Coward.
Leigh followed immediately.
Then Mackenzie left.
What kind of friends are they?
Within seconds Johanna sat alone at the table while Blaze remained standing beside it.
The noise around them suddenly felt too loud.
Too close.
Blaze looked down at her untouched basket of fish and fries.
“I thought you were eating.”
Johanna stared at the table. “I’m not really hungry.”
A long silence stretched between them. Then Blaze slid into the seat across from her.
The movement startled her enough that she finally looked up. His expression softened immediately the second their eyes met.
Lord.
“You been avoiding me,” he said quietly.
Johanna looked back down instantly. “I’ve been busy.”
“Baby.”
The tenderness in that one word almost cracked her composure completely.
Blaze leaned forward slightly, forearms resting on the table.“We need to talk. I miss you.”
Johanna’s throat tightened painfully. Because she missed him too. Every second of the day. That was the problem.
Blaze studied her face carefully while the silence stretched between them again.
“You really that scared of me leaving?”
Johanna gave a soft laugh without humor. “You really don’t understand?”
Blaze’s expression tightened. “Help me understand then.”
She looked up finally. And there was that dangerous sincerity in his eyes. Like he genuinely wanted to fix this.
Johanna hated how much she wanted to let him.
“You don’t know what it’s like,” she said quietly, "Waiting for somebody to decide whether you're enough.”
“Jo—”
“And maybe Seattle happened before us,” she continued softly, emotion beginning to fray around the edges now, “but you still kept it from me while we were building all this again.”
Blaze’s jaw flexed. “I wasn’t hiding it.”
“You weren’t telling it either.”
