Authors: Corri Lee
I forced an accepting smile despite being disappointed by the rebuff. No matter how nicely he'd tried to break the news, it had taken me a long time to get to a point where I was ready to wake up next to him, confident that I wouldn't go arctic the next morning.
Our time of 'normality' had come with a mess of last minute dashes and close calls relying heavily on my tendency to sleep through alarms. The nights we drank too much together saw him passing out next to me when I'd drifted into a peaceful post-coital slumber, springing up like a jack-in-the-box at the sound of the first of my five alarms and ready to dazzle and conquer. He was much more reliable than me like that, ready to spring into action as soon as his eyes opened while I preferred to hit the snooze button a handful of times and bury my head under a pillow.
When he had plans or a job the next day, he stuck to the soft drinks and left for home to catch a few hours sleep as soon as my eyes closed.
The signs that he was starting to flag manifested in the reddening schleras of his eyes and the yawns he tried to stifle to save me the guilt. I had to be costing him work and his patience had to be waning. Sometimes I woke up not long after he'd left and the bed would still be warm where he'd lain not long before, the sheets crumpled underneath the place I suspected he'd taken a moment to watch me sleep. Every time I rolled over into the space he'd left in a bed that had only been touched by us, I felt that emptiness reflected in the irrational stab of disappointment that he hadn't tried to challenge me by staying anyway, despite my vehement insistence that he needed to leave.
I was ready. I wanted the morning sex and coffee experience with him— every day if I could. I wanted him to bully me into staying awake and share my morning shower, dressing me for work and then mentally undressing me as we ate breakfast together. Seeing him every day wasn't enough. Not taking someone else home on the nights he was out, holding onto the tantalising soreness he'd driven into me before he'd left, wasn't enough of a sacrifice for me. I wanted to give him everything.
Christ.
I wanted the full package I couldn't have, but took some comfort in knowing that he wanted it too.
Still, I respected that he had plans so I
acquiesced. "It's an open invitation, Blaze. It doesn't have an expiry date." His face flooded with relief and he swept his brow with a light-hearted 'phew' to inject a little humour into what teetered on the brink of becoming a serious moment. He really was humbled that I'd made the offer at all and it was plain on his face for all to see in the softness that hit his eyes like I'd lifted a weight crushing his foot— not crippling but hardly bearable.
Righting myself on the chair, I picked up my fork to shove at my pasta. I really wasn't hungry anymore, but I needed something to distract me from the urge to pry.
Fuck it
. I wanted to know what was so important that it was stopping him from doing something he'd been gunning after for weeks. "So... are your plans important?"
Blaze picked up his own fork and began to dig back into his meal, smirking as he speared a ravioli parcel. He knew exactly what I was doing. "Imperative." He winked conspiratorially and tortured me with the time it took to chew and swallow his mouthful before he offered any elaboration. "I'm heading out to
Birmingham as soon as you're back at work."
"Oh." That seemed like a long journey and a definite 'no' stamped over the question of whether I stood a chance of him changing his mind.
"I'm coming right back but I owe a favour to a photographer friend. She needs a hand setting up a venue for a function tomorrow."
"A photographer is holding an event?" I hoped that I was appropriately disguising my bite of jealously over the fact he'd be with another woman while he was
not
pinning me into my mattress.
"She modelled first."
"Oh."
Not helping.
He had the nerve to laugh and lean over to wrench the fork from my fisted hand.
"Relax. Nelly is very much in love and I am... also into some chick with a very cute jealous streak."
"Some chick?" He gave me his most disgusting shit-eating grin and puppy dog eyes
— a lethal combination that forced a smile to crack through my steely resolve. "Best give me her name so I can kill the bitch."
Checking the time on the impressive leather strapped watch that bound his wrist, Blaze tossed his credit card down on the table and grabbed the legs of my chair to pull me closer. It was starting to scare me how often he glared, a look I so often tried to mirror to no effect. I don't think he knew how small and boxed in it made me feel, confused by his tenderness but squashed down by the force behind his eyes. "You still have tomorrow off work, right?"
"I do," I swallowed the hard lump in my throat, "free to be at your disposal for the entirety of Emmyday." The low growl he made promised that he'd ensure I made good on that claim. "You should probably sleep in. I plan to." Something in his almost predatory stance told me I'd need to.
"No need, Miss White," he drawled, stroking a fingertip just under the hem of my skirt, "you'll sleep for a season when I'm done with you."
I had no reason to suspect that he was exaggerating.
I WAS OVERCOME with a sense of dread when Blaze pulled off, destined for Birmingham. Despite maintaining his usual impish manner, he'd been distracted since he'd made his sensual promise. His words still flowed but they lacked their usual punch and all he left me with was an unenthusiastic kiss goodbye and another 'I'll call you'. I didn't allow myself to get caught up in that again, instead I wanted to know exactly why he'd withdrawn.
Had my eventual surrender tripped some sort of switch in his mind that told him, actually, he didn't want what he thought he wanted now it had stopped being an impossibility? Had it all just been a case of wanting what he couldn't have? Was this the end of our story because I'd done what I thought was necessary to keep us together?
I needed reassurance. It was a standing order to get over myself and call him when I needed him and this was definitely one of those times I needed him to nurse my hopelessly neurotic side. But he'd be driving for at least two hours— longer if he stopped at the services for a bathroom break. Even if I sent him a message, there was no guarantee that he'd pick it up and reply before he reached his destination. I needed instant gratification and the longer I was forced to wait, the more my ego would bruise and self-pity fester.
I clock-watched fixedly for the remainder of my workday having taken the pragmatic approach and just sent a damn text message. Slowly, the clock ticked and time passed, counting away the seconds until my phone ra—
"
Double Booked
, Emmeline speaking." I deflated when the first noise I'd heard in ninety-seven minutes came from the shop phone. Maybe it would be important and I'd be able to drag it out for half an hour, or maybe it was a supplier who needed excruciatingly specific details of something. Anything to distract me.
"You're calling yourself Emmeline again now?"
My hand tightened around the receiver when the awareness of the voice hit me. A voice I'd had no intention of hearing again after the last words it had spoken. I was right to have been feeling like there was a weighted silence hanging over my head like a sharpened guillotine blade— it was the voice that could tear me to shreds.
I didn't offer a hello, just a snarl. "Why didn't you call my mobile, Hunter?"
"I have been. It's been turned off."
"No, it hasn't. I
—" Scrolling through the call settings on my phone, I discovered that someone, I presumed Esme, had set it to forward all of Hunter's calls to voicemail. Fifteen had already been diverted and god knows how many emails sat in my neglected inbox. The gratitude I felt for having the decision taken from my hands lasted for half a second before it was spurned by the resentment that he'd found and exploited a loophole. "What do you want?"
"My, aren't we testy today? Problems with the boyfriend?"
As ever, he got my back up with the malicious hiss surrounding his words. I wanted to tell him that my life was great without him in it. I wanted to tell him that Blaze had fixed all the damage he'd caused over the years. I wanted to get into the nitty gritty details of all the different ways he'd fucked me over the weeks and how I came so hard I thought I might go into cardiac arrest...
But because I really didn't know what was going on, I wilted and surrendered an unenthused, "no," rubbing at the cramp in my stomach. "Like I said, what do you want? I have work to do."
Hunter laughed.
"Work? Nap time already?"
"Real work, fuckwit, I'm looking at revamping our stock system." I hadn't been, but now I had the idea, I was going to.
"Ohh-hoo, 'real work'. Revamp the stock system for a multi-national corporation and we'll talk then about 'real work'."
"Hunter?" I considered all the catty remarks I'd made in self-defence over the years. Thought about all the times I'd tried to argue to win his respect. And all the times I'd failed. "I'm presuming you didn't call just to remind me how worthless I am without you?"
There was a pause, suggestive of the fact that Hunter had never heard me not jump in with a counter-attack and was surprised by my grown-up attitude.
"Umm... no, of course not. Do I do that?"
"All the time actually."
"Wow, Jesus. Sorry, Emmeline."
I pulled the receiver back to look at it for a moment. No, it was definitely real. Pinching myself hurt so I wasn't dreaming. That was an actual apology. God damn.
"I was calling to invite you here for Christmas actually. Siobhan has planned a week away with a girlfriend so—"
"So you need a replacement little woman around to take her place while she's away." My hand shot to my mouth to muffle the involuntary giggle that rattled in the back of my throat. When I didn't screen my responses before I opened my mouth, I inevitably lunged straight for his jugular with my teeth bared. Somehow, it was quite funny, but I saved myself with, "I actually have plans already."
"I know you hate flying out, I could come over to you."
"Uh..." Okay, now that wasn't like him. It was usually his way or the highway. As it was, I didn't know that my plans to go back to
Cardiff with Blaze would ever come to fruition but they were set in stone nonetheless. "I really do I have plans. I'm going home with my... with my boyfriend."
"Hang on, Emmeline."
Rolling my eyes at the break he forced in our conversation, I began to hear the bar noise behind him and the stream of discussions going on around him. Someone seemed to ask who he was talking to, someone else asked if I was hotter than his fiancée. I gloated a little when he laughed and his friends murmured agreeably, then froze when I heard someone start rambling in Japanese faster than I could understand, making only one word out clearly.
Blaze.
Christ, we were an internationally recognised couple, and boy, did that get my hackles up for some reason.
"How the hell have they heard of Blaze over there?"
Hunter sighed harshly and turned his attention back to me.
"He's been a voice actor on a pretty big cartoon over here. Has an impressive fan base."
"He speaks Japanese? That's... hot." Even if I was confused about where we were, the mist that clouded my judgement made me want to jump in my untouched Bentley and chase him to Birmingham so I could shamelessly tear his clothes off. That kind of intelligence was like an erogenous zone set independently from my body.
"I speak Japanese."
Hunter objected, the volume of his voice rising more than necessary. What the hell— was he jealous?
"Is that walking wank bank seriously dating
you
?"
My head jerked back. "What is
that
supposed to mean?"
"Nothing, I just don't get why he'd be celibate for six years and then
—"
"Then what? Waste it on me?" The extent of his surprise stung. No, he wasn't jealous, he just didn't think I was worthy of being on such a gorgeous man's arm. I wasn't, but he was supposed to be my best friend. "You know what, Hunter? I may not look like I belong in a porno magazine. I don't throw Daddy's billions around to score a lay and I have my fair share of emotional baggage. But I'm a smoking hot blonde with a pretty good rack and my value goes beyond how well I suck dick and cook dinner. Blaze didn't screw anyone for six years because he's not a total narcissist like you. He doesn't need to fill volumes of little black books to feel like a stud because he'd rather be a happy outcast than miserable and adored. And despite that period of celibacy, he's still had more sex since he met me than you have in the past six years and you're fucking marrying the woman you lost your virginity to. Good luck with that."
The minute the receiver touched the phone's base and ended the call, I was forced to process what the hell had just happened.
Six year celibacy
. How had I not known this? Being as gorgeous as he was, I'd assumed that Blaze had threaded his own string of casual encounters over the years, not gone without completely. He was too skilled in the bedroom to have been victim of a dry patch that long. Was it voluntary or had his work kept him so busy that it wasn't an option?