Go to see Lucas. That’s an even bigger no.
That just leaves Ellie. Her flat is just around the corner from mine, and it doesn’t take me long to get there. I press the buzzer for her flat, am pressing it for the second time when it occurs to me that she might not even be in. Tom has a house near the train station. Maybe she’s there. Maybe I’m stood here, shoeless and braless, pressing the buzzer of an empty flat. Given the way my day is going, it would be about right, and it’s no less than I deserve. What the hell was I thinking, getting into bed with Scott Smithson?
‘What the fuck are you doing, Amber?’ I mutter, as I drop my hand away from the buzzer. ‘There’s no one in.’
I turn to walk away, but just as I do, the intercom crackles in to life. ‘Hello?’
It’s Tom. I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose, sick and teary and cold, and now embarrassed to boot. ‘Hi,’ I say, the words coming out even though I’m not sure I can speak. ‘Is Ellie there? I really need to talk to her.’
‘Sure,’ he says. ‘Come on up.’
The buzzer sounds to let me know that he’s unlocked the door, and I push it open and take the stairs. I must look a complete mess, because when I get to the top and Ellie sees me, the first thing she says is ‘You look like hell.’ Which is closely followed by ‘And why are you wearing my brother’s T-shirt?’
‘How do you know it’s his T-shirt?’
‘I gave him it for Christmas.’
Well, that’s just fantastic. I stole an item of clothing she gave him. So now I have to have the whole I-shagged-your-brother-and-it’s-all-screwed-up conversation with her whilst wearing the Christmas present she lovingly picked out for him. Only I could fuck things up this badly. ‘I slept with him.’
The confession spills out of me, and it sounds really weird, because I would never normally say it so politely. But saying that I fucked Scott seems wrong, somehow. I fucked Lucas. But I didn’t fuck Scott. I wanted to. But I didn’t. Because fucking doesn’t mean anything. And what I did with Scott, well, it did mean something, even though it wasn’t supposed to.
‘Ah,’ Ellie says. She gives me a pitying look. ‘Do you want to come in?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I locked myself out of my flat and I didn’t know where else to go and everything is such a mess.’ What I mean by that, of course, is that I am such a mess. I’m sure the rest of the world is just fine.
‘Come in,’ she says again, and this time she’s not asking me, she’s telling me. Ellie, my shy best friend who wouldn’t say boo to a goose, is telling me what to do. So I do as she says. I step into the flat, and she settles me on the sofa with a Baileys and makes Tom hide in the kitchen and we talk.
‘I wondered when you two would get round to it,’ she says. ‘I’m surprised it took this long, if I’m honest.’
I stare at her in shock. ‘No, you didn’t,’ I say. ‘We don’t like each other. We’ve never liked each other.’
Ellie shrugs. ‘You rubbed each other up the wrong way because you’re so alike.’
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. ‘We’re alike? How is that possible? We…’ I pause. ‘Scott and I have never got along. And you don’t like him either.’
‘Jealousy isn’t the same as dislike,’ she says calmly.
‘Christ,’ I reply. ‘Has shagging Tom rewired your brain or something?’
‘No,’ she says, smiling. ‘It’s made me happy. Things are a lot easier when you’re happy. So, you finally did my brother. What’s the big drama? Did he make you dress up like Princess Leia? Did he want to dress up like Princess Leia?’
She’s lost the plot. Truly, she has. ‘There was someone else involved,’ I admit. I look at my nails, pick at my cuticles. ‘It got messy.’
‘Messy how? Too many bodily fluids messy?’
Sometimes, I forget that she takes pornographic photographs for a living. Shy she might be. Naive she is not. ‘Why would you assume that I meant literally involved?’
‘Because I know you,’ she says, curling her feet up under her. ‘And because I’ve always suspected that Scott might be a bit of a perv, and you don’t know how happy it would make me to have something to blackmail him with.’
‘OK.’ I grip my glass tightly. ‘It was too many bodily fluids messy.’ I don’t tell her that we didn’t actually get as far as bodily fluids.
‘I knew it!’ She practically bounces in her chair. ‘The dirty bastard had a threesome. This is brilliant.’
Except that it’s not brilliant. By rights, it should have been, but it wasn’t. Suddenly, I feel very tired and very alone. ‘How can you say that?’
‘Because it’s true,’ she replies. ‘He’s far too uptight. Always has been.’
‘But I had a threesome with your brother!’ I almost shout it at her.
‘Did you enjoy it?’
‘Yes!’ It’s my automatic reaction, but I hesitate, think it through. I don’t have to think far. ‘No. Not really.’
‘Ah,’ Ellie says. ‘Why not?’
And here it is, the moment for me to admit the full truth of it. And then the tears do come, all of them, and there is nothing I can do to stem the tide. All I can think about is how I felt when Scott was inside me, when he touched me, when he looked at me. How badly I wanted him to want me, not just for sex, but for more. How, in the end, I was the one who couldn’t handle the kinky sex, not him.
‘You know, you never cried about Paul,’ she says. ‘But then you were never really in love with Paul.’
I stare at her through a haze of tears. ‘Yes, I was.’ But even as I say it, I know it’s not true.
‘No, you weren’t,’ Ellie tells me. ‘You were pissed off with him because he dumped you for someone else. You wanted to hurt him, but you weren’t in love with him. You’d never have been able to do what you did if you were.’
Her words work their way through me, loud in their truth, and suddenly all sorts of things start to make sense. How is it that she could see that when I had no idea? ‘I don’t know why you put up with me,’ I manage, between sniffs. ‘After what I’ve done.’
‘You’re my best friend, Amber’ she says, clasping her hands together and leaning forwards in her seat. ‘You always will be.’
Her words make me cry harder, loud, undignified sobs that make it impossible for me to say anything. The thought that I nearly lost this friendship, that I nearly destroyed it because I was so desperate to get back at Paul for choosing someone else over me, is devastating. It makes me wonder what else I might have nearly destroyed.
‘Hmm,’ Ellie says, when I pause to draw breath. ‘I see.’
I haven’t got the faintest clue what she sees, apart from maybe my nipples through Scott’s T-shirt which is now sporting a damp patch on the front where I’ve howled all over it, and I don’t get the chance to ask because she gets up from the sofa and disappears through into the kitchen. I don’t want to follow her because Tom is in there, and I seriously can’t deal with him right now. So instead I scrub at the damp patch on the T-shirt and wonder if I can get away with sneaking out. Actually, I do more than think about it. I’m closing the front door behind me when I see someone coming up the stairs.
Scott.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ I say, and silently scream. Not him, not now. Not when I’m looking so completely awful.
‘Amber,’ he says, and that voice, that deep, rough voice cuts right through me. ‘Why did you run out like that?’
‘Didn’t seem to be much point hanging around once Lucas had gone.’ I shrug, pretending that my throat doesn’t hurt and my whole body doesn’t hurt and I don’t want to burst into tears. Again. ‘It’s not exactly a kinky threesome without a third person.’
‘That didn’t mean that you needed to leave.’
‘Seemed like as good a time as any.’ I stare up at him, my body rigid with defiance. I won’t let him see how much this is hurting me. I won’t let him know how I feel about him. I don’t want this. I don�
��t want to feel anything for him. I want things to go back to how they were before any of this happened. Before I played around with Scott. Before I played around with Paul.
‘You were crying,’ he says then. ‘I was worried that I’d hurt you.’
‘You didn’t hurt me.’
‘Then why were you crying?’ He says this loudly, shoving his hands back through his hair.
I see the gesture, feel the anger seeping out of him, and something just snaps inside me. ‘Because you told him to fuck me,’ I say. ‘Because you told him to fuck me, and I knew you were getting off on it, and I’m tired of just being a meaningless fuck to every man who sticks his dick in me.’ Even as I’m saying the words, I know they aren’t true. If anything, it’s the other way round. I’m tired of having sex with men I don’t really care about. But the thought of being with someone I do care about, the thought of that someone being Scott, is too much for me. Because eventually, he’s going to want something more than just sex. And I’m not sure I can cope when that happens.
‘You weren’t just a meaningless fuck,’ he says.
‘Don’t lie, Scott. I was there, remember? I had you inside me when you told him to put his cock in my mouth. I know exactly how much you were getting off on it.’
‘I don’t think you do,’ he says, his jaw hard and his eyes even harder.
‘If I wasn’t just a meaningless fuck,’ I yell, ‘why did you tell him to do it?’
‘I thought it was what you wanted, Amber.’
‘Yes, well, so did I.’ I try to shove past him, but he doesn’t let me. A gentle hand on my shoulder keeps me in place.
‘So what do you want?’
You. ‘I want to be more than just someone to screw,’ I say. ‘I want to be the most important person in someone’s life. I want…’ what Ellie has. And I want it with you. But saying that really would be a step too far, so instead I try to push past him again, and this time he moves when I put my hands to his chest and shove. He yields so easily that it hurts. ‘I want to be with someone who is interested in me. Not just what I look like.’
‘Amber,’ he says softly, when I’m a couple of steps below him.
I pinch the bridge of my nose. ‘What?’
‘You forgot this.’ He holds up my bag.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I guess I did.’
I move towards him, not too close, and hold out my hand, but he doesn’t extend his, doesn’t pass the bag to me. Instead he holds it close, forcing me to move closer too, close enough to smell the warmth of his skin. ‘Please, Scott. Just give me my bag.’
For a moment I think he might say something, but he simply gives me the once-over, a slow, painful perusal. ‘You look like hell,’ he says, reminding me that he is my best friend’s brother, and that we will always hate each other.
‘Kick a woman when she’s down, why don’t you?’ I snatch the bag from him, and this time when I turn I don’t look back. I head down the stairs and leave. I make it back to my building in record time, let myself into my flat, and collapse on the bed that reminds me of Lucas and regret.
Where all I can think about is Scott.
I don’t know how long I lie on my bed. I guess I fall asleep at some point, because when I open my eyes it’s light outside and the neighbourhood cats are yowling at each other. I get up, move over to the window and watch them for a minute. At least, I think it’s a minute. It could be an hour. Then I go into the kitchen and raid the cupboards and gather up all the crap food I can find and plonk myself down in front of the TV.
I don’t shower or look in the mirror or try to fix my hair. I’m too busy thinking about what Ellie said, that I was never in love with Paul. I was angry with him. Viewed from this angle, my behaviour certainly makes it look that way. I wanted to get back at him for leaving me for someone else. More than that, I wanted to show him how much more attractive I was than the woman he’d left me for, which was why I asked her to take those pictures of me with Tom. How our friendship survived that, I will never know, but I do know one thing: I’m bloody lucky that it did. I only hope that it can survive me running out on her earlier.
And all of this brings me round to Scott. The problem isn’t the sex. It’s the way I felt with Scott when we weren’t having sex. And OK, sometimes when we were. When he did to me what he did, it was like Lucas wasn’t even there. It was like there was only the two of us in the world. It was a feeling I could easily get used to.
Until I met Paul, the way I looked had always been enough for the other men I’d been with, and I’d always managed to get rid of them before there was any danger of it not being enough. But who I am underneath wasn’t enough for Paul.
That’s why he left me for Victoria. She just…suits him better. I can see that now.
I don’t think I can handle if it who I am isn’t enough for Scott Smithson. I already feel like he cut out my heart and trampled on it and then shoved it back inside my chest. Paul might have hurt my pride, but Scott Smithson has the power to do so much more than that. I’m so busy wounding myself with that thought that when the buzzer sounds, I buzz whoever it is in without thinking. The knock on the door a couple of minutes later makes me jump in my seat. A big dollop of chocolate ice cream lands on the middle of Scott’s white T-shirt, as if I hadn’t already made it grubby enough.
Whoever it is knocks again. ‘Fuck off!’ I yell. Polite, I know.
‘Amber, darling, open the door.’
I stiffen in my seat. Why is Scott at the door, and why is he calling me darling? If he’s come here to try and carry on where we left off earlier, he can get lost. ‘Go away!’
‘Open the door,’ he says again. ‘Please.’
This time I do as he asks, chocolate-stained T-shirt and all. I fold my arms and glare up at him and refuse to cry. ‘What?’ Clearly I’ve regressed about ten years. I sound like a bitchy teenager.
‘Amber,’ he says again. He’s moving forwards, herding me back into my hallway, until I’ve moved far enough that he can kick the door shut behind him, until he has me pressed up against the wall and his hands under my T-shirt. The contact is electric, my nipples hardening even before he lowers his head and puts his mouth on one of them. And I know then that I will let him fuck me. I might cry about it afterwards, but I’m never going to be able to say no to him. This is what love does. It makes you accept less than you want. And you accept it because it’s better than nothing, even though it makes you feel like even less than that. I knew it when my dad walked out and started a new family with someone else, and I know it now.
‘God, you’re beautiful,’ he says.
‘I look like hell.’ I point out.
‘I know,’ he says. His hands move to my waist and he presses his whole body against mine. ‘I don’t care. I’ve always thought you were beautiful. I’ve always wanted you.’
‘For sex,’ I say. ‘Who wouldn’t want a horny blonde bimbo with a DD cup and possible bisexual tendencies? I’m a fucking cliché. A walking wet dream.’
‘You are that,’ he says. ‘And you’re so much more than that, Amber.’
This conversation is starting to not make sense. ‘Cut the crap,’ I tell him. ‘You don’t even like me.’
‘No,’ he says, his gaze searching my face. ‘I guess like isn’t really the right word for how I feel about you. You were never a meaningless fuck to me, Amber. I need you to understand that. This was never meaningless to me.’
‘You told another man to fuck me,’ I choke out. ‘You watched another man fuck me. If it wasn’t meaningless for you, why did you tell him to do it?’
‘Because you wanted it,’ he says. ‘And I wanted you to have what you wanted. And because…because I wanted it too. Because kinky sex turns me on, but I’ve never had the nerve to do anything about it.’ He rubs a hand over his eyes. ‘I wanted to have filthy sex with someone I cared about. Someone who cared about me. I didn’t want to get into a relationship and then destroy it because I wanted things she wasn’t willing to give.�
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‘Like watching her have sex with other men,’ I say.
Scott flushes. ‘Maybe. You probably think that sounds really stupid.’
I think about Paul and Victoria, about all the filthy sex we had, about the two of them making their wedding vows. ‘No,’ I say. ‘It doesn’t sound stupid at all.’
‘When we were…when Lucas and I were… I made you cry, Amber. I know I did. I thought I’d ruined everything.’
‘You didn’t ruin anything.’
‘Then why…’
‘Because I wanted to not care about you,’ I blurt out. ‘I thought that if Lucas was there too, I could make myself not care. But it didn’t work. I’m so stupid, Scott.’
‘You’re not stupid,’ he says softly.
‘Of course I’m stupid,’ I tell him. ‘If I’m not stupid, then…’
‘Then what?’ he asks.
I can’t meet his gaze. I just can’t. ‘If it doesn’t matter, why haven’t any of the men I’ve been with ever fallen in love with me?’
‘I have,’ he says.
It takes me a moment to digest this bit of information. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘Well, I have,’ he says again. He looks at me then, long and hard. His hands come up to cup my face. ‘I want you,’ he says softly, and there’s a rough honesty to his voice that undoes me.
‘Then why did you always criticise everything I did?’ I ask him. ‘Why were you always so angry with me?’
‘Because watching you waste yourself on men who didn’t care about you killed me,’ he says. ‘But you were always so confident, so sure that it was what you wanted. It’s not like you were ever going to be interested in me.’ He tips my face up to his then, touches my bottom lip with his thumb. ‘So I watched you with them, and I told myself that I wasn’t in love with you. But when I saw you at the wedding, I knew that I had to stop pretending.’ He leans closer, until I can feel the warmth of his breath on my face. ‘I can’t fuck you and leave it at that,’ he whispers. ‘It’s not enough, Amber. Not for me.’
Oh, god. Oh, my god. ‘It’s not enough for me either,’ I lift my arms around his neck. I don’t care that I look awful, that I’m wearing his T-shirt and no make-up and my hair is a mess and I probably look like I’ve been crying all night, which I have. ‘It’s not nearly enough.’
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