High Risk

by Simona Ahrnstedt

  “What’s on your schedule going forward, Jill?” Mattias asked.

  “I have a show in Stockholm on New Year’s Eve, and then it’s spring, new shows and a tour.”

  “Are you going to be on the Melody Festival this year?” Ambra asked as she poured more sauce and helped herself to salad. It was a huge televised musical competition. First in Sweden, dragging on for weeks on TV, then a big finale in one of the European capitals, complete with scandals, drama, and maximum publicity. Jill had competed on the glittering TV show once, came in second, and had a smash hit with her entry.

  But Jill shook her head. “I don’t know, I need to make up my mind pretty soon.” She ate a forkful of fish, potato, and sauce. “I do need a new hit—it’s been a while. But I’m a bad loser. I can’t handle faking happiness for someone else,” she added.

  Mattias laughed gently. Jill smiled and ate another forkful.

  “You’re very different, for sisters,” Mattias said, studying Ambra and then turning back to Jill. He was right, they couldn’t be more different.

  “I’m youngest,” Jill said.

  “One whole year younger,” Ambra said drily.

  “We don’t have any biological connection, and we’re not really even proper foster sisters,” she continued, using air quotes as she said the last part. “But we’ve stuck together since our teens.”

  Tom didn’t say much, but he listened intently, topped up their wine, and nodded every now and then. There wasn’t a centimeter of Ambra that wasn’t aware of his presence.

  “Go on,” said Mattias. He had an incredible ability to make people want to talk. Calm, attentive.

  “I ended up in the foster system when I was young,” Ambra began. “By the time I was fourteen, I’d been with so many families I lost count. I’d run away a number of times, and social services didn’t know what to do with me. I’d given up on everything.” She nodded to Jill, who continued their story.

  “And I was adopted from Colombia,” she said. “I was in an orphanage there for the first few years of my life, but then I was adopted by a crazy Swede and her equally crazy husband. One day, I decided I’d had enough and ran.”

  Jill was good at that, lightening her hellish childhood with a couple of amusing sentences. In truth, she had been dumped on a rubbish heap in Bogota, found, and then left again on the steps of an orphanage run by nuns. Jill never spoke about it, but Ambra assumed things hadn’t been easy in the orphanage. She’d read enough horror stories about what went on in similar institutions. After that, Jill ended up with the mentally ill, alcoholic Swedish lady and her awful husband. Jill’s childhood had been a living illustration of out of the frying pan, into the fire.

  “We met by chance one summer,” Ambra said.

  “How?” Mattias asked. He seemed so warm and empathetic. Someone you wanted to trust with all of your secrets.

  Ambra glanced at Tom. He was studying her intently. He was on her side, she realized. He would never let anyone hurt her. Wherever had that exaggerated thought come from?

  “I’d run away from my adoptive family,” said Jill. “I refused to live with them anymore. Not that they wanted me, either. I think they hated me.” Jill once told Ambra that her adoptive mother said they were planning to adopt a different, younger child but that they had been talked into taking Jill. “I’ve regretted it every day since,” her adoptive mother had added. Toward the end, they’d forced Jill to live in the garage and threatened to send her back to Colombia.

  “I was placed on a farm in the countryside,” Jill continued. “With a woman who kept horses and took in difficult girls.”

  “Did you stay there?”

  “Yeah, until I turned eighteen. But by then I’d already started touring. It did me good to live in the countryside. It was really calm out there.”

  “Until I turned up,” Ambra interjected.

  “Yeah, and then all hell broke loose,” Jill agreed with a laugh.

  Ambra was fourteen. She had long since left the Sventins. The new foster family she was living with hadn’t wanted to take her on vacation with them. They weren’t allowed to do that. Foster kids were entitled to the same standard of living as all other family members. Or that’s what it said on paper, anyway, though Ambra had been through almost everything by that point, and nothing surprised her. So the family left, and she was sent to a farm in the countryside by her stressed social worker. They were always stressed. Always running off to something more urgent.

  “Doesn’t sound like you found each other right away,” said Mattias. He refilled their glasses.

  “Not exactly.” Ambra smiled. Jill was a full-fledged bitch even as a thirteen-year-old, and Ambra hadn’t trusted a single soul by that point.

  “It was hate at first sight,” said Jill.

  Ambra nodded. “We fought like animals.” It was no exaggeration; they’d clashed almost every day in the beginning. Ambra was convinced she was going to be sent away. But the woman who ran the farm—Renée—stuck it out. She managed to give Jill the attention she needed and she also gained Ambra’s trust. The years they spent on the farm were an oasis for both of them. A turning point.

  “What happened?” Mattias asked.

  “Since we didn’t manage to kill each other, we became friends instead. Gradually,” said Jill. It was a difficult process, but one day, when Ambra was being picked on in school, Jill beat up the bully, and their relationship changed. Or maybe they just matured.

  “Jill started singing and I started studying,” Ambra added. She was tired of teachers who shook their heads, principals who pursed their lips, and she had been torn between dropping out of school or really knuckling down. Even today, she was deeply grateful to her teenage self, who had possessed enough brain cells to make the right decision.

  “I had my breakthrough on Swedish Idol when I was sixteen, and that changed everything,” Jill said.

  “Sounds like it was good for you?” said Mattias.

  She nodded. “Singing probably saved my life. And Renée meant so much to us. She encouraged our friendship and sisterhood. Since neither of us have any biological siblings, we decided to be one another’s sister. It’s been that way ever since. And no matter which way you look at it, it’s the longest relationship either of us has ever had.”

  “What happened to Renée?” Tom asked quietly.

  “She died,” was all Jill said. She looked away.

  Renée’s death was a damn tragedy. The one good thing about it was that, by that point, both girls were older than eighteen. No more foster homes. Jill went off on tour and Ambra decided to study journalism.

  “She had cancer,” said Ambra. Shitty illness.

  Jill held out her glass. “No more about that,” she said encouragingly. Ambra nodded. It was far too nice an evening to be delving into gloomy thoughts. But she did miss Renée. Often.

  “More wine?” Tom asked.

  She nodded. His arm grazed against hers when he picked up the bottle.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled.

  “Don’t worry,” she mumbled back, wanted to touch his arm, run her fingers over those strands of hair, smell him a little more. Freja came over and positioned herself between them. Ambra gently stroked her rough coat. Freja laid her head on Tom’s leg for a moment and then she turned to Ambra, sniffed, and did a loop of the table.

  Jill studied the dog, though she didn’t say anything.

  “Ambra, how’s your work going up here? Are you doing any more interviews?” Mattias gave her a warm smile.

  “Not right now. There’s one thing I’m looking into,” she said. She didn’t elaborate. Spying on her old foster parents seemed too disturbed.

  “Do you like your job?” he asked.

  “A lot.”

  “Ambra’s passionate about saving the world,” said Jill.

  She didn’t say it in a mean way. And she wasn’t completely wrong. Ambra put down her cutlery and breathed out.

  “Full?” Tom asked.

  �
��That was incredibly good,” she said, noticing that even Jill had cleaned her plate.

  “Have you ever been to the Icehotel?” Tom asked her as Jill explained that she had just come from there.

  “No.”

  “It’s actually pretty cool,” said Jill. “You should go over there, Ambra. Now I’m stuffed. What do you say, time to get undressed?” She gave Mattias a flirty look.

  He nodded, though his expression didn’t change. “We can have dessert later. The sauna’s warm. Tom, if you show them where to get changed, I’ll clear the table.”

  Ambra and Jill followed Tom downstairs.

  “You can use this as a changing room,” Tom said as he turned on the light.

  The women looked at each other. The house didn’t just have a sauna in the basement, as Ambra had assumed; the entire lower level was made for relaxing. One wall consisted of individual shower booths, and against the other there were armchairs, small tables, and wicker baskets. Tom moved around the room, lighting the candles. The mosaic tiles glittered in varying shades of copper.

  “You’re both so quiet,” Tom said as he opened a cupboard and took out some towels.

  “I don’t know why, but I assumed it would be some kind of bachelor’s sauna, full of cans of beer and other unhygienic things,” Ambra said. Jill nodded in agreement.

  Tom smirked. “Nah, we got rid of all the unhygienic stuff before you got here. The left-hand shower can be for the ladies.”

  Ambra took the pile of towels he held out to her. They smelled freshly laundered, and they were almost laughably soft amid all the grand manliness of the house.

  After she and Jill closed the door to their changing room, she heard Mattias arrive. Soon after, they heard the mumbling of the men’s voices from the other room.

  “What do you think?” Ambra whispered as she took off and folded her jeans.

  Jill raised a perfectly penciled eyebrow and gave her a long look. “That you should invest in a wax, maybe?”

  Jill herself was wearing a G-string and a lacy bra from some ridiculously expensive brand, and it was clear she was waxed clean. She was so beautiful it was painful, Ambra thought, withstanding the impulse to look down at her own utterly ordinary body. Jill was naturally olive colored, as if she had a constant tan. She was much curvier than a model, but she was perfectly proportioned, as though she had already been Photoshopped. Yes, Jill had a personal trainer and was constantly on a diet, but it was completely insane that a person could look like that. And wearing a G-string and delicate lace—things very few women could get away with. Ambra took off her cotton panties, soft and comfortable, but hardly sexy. She didn’t have much of a bust, and her bra had seen better days. But still . . .

  “I’m glad you came with me,” she said honestly. Jill was her family, and it didn’t matter that she was too hot.

  “Of course you are. They seem nice enough, they seem like straight-up guys, but you did the right thing not coming alone. I have pepper spray in my purse.”

  Ambra was fairly sure that neither Tom nor Mattias was a man who could be stopped with a little pepper spray. “Are you interested in Mattias?” she asked, still whispering.

  Jill shook her head. “He’s far too decent. And a little snobby, with his wines and all the books he’s read, don’t you think?”

  Ambra thought Mattias was sociable and polite, and he had mentioned one book he liked, in passing, while they were discussing literature. But Jill always did have a complex when it came to her education, and she usually preferred men who were a little more . . . one-dimensional. Plus, she could see Jill was lying. She liked him, all right.

  “What about Tom?” Ambra asked as nonchalantly as she could.

  “He’s super cheery, isn’t he? You two are a good match.” Jill stepped out of her G-string and unclasped her bra. Ambra handed her one of the towels. Jill wrapped it around herself and managed to look like an ultraglamorous film star, even in pale gray terry. “He was checking you out,” she said.

  “What?” Ambra didn’t like how eager her voice sounded. She needed to control herself better. But she had noticed it too.

  “You said he has another girl?”

  “An ex. Ah, I don’t know.” Ambra wrapped a second towel around herself and almost drowned in all the soft material. She wiggled her toes on the heated floor. “But you’re the one who said he was looking at me. I have no idea what he thinks of me.”

  “Men. They’re either boring as hell or completely incomprehensible,” Jill said. She opened the door to a toilet, sat down, and started to pee, completely unembarrassed.

  “You could close the door,” Ambra pointed out.

  “I don’t like closed doors. Listen to me now. You’re a hundred times better than I’ll ever be. Loyal and super smart. You’re one of the people they’ll want to keep around if the world’s about to end and they need to choose the thousand smartest people. You’re one of the best, Ambra. And any man who can’t see that really doesn’t deserve you.”

  Ambra stared at her, astonished. “Thanks,” she managed to say.

  Jill wiped herself, flushed, and quickly washed her hands. “Just be careful. Those tortured, silent types, I don’t get what it is about them that some women find so attractive. You don’t think you can fix him, do you? That never works out, I swear.”

  “Thanks for all the advice I didn’t ask for. But don’t you think the relationship between them is weird?”

  There was something going on between Tom and Mattias, she just couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Something bubbling beneath the surface.

  “No idea. But you know I don’t really care about other people’s problems. Come on, let’s go get a look at some male bodies.”

  They quickly showered. Ambra wrapped the towel around herself again and crossed her arms to guarantee it wouldn’t fall down when she stepped out of the shower.

  The men came out at the same time, and it wasn’t the most relaxed situation she had ever experienced. Four people who barely knew one another, wearing only towels. She tried not to stare at Tom, who had a towel wrapped around his waist and nothing else. She looked at him, counted to one, two, looked away for a while, and then peered at him again. She had met enough military, ex-military, and wannabe-military types to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff. Tom and Mattias were the real deal. Tom was a fighter, a man who was used to—possibly even comfortable with—deathly violence. The result was roughly 50 percent troubling and 50 percent sexy. It was strange. She had met men like him before, at least in terms of appearance, without feeling the slightest attraction. In fact, the opposite was true. The safety courses the paper sent her on were always led by men like Tom Lexington. Big, tough men who were more than happy to fix their eyes on you and roar: I’VE BEEN DOING THIS FOR TWENTY YEARS. YOU DO THAT IN REAL LIFE, YOU’RE DEAD. HEAR THAT? YOU’RE DEEEEEAADDD.

  Except Tom never roared, tensed his muscles, or showed off. He was more like an experienced predator. Silent and observant. And, like she said, sexy.

  She gave herself two more seconds, and her eyes darted across his naked torso. Je–sus. Christ. Muscles everywhere. A little black hair. Dark nipples. Rock-hard abs. Lots of scars.

  She didn’t dare look at Jill, convinced that her sister would know exactly what she was thinking and blurt out something that would make her way more embarrassed than she already was. Ambra had done far more unusual things than this: traveled with shit-hot men without any makeup, gotten changed in front of men, a load of things that she didn’t care about. She wasn’t the least bit self-conscious in front of Mattias, for example, even though he, too, was wearing nothing but a towel. But Tom . . . he affected her, made her feel conscious of her own body and what it might get up to.

  Mattias held open the door, and Ambra stepped into the sauna. The heat hit her like a wall. The wood crackled, and Mattias picked up a copper bucket and poured water onto the heater, causing clouds of steam to rise. There were huge windows out onto the woods and the darkne
ss, and it was so hot that she started sweating immediately. She studied the sauna as Jill puffed and panted and commented on the heat from behind her.

  Three benches, two half-naked men, an unpredictable foster sister, and her.

  There was no telling how this would end.

  Chapter 20

  Tom was last into the sauna. It felt strange to be doing this, taking a sauna with Ambra. The whole house was suddenly so full of life. Mattias, a dog, two women. A couples’ dinner, for God’s sake. And the very obvious fact that Ambra was nearly naked. She was usually wearing so many layers when they met, but suddenly all he could see was bare, glistening skin wherever he looked. Maybe it was his generally weakened state that made him react so strongly to her nudity? He hadn’t been himself for so long now, maybe there was some kind of chemical imbalance in his system, one that made him unable to tear his eyes away from her. It was damned obvious, in any case.

  Jill sat down on the lowest bench. Ambra paused, but then she took a step up and sat down on the middle one. She sat with her back completely straight, pressed her knees together, and held on to her towel with both hands. Like a prim and proper schoolteacher.

  “You good there? Don’t want to sit up here?” Mattias asked. He was making his way to the top bench.

  Ambra shook her head. Small droplets of sweat were already glistening on her skin. “It’ll be too hot for me.”

  “Are you just going to stand there?” Mattias asked, giving Tom a telling look. Stop staring.

  Tom tore his eyes from Ambra and climbed up to the top bench. The sauna was a generous size, and during the day the view from the windows was incredible. Right now, all they could see was the snow, stars, and darkness outside.

  Jill straightened the towel over her generous bust; lay down; stretched out her long, golden legs; and gave a contented sigh. A typical sauna sound. Ambra wiped her forehead and checked her towel again, pulled it down over her thighs.