by Corri Lee
There are too many ways to love a person. Sometimes you do it through obligation. Some you love voluntarily like surrogate family members. Some you love through consequence, others fanatically. You can say, ‘I love you’, to all of these people, but when do you know when it means more? When does it become appropriate to attach so much meaning to three small words?
There was more to what I felt for Blaze than friendship. That much was certain. But was whatever I felt enough to justify those words?
I drank until the bars closed, then carried on drinking from the mini-bar on the balcony of our suite. I drank until I threw up and then until I was so drunk I sobered up. Nobody called about the meeting I was too hammered to go to, so I figured Hunter had already seen to it after I didn’t go back down to the restaurant to finish dinner. He could tell when I was in a rut as easily as it had been for me to see him struggling, too, and two years of practice meant he could tell without even looking at me.
He found me at the bar in the airport. I’d gotten a taxi there far too early and spent the afternoon looking into the bottoms of many bottles for answers.
“I went by the hotel to pick you up. Thought I’d seek out some company getting here.”
Right. Of course. He had to be here for his mother, and Daniel was his friend, too.
“My bad.” I hiccupped. “Did you drive?”
“No. You should see the freaking convoy outside.”
“For Henry?”
Hunter rapped on my head with his knuckles. “For Blaze, you muppet. He’s kind of a big deal here, remember?”
How could I have forgotten? Blaze’s voice was central to a Japanese cartoon that had a huge fan base. I’d been seeing the merchandise for it on every street in the capital.
I pinched at the bridge of my nose. “My bad.”
“Emmeline, you look strung out.” My stomach lurched at the feeling of a hand between my shoulders. It had become something of a no-go zone after Calloway—I had no idea why I was so sensitive about it. “I thought you’d be happy to see him ahead of schedule.”
“I am. I just...” It hurt my head to think about it any more. Maybe I was over-thinking it.
“Did you argue? He’s still coming, isn’t he?” Hunter took the glass I was staring into from my hand and swigged out of it, wincing at the afterburn. “Come on, boobalicious. Piling our shit on each other works both ways.”
I wrinkled my nose at him. “Don’t call me that. And to be fair, you haven’t told me squat. I’ve been trying to lighten the load for you and you won’t let me help. That works both ways, too.”
My glasses clattered to the bar when I rubbed at my eyes. I wished I’d slept, or that I’d skipped out on the airport and just let Blaze find me asleep at the hotel so I had at least a handful of sober brain cells to deal with him. He’d be waiting for me to bring up what he’d said. Whether he articulated it or not, the pressure was there.
“I’ve been a pretty bad friend over the past nine years, Emmeline, for one reason or another. If you won’t tell me to make yourself feel better, do it so I can.” Hunter was grinning when I looked at him, which saved him from a rant about being completely self-absorbed.
I took my glass back from his hand and emptied it with a grunt. “He said he loves me.”
“I’m not getting the problem. You knew that.” I did. When I found out about Natasha, he’d told me that we’d fallen in love with each other, which was true. But to love someone and be in love with someone—show me anyone who’d argue that they were the same thing.
“He put the label on it, Hunter. ‘Love’ is such a big word and I don’t know it well enough to say that’s what I feel. I have a false impression of love—I don’t want to say it if I don’t know that’s what it is.”
Hunter snorted and summoned the bartender. “You know what love feels like, Emmeline. Give yourself a little credit.”
What love had felt like before was hopeless. It was exhausting to live through and never made me feel good about myself. That state of being completely dependant on a person who was perfectly fine without me, wanting to tear myself apart watching him be so comfortable with life...
If that was love, then no. Whatever I had with Blaze wasn’t it. “Do I? ... I was in love with you for the longest time—”
“What?” Hunter’s head snapped around to me but I kept going, not wanting this to turn into a conversation that destroyed our friendship.
“—And it was difficult and painful.”
The bartender brought our drinks over and winked at me as he walked away. He was cute and it was almost enough to distract me from Hunter draining the glass in one swallow. “And now?”
“It’s difficult and painful, but in a completely different way.” Sighing, I rested my chin in the palm of my hand. “There’s no standing in the distance thinking less of myself because I haven’t been asked out. No reckless self improvements because Blaze... loves me the way I am. If I get fat, he’s not going to care. If I get sick again, he’s going to be fine as long as it isn’t his fault. He could even deal with me loving someone else.”
“That wasn’t what—” My brow rose at Hunter. He stammered and cleared his throat. “... I’m still not getting the problem here.”
“Because I don’t know if the way I feel in return is love. I left him over something I’m now actively encouraging. Is that love? How do you know?”
He took my free hand in both of his and stroked it’s back. My fingers gripped onto his, gripping onto the only solid person around me, it seemed. “You just know. Sometimes it sneaks up on you when you least expect it. You do crazy shit that you think is better for them, even though it hurts like hell to do it. Your life is no longer yours; it becomes a slog of limping through the minutes until you can see them again, then acting like a hard ass so they never know just how much you care. It makes you stupid and oblivious, but you can’t survive without it.”
It had already been proven that I couldn’t survive without Blaze. Had I done stupid things for his benefit? Partially. And was I oblivious? So frequently it was almost chronic. But did that make me feel comfortable forcing out words that wouldn’t come naturally?
I pulled my hand back to chew on my fingernails. “Is that how you feel?” Hunter nodded. “About Siobhan?”
He might have answered but I didn’t notice. My ears pricked up at the sound of a tannoy announcing the arrival of a flight. Suddenly, I didn’t care what had been said the night before, just that the person who’d said it was officially in the same country as me. “That’s them. What do I do?”
Hunter heaved himself off the stool and held out a hand to steady me as I wobbled off my own. My mind seemed sharp enough but apparently my legs hadn’t caught up. “What do you mean what do you do? You do exactly what you would have done if he hadn’t uttered that witch’s curse you’re obsessing over. It didn’t change a thing.”
He was wrong. It changed everything. We just didn’t know it yet.
The arrivals gate was already packed out with photographers when we got there. A thick blockade of poised cameras surrounded the barriers, the eager media types kept at bay only by three hefty security guards dressed all in black wearing hats and totally unnecessary sunglasses. Some of the lenses turned on me and started to flash, disorienting and blinding. But no matter what they screamed at me, I watched that gate for signs of life.
Esme came out first, headscarf and Ray Bans protecting most of her identity. She stopped by the security guys until Daniel, Jonathan and Chris came out, conspicuous by their lack of prominence.
Helen and Ivy walked out together. Confused, I half-turned to Hunter and asked, “Uh... Where’s daddy number five?”
“Newcastle,” he muttered, a note of irritation in his voice. “His company shares plummeted yesterday. That was why she called last night; to let me know that she’d left him.”
Wow. Talk about beating a man when he was down. Unfortunately, this was Helen’s trend. She’d swoop in the moment it lo
oked like the divorce payout might be slightly less rewarding. On the plus side, we didn’t have to keep talking to the guy like we could remember his name.
Henry strolled out and provoked a rush of flashes from the crowd. He milked it, obviously—posed and showboated the hell out of it. It took him a good five minutes to pack that shit in and pull one of the guards to one side.
“Where the hell is he?” I supported myself on Hunter’s shoulder as I hopped around trying to look over everyone’s heads, nearly falling over when Henry approached with the security guard he’d been whispering to, and pulled Hunter away.
He shot me a wistful look, nodded, and walked off towards the exiting line of my family and friends, not sparing me a second glance. Not a single one looked in my direction. No explanations offered. I may as well have not even been there.
I began to panic. They were leaving the airport without Blaze. He’d stayed in London because I didn’t tell him that I loved him back and my family knew it and hated me for it. He must have. That’s why everyone looked so morose.
I had to shake myself out of my self-pity to realise that the guard who’d come with Henry had led me over to the barriers and the crowd was making a hell of a lot of noise. My eyes tracked from them to the gate.
My heart stopped. Every time those green irises fell on me, it still felt like a suckerpunch. I forgot just how little words mattered when we could have conversations without even opening our mouths. Not even those words mattered. Apart, I would obsess over how the smallest blip would change everything, but together...
Nothing had changed between us.
As soon as I knew he’d seen me, I took the first step towards him and broke into a run. The short space between us seemed way too long; when I was finally close enough, I kicked off from the ground and jumped at him, wrapping my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist. It was the most agile movement I’d ever performed.
Blaze released the handle of his suitcase and caught me with an, “Oof. You smell like happy and moved like Cat Woman; you must be drunk.”
“Steaming.” I damn near purred when he nuzzled into my neck. “I thought you weren’t coming.”
“Are you crazy? Nothing could keep me from you, not even you.”
We took a separate car back to the hotel after running the press gauntlet; the two of us and a chauffeur leading the convoy ahead of the three cars carrying the others and one right at the back tailing us. It was bizarre, even for me, to see so many people travelling together under such heavy guard.
Blaze had me tucked up on his lap, chin resting on my head and both arms locked tightly around me. He hadn’t let go of me once while he’d been signing autographs and had cut the press interrogation short. I’d gazed adoringly at him the whole time, loving how Japanese just tripped off his tongue so fluidly. It probably shouldn’t have been as sexy as it was just to hear him speaking another language, but there would at least be some pictures of me looking doe-eyed to redeem me after the black widow incident.
“I really thought you weren’t coming,” I mumbled dopily as I toyed with the buttons on his shirt. He was going to regret two layers as soon as we were out of the nicely air-conditioned car. “Everyone looked so hostile.”
“Try spending twelve hours in an enclosed space with Helen Rosen pretending she knows what equity is much less trying to calculate half of it.” Oh, sweet Jesus. That explained everything. “It’s possible that they resent you a little for being able to escape it.”
“Makes sense. Doesn’t explain the look Hunter gave me though...” The ‘woe is you’ look I’d gotten when Henry pulled him away. It seemed like he’d been given bad news regarding me, but I was at a loss for what it might have been.
“Did you find out what’s up with him?”
“Nothing definitive except that he’s not screwing around.” And I didn’t even care any more. If he wanted to spoil his wedding photos with a face like a smacked backside because of an issue he wouldn’t discuss, that was his choice. It wasn’t like I hadn’t been trying to forcibly extract it from him.
Blaze stroked a hand up and down my back. “Well, that’s something. You’d have a moral obligation to stop the wedding if he was.”
Like hell I would. That was Hunter’s moral obligation, not mine, and all things considered, I was the last person who should be standing up in the middle of the ceremony to stop it. If he wanted to cheat on Siobhan, that was his own damn business.
Catching my expression, Blaze gripped my chin between his thumb and forefinger and forced me to look at him. “You wouldn’t seriously let him marry her if he was cheating?”
“I’m kinda feeling like the only sensible answer right now is ‘no’.”
“Emmeline...” He sighed as he released my chin. “There’s nothing worse for everyone than walking into a marriage on a lie. And cheating is just unconscionable.”
Hypocrite. I wanted to say it out loud, but already tightly wound and over-tired, I pulled his arms back around me and dozed against his shoulder. Hunter wasn’t cheating so it was a non-issue. There was no point creating arguments over rhetorical scenarios, particularly ones he had no place criticising.
My friends and parents were somewhat more amenable after a brief reprieve from Helen, and gave me the hugs and compliments on my consequential tan I’d been expecting in the airport. As anticipated, they immediately began to complain about the heat as soon as they were out of their cars.
Well, I did warn them.
As it was still early in Japan, everyone fought through their fatigue and congregated in the restaurant after dropping off their bags and showering. Naturally, Blaze and I were a little tardy. Making up for lost time as it were. Both of us looked like we’d spent a night in an opium den when we finally joined our hungry dining companions, completely oblivious to the eye rolling and snide commentary that played alongside our meal.
He fed me tastes of his meal, and I fed him mine. He wiped sauce from my mouth, I licked it off his finger. He let me feed him what I couldn’t finish of my dessert. We may as well have been alone because we didn’t even notice the conversations around us, let alone participate. Our worlds included only each other.
Somewhere during our after dinner coffee, I set my cup down too cautiously and turned to him slightly. “About yesterday—”
Blaze pressed a finger to my lips and replaced it with a kiss. “Never focus on yesterday.”
“But what you said—” He kissed me again, stealing my words. Damn it, I knew what he was doing. “Are you just going to preoccupy my mouth every time I try and talk about it?”
“Absolutely, and you know all the ways I can occupy your mouth.” Ivy squeaked and choked on her coffee across the table, triggering a violent blush I was almost sure covered my whole body. Of all the things to say in front of my mother... “We don’t need to talk about anything, Emmeline. Being ready to hear it and being ready to say it are two different things; I know that.”
“They are?” He might have had a point. Not so long ago, just being told I was attractive had my cringe alarm at DEFCON level one, ready to make a speedy exit or launch a full assault. Blaze had picked that apart, stitch by stitch, until I became comfortable receiving affectionate praise and compliments.
But not being used to hearing it meant I really wasn’t sure how to express it, either. Sure, I knew how to tell my friends and family they looked good, that I loved them and all that jazz, but on a fundamentally raw level of intimacy, I was still playing catch up. Of course I wasn’t ready. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t feel bad about it.
“Okay but I—”
His lips met mine again so quickly he had to have been expecting it. He had to know that I wanted to apologise and he wouldn’t let me. Not tonight. Maybe not even the next day. Perhaps it was just enough that he knew I was sorry.
It was around the time everyone was starting to seriously consider sleep when our party gained another four heads. Apparently plastered after her bachelorette p
arty, the bitch herself arrived with her two sisters and mother.
I hadn’t had the misfortune of seeing Siobhan for over two years, and I have to say, I was surprised. I had a vivid recollection of envying her so badly I’d spent years dying my hair black just to be like her, but I really couldn’t understand why any more.
Even at the same age as Daniel, Hunter and I, she looked much older than her twenty-two years. Her skin was sallow and the skin underneath her eyes was puffy and grey. Her once trim figure was now verging on emaciated, possibly worse than mine had been at the peak of my anorexia. Don’t get me wrong, she was still a stunner with her unusual blue eyes and dainty Asian features but I didn’t feel even slightly threatened by her any more.
“Jesus, you weren’t kidding.” Blaze leaned over and muttered in my ear as they bypassed us completely and walked to the bar. “That is an abnormally massive rack.”
I slapped his arm. “Stop looking.”
“It’s hard not to. You know you get those creepy portraits where the eyes seem to follow you? I got that. However...” His focus slid very blatantly to my chest. “Have you seen yours recently? I think they’re bigger.”
Rolling my eyes, I folded my arms and sighed. Yes, they were bigger and I had the back ache to show for it. It was the price to pay for being the healthy weight he preferred me at. “Jesus. Why are people so fascinated with my tits since I came back from New York?”
“Because they’re awesome.” Daniel waved at me across the table and added, “And unlike hers, perfectly in proportion to your body.”
“Yours are also real.” Everyone with a drink near or in their mouths left an astonished spray across the table and turned to stare at Hunter, who stood up and brushed the creases out of his trousers. “Don’t look so surprised. She was a late bloomer, if you like. Daddy bought her boobs for her sixteenth birthday while she was on hormone treatment for delayed puberty.”