Extra Time

by Michelle Betham

  ‘I don’t know how long I’m going to be here in Tenerife,’ Amber continued, finally letting her top drop back down. ‘Could be a couple of days, might be a bit longer. I just don’t know.’

  ‘You’re with Max, right?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And everything’s okay?’

  ‘So far.’

  ‘You told him yet? Ryan, I mean.’

  ‘I’m just on my way over to his place now. Shit, Ronnie, I’m so fucking scared.’

  ‘Do you want me to come out there?’

  ‘I am a grown-up you know.’

  ‘Really? Only, you don’t act like one sometimes.’

  ‘Piss off.’

  ‘I love you, too.’

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow?’

  ‘I’m booking my flight online as we speak.’

  ‘Ronnie?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I do love you. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘I know, kiddo. I know.’

  ‘And I’m sorry. For being such a major pain in the arse.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid. And I love you, too.’

  She ended the call, throwing her phone back down on the bed before turning to look in the mirror again. She tried pushing her stomach out in an attempt to try and imagine what she was going to look like when this bump finally did start to show, but it wasn’t really helping. She’d lost so much weight after Jim had left her that she couldn’t even push out the tiniest of pot bellies.

  ‘Well, baby,’ she whispered, laying a hand on her stomach anyway, stroking it gently, ‘I can’t put this off for much longer, can I? Looks like it’s time to go tell your daddy everything.’

  Ryan pulled open the blinds and looked outside, smiling to himself as he took in a view he was fast falling in love with. It was so calming, so peaceful, looking out to see nothing but that huge expanse of water stretching way out in front of him.

  He loved the little fishing village he’d been living in since his arrival in Tenerife three months ago. He loved the fact he could walk down the small, narrow streets and nobody knew who he was. He loved the fact he could wander down to his favourite harbour-front restaurant and eat fresh sardines for lunch, or take a late dinner outside and watch the bright lights of Costa Adeje and Playa de las Americas out in the distance, reminding him of where he was, and the temptation that lay out there that he just didn’t want to take anymore. He was quite happy to sit on his own with a bottle of wine and the passing conversation of other diners, or the restaurant owners who’d often sit down and chat with him about his day. It was so different to the life he’d left behind in Newcastle. But whether it was one he could live forever, he didn’t know. He was happy here, and he was enjoying this unexpected but self-enforced loan period. He was enjoying the experience of playing in another country, of doing things a slightly different way. But he was also looking forward to going home. At some point.

  Turning away from the window, he walked over to the kitchen, flicking on the TV on his way over, taking a brief second or two to check out the headlines on the British news channel. But a knock at the door broke his attention, and a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach took over. Surely it couldn’t be Ellen. He hadn’t exactly told her to sling her hook, or anything even close, but he was hoping that his indifferent attitude towards her over the past couple of days was telling her, in no uncertain terms, that their relationship had no chance of being rekindled.

  Sighing a touch too heavily, he walked out into the bright white hallway, slowly opening the door, that sinking feeling in his stomach quickly replaced by that of his heart almost stopping dead when he saw who was standing there.

  ‘Amber, I… what are you…?’

  ‘Can I come in?’

  He couldn’t believe how ridiculously happy he felt just seeing her standing there; how much hope it filled him with. Even if he was slightly confused at her sudden appearance. ‘Jesus, yes. Of course, yes.’ He stood aside to let her through, following her back into the main living area.

  ‘This is nice,’ she said, looking around her. ‘And, oh, Ryan, what an amazing view!’

  ‘Yeah. I kind of like it.’ He smiled, sticking his hands in the pockets of his three-quarter-length combats. ‘Beats looking out at the River Tyne, huh?’

  She walked over to the patio doors, looking out at that amazing view, focusing on a catamaran way out in the distance. ‘Ellen not here?’

  ‘Ellen? How did you know…?’

  She turned around to face him. ‘Debbie told me you’d been talking to Gary. You told him she’d come out here to see you. To try and patch things up.’

  ‘It’s over, Amber. Me and Ellen. It’s over. I mean, yeah, she’s still here, in Tenerife, and she’s tried everything she can to… to convince me that…’ He stopped talking, pushing a hand through his hair. Why the hell did he feel so nervous all of a sudden?

  ‘I don’t want to know the whole story, Ryan. It’s really none of my business what your relationship status with Ellen is. I just wondered if she was here now, in your villa. Because I really need to talk to you – alone.’

  He still felt slightly confused, but that feeling of hope was also beginning to bubble up inside him again. She needed to talk to him. In private. Surely that was a good thing?

  ‘No. She’s… she’s not here. She’s at her hotel. Or she’s out somewhere, I don’t…’

  ‘So, you’re on your own?’ Amber asked, trying to batter down that feeling of nausea that was threatening to spill out of her.

  Ryan nodded, his hands still in his pockets as he looked at her. She was so beautiful, so unbelievably beautiful. Dressed in a short white skirt and top, her dark red hair piled messily on top of her head, her face carrying only the minimum of make-up, she looked stunning. And there was nothing Ryan could do to stop every feeling he still had for this woman from flooding his brain.

  ‘Okay. Well…’ She stopped talking, folding her arms as she looked out of the window again, trying desperately to think of a way to say what she had to tell him. She hadn’t realised it would be this hard.

  ‘Amber?’ He frowned as he watched her standing there. Her stance was one of a person who was trying to avoid telling him something, and he couldn’t help but feel slightly nervous, although he had absolutely no idea why. ‘Is… is something wrong? Only, you’ve come all this way, and, to be honest, you’re the last person I expected to ever see turning up on my doorstep voluntarily. Did you come over with Max? I know I’ve got a meeting with him later and…’

  ‘I’m pregnant.’

  He stared at her, blinking rapidly as a way of trying to take in what he’d just heard. ‘You… you’re… you’re pregnant? I… I don’t…’

  ‘It’s… Jesus, why is this so fucking hard?’ She pushed both hands through her hair, shaking it free from the grips that had been holding it up, throwing her head back before looking at him. ‘It’s yours, Ryan.’ Her eyes locked onto his. ‘This baby. It’s yours.’

  He still couldn’t quite get his head around what she’d just told him. She was pregnant. With his baby. He was sure that’s what she’d just said. She was pregnant with his baby. ‘But… how…? I don’t… I thought you couldn’t…’

  ‘Well, so did I,’ she whispered, her arms still folded tight across her chest. ‘I really thought that ship had sailed. But it looks like I was wrong.’ She reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of paper – a copy of the test results from her visit to Dr. Lowry. Confirmation that everything she was telling him was the truth. ‘Miracles do happen, Ryan. That’s what I was told.’

  He reached out and took the piece of paper from her, scanning the words, but it took a few reads before everything sunk in. ‘You’re… you’re three months gone,’ he said, raising his head to look at her. ‘That means… when we were at Gary’s party? That night…?’

  She nodded, taking the paper from him and shoving it back into her pocket.

  ‘Jesus, Amber…’ He felt like he’
d just been hit head-on with something hard and solid. He’d had no idea why she’d come all this way to see him, but whatever the reason, he certainly hadn’t expected it to be this. This was off the scale. ‘I don’t know… I don’t know what to say.’

  She looked out of the window again. There was something about that view of the sea that made her wish she was somewhere out there, floating away, out of reach of all the shit that was about to hit the fan.

  ‘It’s my dream come true, you know? To actually have this miracle happen. But it’s… it’s…’

  He didn’t know what to say. All he could do was stand there as everything slowly started to sink in that little bit more. ‘It’s with the wrong man,’ he whispered, the words falling out of his mouth without him actually realising.

  She turned sharply to look at him, her expression telling him everything he needed to know. And that realisation didn’t help matters.

  ‘I don’t know what to do, Ryan.’ And that was the truth. In fact, ever since she’d arrived at his villa, from the second she’d seen him standing there in his combats and his white t-shirt, those sexy-as-hell tattoos and that ever-present stubble making him look so incredibly hot, she was more confused than ever. She still had so many feelings for this man, it was just that she couldn’t explain them, couldn’t quite understand them. And now her hormones were shot to pieces that wasn’t going to make anything any easier. ‘Ryan … What are we going to do?’

  He didn’t know. How was he supposed to know? Ten minutes ago he’d been a twenty-seven-year-old footballer enjoying his temporary but carefree new life in the sun, and now he’d just been told he was going to be a dad. Him. Ryan Fisher. A dad.

  A feeling of utter panic suddenly washed right over him like an unexpected tidal wave, sending his head spinning and his stomach turning over so fast he actually felt sick. What the hell was he supposed to do with this news? What was he supposed to do now?

  ‘I need to get my head around this,’ he said quietly, sitting down on the arm of a chair, resting his hands on his knees.

  Amber watched him, watched his panic-stricken expression and the way his body stiffened, his eyes filled with the same kind of confusion she was feeling. Of course he needed to get his head around this. Of course he did.

  ‘I’ll leave you alone for a while, okay?’ she said, making her way back out into the hall, but as she passed him he reached out and took her hand, an action that sent her stomach flipping over and over, her heart almost jumping into her mouth.

  ‘I don’t want you to go,’ he whispered, making no attempt to loosen the grip he had on her.

  ‘You need some time, Ryan. You said it yourself. Time to get your head around this.’

  ‘I’ve got my head around it.’

  ‘What? Just like that?’

  He stood up, his eyes meeting hers. And it was almost as if someone had quickly flicked a switch somewhere inside him, changing his mood in an instant. ‘That night, at Gary’s party – you were so broken, Amber. At one point. So broken and damaged and crying for the fact you couldn’t have that baby you wanted so much, I can still remember it, as clear as yesterday. I can remember the expression on your face, the pain in your eyes… You said… you said all you wanted was Jim. All you wanted was his baby…’

  ‘But it’s not his, is it? That night was just the beginning of a mess we couldn’t possibly have known was going to be created. But look what it’s done.’

  ‘It’s given you that baby you wanted so much, Amber.’

  ‘But it isn’t Jim’s,’ she whispered, glad he was still holding her hand, but angry at herself for letting the tears she’d promised not to cry today fall freely down her cheeks. ‘It’s yours.’

  Ryan felt his own heart break as he remembered that conversation they’d had on the bathroom floor at Gary’s. The night he’d made love to her in the most beautiful way; how she’d gone from sad to super-sexy in a matter of minutes, replacing that sadness with sex he couldn’t forget. Sex that had created something she’d wanted so much. Even if he wasn’t the man she’d wanted to create it with.

  ‘You also… you also said… do you remember? You also said that… that you thought I’d make a great dad, one day…’

  ‘One day, Ryan.’

  ‘That day’s here, Amber. Whether we like it or not. It might not be the way either of us would have planned this, but that day is here. And now we’ve got to start dealing with it.’

  She looked down, closing her eyes as more tears fell onto the white tiled floor. He was right. Whatever the circumstances, it had happened, and they couldn’t change that. As much as she wanted to go to sleep, wake up and find that this baby was Jim’s, that wasn’t going to happen. It was never going to happen.

  ‘Amber?’

  He tilted her chin up, and when she finally opened her eyes he was smiling at her. He had such a beautiful smile, a smile that made his whole face light up. A smile that made him seem so much younger than he actually was, and that only made Amber feel even worse. He was twenty-seven, she was thirty-eight. Eleven years didn’t seem all that much in reality, but sometimes when they’d been together, it had felt like a gulf so wide she just hadn’t been able to bridge it.

  ‘I love you, Amber. I love you…’

  ‘I told you I didn’t want to hear you say that, Ryan.’

  She tried turning her face away but he stopped her, placing a hand on her cheek, making her look at him. ‘I don’t care what you do or don’t want to hear me say, Amber. I’m sick of hiding the way I feel, I’m sick of lying to myself, sick of pretending that being here, away from Newcastle… I’m sick of pretending it’s going to make a difference, when it isn’t. It isn’t. I love you, and this… this just… Maybe it’s fate. This baby. Maybe it’s been given to us to show us that we really should be together. You and Jim…’

  ‘Don’t talk about me and Jim,’ Amber said, pulling away from him and walking back over to the patio doors, resuming that defensive stance of folding her arms as she stared out at the sun glinting off the bright blue sea. And once again she wished she was out there, in the middle of nowhere, drifting away from a situation she didn’t want to handle. She didn’t want to have to do this. Because she didn’t know if she could. ‘You don’t know anything about me and Jim. Not really.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Ryan didn’t make a move to go over to her. He just stood there, his hands in his pockets, watching her. ‘I didn’t mean… I just…’

  She turned around to face him, her folded arms still signalling that she didn’t want him to come any closer. ‘I just don’t want to talk about Jim, okay? This doesn’t… it doesn’t involve him. Not yet, anyway.’ She took a deep breath, pushing a hand through her hair. ‘I’m so scared, Ryan.’ Her eyes met his again. The tears had dried up now, but he could still see a sadness in them that he wished he could erase. ‘I’m so fucking scared.’

  He walked over to her, slipping an arm around her waist, pulling her closer, gently kissing her forehead. ‘So am I, babe. Believe me, so am I.’ He looked at her, smiling that smile again and Amber couldn’t help but smile back. Even if she didn’t exactly know why. ‘But together… together we can do this. Me and you. We can give it a damn good try, anyway.’

  She looked down again, avoiding his eyes. This wasn’t why she’d come here. Telling him about the baby wasn’t meant to signal the restart of their relationship. That had never been her intention. ‘I can’t… Ryan, I… I’m just so confused right now, and I don’t want to…’ She looked at him, right into those beautiful dark blue eyes. ‘I don’t want you to feel trapped by this. You’re young, you’ve got this incredible career, you’ve got the world at your feet and I… I just wanted you to know, that’s all. You needed to know.’

  ‘Will you look at me, Amber? Please.’

  She didn’t want to, and she knew why. She knew that if she looked at him all those hidden feelings she still kept locked away, all those things she still felt for this man, they’d come flooding forwar
d, as they always did when she was looking for some kind of barrier to deflect everything she was trying to forget. They’d all come flooding forward, confusing her even more, turning Ryan Fisher into the one thing she didn’t need him to be right now – her favourite mistake. The one she needed to stop making when everything else looked like it was turning to crap.

  ‘I can’t pretend this isn’t fucking with my head, Amber. Because it is. Big time. You have no idea…’ He tilted her chin up again, once more giving her no other option but to look right into his eyes. ‘But I love you so frigging much that I know… I know I want to do this. I know I can do this.’

  She stared at him for a few seconds, cocking her head slightly as she tried to get her mixed-up emotions into some kind of order. ‘You can’t possibly know that yet, Ryan.’

  ‘I know that’s how it feels.’

  ‘You could change your mind.’

  ‘This baby, he or she, they’re going to be in my life forever now, Amber. They’re going to become the focus I need to get myself sorted, really sorted this time. Do you see that? They’re going to be in my life forever, and I want you to be in it, too. Believe me, I want that more than anything.’

  ‘I will be,’ she whispered, looking away again, back out of the window. ‘I’ll be the baby’s mum. I’m always going to be a part of your life now.’

  ‘That isn’t what I meant and you know that. Jesus, will you stop trying to put barriers up where there doesn’t need to be any.’

  She turned to look at him, a wave of anger washing over her now. ‘I’m not putting up barriers, Ryan.’

  ‘You and Jim, it’s over. It’s over, baby. He wants a divorce, and that’s pretty final, don’t you think? So maybe it’s time you tried to move on…’

  ‘Because it’s that easy, isn’t it?’

  He threw his head back and sighed, pushing a hand through his hair. ‘Jesus fucking Christ… Okay. Okay, I’ll back off, if that’s what you want. If you want to spend the rest of your life praying that he’ll come back to you, then you go and do that. Go on. You do that. And he probably will – he probably will come back to you, now and again. He’ll sleep with you and then toss you aside, because that’s what he does, Amber. That’s what he does, and that’s what he’s been doing to you since you were sixteen fucking years old. Since you were sixteen, Amber. He walks into your life, stays for a little while, takes everything you’ve got to give him, then he just walks out and leaves you to pick up the pieces. Until the next time. So you carry on doing that, if that’s what makes you happy. If the occasional fuck and the chance to be close to a man that nobody truly understands is what you want, then you go right ahead and save yourself for him.’