ROMANCE: BAD BOY ROMANCE: Mister Perfect: (Alpha Male Billionaire Football Star and BBW Pregnancy Romance)(A Best Friend's Brother Contemporary New Adult Sports Romantic Secret Baby Romance) (2 page)

              The rest of the table fell silent.

              "Yes," Amber said, numb.

              "Freda told me all about it, didn't you, dear? Terrible thing to happen. And it's only been
a year since."

              "That's right," said Amber.

              "Would you like gravy?"

              "I'm vegetarian."

              "I'm so sorry to hear that. You're not having any luck are you?"

*

"I'm so sorry about my grandmother," Freda said in the kitchen.

              "It's okay," Amber said. "I prefer it when people talk about what happened. At least,
I'd rather that than have them tiptoe around me. That's the worst."

              "If it makes you feel better, my grandmother is old and she'll be dead soon."

              "No. That doesn't help."

              "Well, you don't have to worry about anyone tiptoeing around you here. We'll chew you up
and spit you out. Speaking of which, could you carry this outside."

              A second meat course.

              Fantastic.

*

              They were talking about dessert and death when there were three loud thumps on the door.

              "Santa's late," someone said.

              Freda was busy getting dessert onto the table and everyone else was looking at each other with question
marks above their heads and so Amber put down her lemonade and said:

              "I'll get it."

              "I like this girl," said Freda's grandmother.

              "Who is it?" Freda asked.

              Amber was just glad to be near the door. Opening it seemed like a step in the right direction; towards
getting home and climbing into bed with a book or a DVD.

              As she pulled open the door, she expected carol singers with no sense of timing or decency. She must have
been expecting carol-singing kids or elves, because her eyes were leveled at the point a child's face should have been, but instead she saw a man's chest. He was big and well-dressed in a crisp white shirt and blazer.
He looked like he'd stepped down from a poster and now he was in the hall with a bunch of flowers. Because of the flowers, she thought that this wasn't real. It was too perfect.

              "Hey," the man said. His voice was so deep that she felt it rumble in her belly. She liked the
sound and feel of his voice. It was as she remembered.

              "Are you one of Freda's friends?" he asked.

              She was disappointed that he didn't recognize her, but that was cool in a way too. She'd changed.

              "Yes. I'm Amber."

              "I don't think we've had the pleasure."

              "Not exactly."

              "Who is it?" Freda called.

              She hesitated before she let him. She'd never before opened the door to someone she'd recently
seen on a billboard, in a discarded magazine on the train and in a recorded interview on the television. It seemed like Taylor Bolton couldn't really be here, but he was.

              "Is there a password to get in?" he asked.

              "No," she said, her arm still across the door ... "Sorry. Come in."

              Freda tore across the room at full pace to throw herself into her brother's arms. "Oh my God!
what are you doing here?"

              "Surprise," he said.

              She couldn't stop grinning at this big, beautiful man who'd entered the house and fortunately
she was able to pass it off as happiness for her best friend, but it was much more than that. She felt a powerful sensation as she watched Taylor interact with his family. It was so powerful that she found it difficult to
draw her eyes away. He had a big bag with him that turned out to be full of gifts.

              "It really is Santa," someone said. And then they addressed Amber. "Watch out Mrs Claus.
Santa's got a full sack!"

              "That's not really appropriate," Amber said in her best nerd voice, but deep down she was
burning with embarrassment. She felt as though everyone were watching her, but in fact it was just Freda's grandmother.

              "Taylor here always plays as number 12," she said, "so it looks like you are number thirteen
now. Just like in the last supper."

              "Would that make me Jesus or Judas in that scenario?"

              "What do you think?"

*

Amber retreated thankfully into the background, quietly nursing her glass of lemonade, until Freda insisted she come and sit down next to Taylor who had naturally gravitated to her end of
the table.

              The room was lively now. Finally there was a party atmosphere. He had a wonderful smile, Taylor. Amber
had seen it on the television, of course, but that was nothing compared to the effect of seeing him in real life.

              His hair was short and neat, very dark black and he was extremely handsome in his black blazer and white
shirt.

              He had a wonderful laugh, resonant and rich and free. Amber couldn't help smiling to herself, although
she found herself paying no attention to whatever it was that was making him laugh like that. There was just the sound of his voice, eager to hear everyone else's news, and the feel of him, solid and strong, dominating
her attention.

*

When Taylor ducked into the kitchen to help himself to another drink, Amber excused herself from Freda's grandmother and followed the superstar into the kitchen.

              "Hi," he said and flashed his smile, which disappointed her this time. Now it looked just like
it did in the magazines. It couldn't have been photo shopped or airbrushed, because this was real-life, but it was nonetheless false.

              She was very aware of the rise and fall of her breasts and the curvy shape she cut in her red skirt and
top. She hadn't adjusted her skirt this time, because she was holding her glass in one hand, and her skirt was now riding up her bare thighs.

              He was looking at her legs.

              And then meeting her eyes.

              "You don't remember me, do you?" said Amber bluntly.

              "Should I?" said Taylor. He looked worried, like he thought he might have slept with her and
forgotten and that now she was about to tell him that there was a baby. That was literally the look on his face, or at least that was how she interpreted it, and she laughed at both of them, although part of her wished it
were true. A little Taylor Bolton to tie him to her. A little Taylor Bolton to fill the gap, to love her forever and to never have to let her go.

              "There's no reason why you'd remember me then," Amber said, "but you'll remember
me now and I want you to think about what I'm going to tell you: you might be a big man when you're on the football field, but you're nothing if you can't be a man in the real world. What kind of a brother
can't phone his little sister on her birthday?"

              Taylor stopped in the midst of stirring his cocktail.

              "Yes, there's more. She looks up to you. She thinks you're the best thing in her life and
maybe you were, but you're not in it any more, are you? There's nothing more important than family. Don't waste the time you've got. You never know what's around the corner."

              "I know who you are now," he said.

              She saw that familiar look on his face. Horror at the realization of who she was and how both her parents
and her brother had been wiped out in a single accident, and then she saw his mouth open and close, floundering for words.

              "Have you been listening to me," she said, "or have you just been waiting to talk?"

              "Is it my turn yet?"

              "No," she said. "Don't you dare hurt her, Taylor. She's my best friend and she's
your only sister. So don't let her down. There are a lot of people who think a lot of you and now that I've met you I'm not entirely sure why, but I'm still one of ... and she's one of them ... and it's
not fair to treat her like she doesn't exist, because she does exist and she just needs some contact, just a friendly voice. A hug."

              "Who do you think you are, insulting me in my own home?"

              "You're home is on the big screen. But don't forget that at any moment you can get sick or
injured or get in an accident and then it's too late and you've got nothing. Everyone's gone. And ... What are you staring at?"

              "I'm trying to work out if your eyes are blue or green."

              "They go red when I'm serious," Amber told him. "You think you can come in here in
your shirt with no tie and your nice pants -"

              "- thanks -"

              "- and your shiny shoes and your big face all sexy and everything's going to be okay. But it's
not. It's not!"

              "Have you been drinking?" Taylor asked.

              "I don't drink," Amber said.

              "Evidently. But what's that in your hand?"

              She ignored him, spilling her drink as she gesticulated.

              "Listen to what I've told you. Trust someone who knows. Family is the most important thing in
the world. There's no stronger bond than that."

              Freda put her head around the door and Amber realized that she had been crying as she ranted. Kind of
embarrassing, crying in front of Taylor.

              "Amber, where are you going?" Freda said. "Amber, wait!"

*

"This has been an interesting Christmas," Freda's grandmother said.

              Amber sat stiffly, sucking ice cream from a spoon, wishing that she hadn't said anything to Taylor
after all, especially when he leaned over to Freda and kissed her on the head and announced that he was leaving. Everyone seemed surprised except for Amber, who didn't blame him and who was mortified, both that he was
leaving Freda and that she had been the cause of it.

              "So soon?" the others were saying.

              "You just got here."

              "Tell the team to wait."

              Within three minutes of saying that he had to go, he was out of the door, leaving behind a sack of presents
for his family. His big sister, however, could not be bought off. Nor could she hide how crestfallen she was.

              "There there," said her grandmother, comforting her with an arm around her shoulders.

              "That was my fault," Amber admitted to the room.

              "I'm sure it wasn't you," Freda said.

              "I told him he was terrible brother."

              Nobody spoke and Amber was starting to develop a major headache. She took another sip of cool, sparkling
lemonade.

              "How many of those glasses of champagne have you had this afternoon?" Freda asked her.

              "Glash-es of what?" she said.

the plants were still indoors, turning her small apartment into something more jungle-like with vines tumbling from tables and shelves and broad leaves catching the light and bouncing them
around the room, giving everything a more natural hue.

              She missed being outdoors with her fingers in the dirt, planting and replanting, creating an environment
that she could control. Instead, she succumbed to the forces that controlled her. Going outdoors now would mean breaking the dirt with an icepick.

              She had contracts that would cover her bills for the next few months, but she longed for the meatier tasks
that would come again in Spring and Summer. She longed for something to take her mind off the loneliness.

              "I don't want to be here," she said out loud to the walls. "I don't want to be
here by myself any more." She looked at the ropes of green growing on every surface. "Not you," she added. "You guys are still very precious to me. I just wish ..."

              Her mobile ringtone shattered the silence, interrupting her thoughts before they led her once more down,
down, down into the dark, with the dead relatives and the eerie silence they'd left behind. The experts had said that they would have died instantly, but sometimes she wondered if they were really experts. Perhaps they
were experts in dealing with surviving relatives and they always said that the victims wouldn't have suffered.

              "What are you doing in, say, 20 minutes' time?" asked Freda on the other end of the line.

              She wanted to say that she was busy, but not only did she rarely lie, but she was afraid of what would
happen if she spent too much more time alone. She'd have more time to think, about what had happened to her parents and her little brother and about what was going to become of her one day. She knew she shouldn't go
down that path and yet there was something delicious about it, like a version of Hansel and Gretel where they ate their own breadcrumbs and rested at the side of the road so that they didn't even need fattening up by the
witch who found them, asleep and already stuffed.