Page 6 of Breaking Blaze

“I’ll go grab them right before work,” he answered, almost too nonchalantly.

Annoyed but suddenly feeling the weight of what was unfolding before her, Anna couldn’t stop herself from asking, “If you can just grab them in the morning, how are they lost?”

Blaze met her gaze but the smile slipped from his face.

“The, uh, lady I hooked up with, she…uh…lives in the building,” he admitted, his words slamming into Anna like a train going off the tracks. “I didn’t know what when we got hot and heavy in her car, but when she pulled up here, I…err…was a little too involved to care…at the moment.”

Meaning his cock had made the decision to fuck her anyway.

The ache in her chest grew, encompassing her throat, but she pushed past it. This was her usual with Blaze. She should have been used to it by now.

But why? Why do I have to get used to it? Why can’t he be the one bailing me out of sticky one-night stand screw ups? When will it be my turn to call him in the middle of night to pick me up from some guy’s house and have him watch me do the walk of shame with a smile on my face?

Never. It would be never, because she was still a freaking loser, hung up on her best friend who was so blind to real emotion that he might as well wear a goddamn blindfold 24/7.

Finally, finding the words to reply, she pinned Blaze with an expression she was sure he’d never seen before.

Disgust.

“The woman you hooked up with,” she began, trying to get her thoughts in order even as her heart thudded out of rhythm, “lives in the building…but you couldn’t just go back and get your keys?”

Blaze’s brow furrowed as if she were asking him a math question. “Well, yeah. I left her sleeping.”

It struck her then.

“You didn’t want to wake her up,” she stated, her voice flat. She swallowed past the disbelief rising in her throat.

“No,” he admitted, moving toward her.

So…instead of being rude to the hook up who meant nothing to him and he’d probably never see again, he woke her up, the woman he called his best friend. The woman he knew had worked all night and needed the rest. He’d chosen his hook up’s comfort over that of his best friend.

Are you starting to see just how little you mean to him?

Hell, there was that voice. The voice she’d been hearing in her head since her lunch with Sally that afternoon, where Sally had staged a one-woman intervention regarding Anna and her unhealthy co-dependent, unrequited love, hopeless romantic relationship with Blaze.

She’d sat there listening to Sally make one point after another, points Anna had already known about but didn’t want to admit. Like how Blaze might care about her but not as much as he should for someone who claimed to be her best friend.

And now, she was seeing that for herself.

Goddamn you, Sally! Why did you have to make me open my eyes?

She’d been happy—as much as she could be while nursing a weary heart—in her own little world, hoping and praying that her best friend would finally see how much she loved him and would return her love. But it hadn’t happened yet, and the longer she had to watch Blaze whore his way through Jackson Key, the longer her torment.

Still dumbfounded, she slid to the side to give him room as he walked into her apartment and headed to the kitchen where his spare keys were sitting in her junk drawer.

She heard the clanking of the keys but didn’t look back, knowing he’d be passing by her on his way out soon enough. As he did, she smelled it…that scent of cloying perfume, sweat, and sex.

Her stomach rolled and she bit back a whimper.

Closing her eyes, she fought the sting of tears behind her eyes.

Would she ever get used to this? To seeing the man she loved hitting on beautiful women, walking out the bar doors with them, and then witnessing or participating in his walks of shame? How much longer could she take it before she broke? All because she’d promised herself that she would wait for him, the man she loved, to finally come to his senses and see that she was the one he was meant to be with.

While he was off serving his country, she’d waited. When he’d come home and started screwing his way through the Jackson Key bar scene, she’d waited. And waited. And waited. Four years after his return and she was still waiting.

Because she loved him and had loved him since she was seventeen years old. Since he’d become her own personal hero. Her best friend. Her everything.

She opened her eyes and braced a hand on the door jamb, fighting the urge to reach out and snatch the keys back. The need to make him sleep on the floor in the hallway was nearly hard to refuse. But she considered that then he’d just head back to the hook up and crash with her. That would be a good enough reason to wake her up, right? Another round of sex with “Scorching Hot Blaze.”

“Thanks, baby girl,” Blaze murmured on his way by, his bicep brushing against her bra-less chest as he strode through her doorway and out into the corridor. Her nipples still hard points against her thin sleep shirt and loosely hanging windbreaker ached at the heat of his body.

He took three steps, stopped, and turned to peer down at her.

Exhausted and frustrated and heartsick, she met his gaze without bothering to hide the strain in her expression. She was just…tired. Finished. Done. She couldn’t do it anymore.

She. Was. Done.

“I’m sorry for waking you,” he finally said, his voice soft, placating, as if he was trying to get a wounded animal to eat from his hand.

She shook her head, took a step back, and closed the door in his face.

---