Page 14 of Breaking Blaze

Thirty minutes later….

Anna: Actually, I switched to afternoons.

Blaze: What? When? Why didn’t you tell me? We could have made plans. Haven’t had a movie night in weeks.

Anna: Didn’t think it was a big deal.

Blaze: You didn’t think it was a big deal that my best friend freed up her evenings and that I might want to make plans with her?

Anna: Sorry.

Blaze: Seriously, what is going on with you?

Anna: Nothing for you to worry about, Blaze.

Blaze: It’s my job to worry about you, Anna-boo.

Anna: No, it isn’t. And please stop calling me that.

Blaze: Fucking hell, Anna! There IS something wrong. Spend tonight with me. It’s like you’re pulling away from me.

Three hours later….

Anna: Can’t. Hanging out with Sals and some of her friends from work. We can hang this weekend.

Blaze: Spending more time with Sals, huh? But I’m the one that misses his Anna.

Anna: You’ll live.

Blaze…will I?

Two hours later….

Anna: You’ll have to.

Blaze: Will I? And don’t think I didn’t notice you not mentioning what I said about pulling away.

An hour later….

Blaze: Are you pulling away, Anna?

Anna stared down at the trail of text messages from the last three days and sighed, her heart twisting with every beat. She hated—absolutely hated—feeling like she was doing something wrong, that she was being a bitch of a best friend. But then she remembered what she’d overheard, the spikes of disbelief and betrayal and hope-crushing truths that nearly destroyed her.

In all the years she’d been friends with Blaze, had loved Blaze, she’d never gone so long in between receiving and answering his texts. She’d never gone so long without talking to him either by text, letter, phone call, or face to face. If he was supposedly missing her and he didn’t even love her, then she was positively aching with the need to reach out to him. Not talking to him, not seeing him, not being with him, near him, was killing her.

But you know how he really feels about you. You need to break away from him, start building your own life without him in it.

She needed to discover who she was without Blaze there, keeping her from experiencing what it was like to be attracted to other men, to flirt with other men—not that she ever had the lady balls to flirt with Blaze—and to spend time with men who actually saw and appreciated her worth.

Blaze doesn’t appreciate you? You’re the only one he reached out to all those years in the Navy. If he doesn’t care about you, why did he do that? Why did he take the time to write you letters, video call you?

Her head suddenly pounding from the swirling and crashing of her emotions, Anna dropped her phone onto her coffee table and sat back to stare at the waning purple and orange light of the setting sun. She had to be at work in 30 minutes to work her last evening shift, and after the weekend off—for the first time in four years—she was going to start the 11 to 5 shift. Less money in tips because of the slower rushes, but she didn’t really need the money. She really only worked to offset the need to dive into the money her grandparents left her when her grandmother died six years ago. She didn’t like touching that money unless she had to, but she would if it meant finally living a life she deserved.

Hell, she was twenty-five and still hadn’t been on a real date. There had to be a man out there who preferred his women thick and funny and slightly inexperienced, right? She deserved to be wined and dined. She deserved to be treated like a woman and not an accessory…or a golden coated lap dog. She deserved a gentleman to take her out, treat her like a queen, and all the hope and pitfalls that came with that.

Don’t you deserve Blaze?

That. Thought. Sucked.

Flames of bitter anger licked at her, growing and devouring until tears of sharp disappointment burned behind her eyes.

Apparently, every pair of tits in Jackson Key deserved Blaze but her.

After all she’d done for him, all she’d sacrificed to be near him—which she would admit was her own fault for being so hung up on him she’d given up too much of herself—Blaze didn’t deserve her.

Cutting him off and growing new roots were required for the new life she was working to build.

So why did it feel like she was slicing herself into bits in the process?

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