said, pausing, her expression saying she was forming her next words carefully. “You’ve waited for years for this chance. You’ve pined over Blaze for longer than I’ve known you, and he has finally taken his head out of his ass and seen what he’s had in front of him the whole time. Do not fuck up this chance to be with the man you love. I will personally tear off your vagina for not riding that man into the sunset.”

“Sally!” Anna cried, slapping a hand over her mouth to keep the laughter from escaping. “What the hell?”

“I’ll do whatever I have to do to get you out of this stupid funk and into that man’s bed. And that means kicking your ass and reminding you that you are a gorgeous piece of curvy womanhood and Blaze asked you out. He’s never done that with any other woman. Don’t let his past ruin this for me!”

Anna raised her eye brows.

Sally huffed. “I mean…for you, of course.”

Hustling to the closet, Sally swung the door open and grunted.

“Seriously, Anna-boo, you need to sort this shit out.” She bent and grabbed a handful of clothes off the closet floor. They were clean, they’d just fallen off their hangers when she’d gone in earlier to search for the top she was currently wearing. “We’re going to make you look so hot, Blaze jumps your bones in the living room before you have the chance to leave on your date.”

An hour, a change of outfit, and painful primping and priming later, Anna stared at herself in the bathroom mirror, her mouth hanging open, her heart racing.

“Holy shit, Sally. You’re magic,” Anna murmured, taking in her reflection. From the top of her head to the tips of her toes, she was a totally different woman. And she couldn’t say she hated it.

Her usually dull brown hair was glistening and sleek, styled into loose curls that hung over her shoulders and down to the middle of her back. Her usually plain face was cleverly contoured, giving her cheekbones and somehow making her lips—stained a deep, dark red—look plumper. Her eyes were detailed with liner and mascara that made them look wider and daring. The warm color palette brought out the green in her hazel eyes, which was a startling complement to the color of her dress, a slinky, glittering gold number—a dress she bought on a dare the year before—that clung to her wide hips, big ass, and thick thighs, but made all that mess look as though a pin up girl from the 50s had stolen her body.

Shrugging, Sally deadpanned, “That’s what the men say about my hoo-haw, too.”

Having broken the tension of the moment, Sally spun Anna around to face her.

“My magic can only go so far, though, Anna-cakes. I helped with the icing, you need to work on the filling. Confidence isn’t something you can fake, despite what those dumbass self-help gurus say on those late-night TV shows.”

Her mind whirling from the conversation and the two shots of vodka Sally had forced on her, Anna simply nodded and turned toward the bedroom to check the time on the bedside clock.

7:43

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