Striker (Book 1 in the 'Striker' Trilogy)

by Michelle Betham

  ‘What do you want?’ He wasn’t really in the mood to talk to her. Not after what he’d just seen.

  ‘I want to talk to you,’ she replied. ‘Please, Ryan. I can explain…’

  He laughed. He couldn’t help it. Was she really going to wheel out the old “I can explain” cliché? ‘Yeah. That’s what they all say, isn’t it?’

  She was starting to get a touch aggravated now. How dare he stand there and act like the wounded victim? After everything he’d done? ‘Listen, Ryan,’ she began, trying to keep her voice quiet because the last thing she wanted was a scene. ‘I don’t know where you get off acting all holier than thou, I mean, Jesus, you were practically fucking those two girls at the bar right in front of me…’

  ‘Just how close a family friend is he, Amber? Has “Uncle” Jim always been this attentive to his best friend’s daughter? Exactly how much does daddy know, huh?’

  Amber glared at him. ‘My dad knows nothing, Ryan. And if you care anything about me then you won’t say a word. Please. There’s a lot more to this than you know…’

  He threw his head back and laughed again. ‘Jesus Christ… But, do you know what? Things are suddenly a lot clearer now, like, why Jim dropped me from that match a few weeks ago. Was it going on then, Amber? Did he get jealous of you and me and decide to exert his authority in the only way he knew how? Is that the way it was?’

  ‘Look, Ryan – we’re in one hell of a messed-up relationship, you and me. It’s been like that from the start, and I don’t think even you can argue with me on that score.’

  ‘I love you, Amber. I fucking told you that, and I should have realised when you didn’t say it back…’

  ‘You never loved me, Ryan. How could you love me when you did what you did?’

  ‘I love you,’ Ryan repeated, looking right into her eyes. ‘Yes, I’ve been an idiot, and if you must know I was on my way upstairs to find you and tell you exactly how I feel and how much of an idiot I’ve been. How much I regret what I’ve done because my actions could have meant I lost you. And I didn’t want to face that. Suddenly that scared me, y’know? But it seems like you didn’t really give a fuck about me.’

  ‘You are so wrong, Ryan. You are so, so wrong…’

  ‘You never had any intention of sticking by me, did you? Not when you were sleeping with my fucking manager.’

  Amber leaned back against the bar, closing her eyes for a second as she tried to take in just what was happening here. ‘We need to talk, Ryan,’ she said quietly, looking at him, but he was staring straight ahead. ‘And here really isn’t the place, is it?’

  He turned to face her. Shit! He was never going to get his head around the fact she’d been sleeping with Jim Allen. But some sick part of him really wanted to know just what was going on between those two, even if he wasn’t going to like everything he heard. ‘Let’s go upstairs. Come on. We can talk in peace up there.’

  She didn’t know whether to breathe a sigh of relief that he seemed to have suddenly calmed down, or whether to feel nervous because he could be so unpredictable. Either way, she was just glad they were getting out of there to somewhere more private. At least he seemed sober and sensible enough to realise that causing a scene wasn’t the best move – for anyone.

  Closing the door of their room behind him, Ryan watched as she walked over to the window, throwing her bag onto the floor by the bed. ‘You said there was a lot more to this… what did you mean by that?’

  She turned around, folding her arms against her as she leaned back against the window sill. ‘This isn’t just… it isn’t just a recent thing, me and Jim.’

  Ryan walked further into the room, his hands in his pockets, looking at her through narrowed eyes. ‘How d’you mean, not a recent thing? How long’s it been going on? Before me and you?’

  Amber turned away for a second, unsure as to what good telling him this would do, but he deserved to know the truth. She owed him that much.

  ‘It started when I… when he was a player, for Red Star.’

  Ryan frowned, keeping his eyes on her all the time, even though she was looking at the floor. ‘That was… how old were you back then? He was about my age when he joined Red Star, wasn’t he?’

  Amber nodded, still staring at her boots, her arms still folded across her chest. ‘I was sixteen, Ryan…’

  ‘Sixteen? Jesus Christ, Amber…’

  ‘Let me finish, Ryan. Please.’ She finally looked up, her eyes locking onto his, swallowing hard before she spoke again. ‘I had this – this massive crush on him…’

  ‘And he took advantage of that, did he?’

  ‘Please. Just, let me finish. It went on for a couple of years, but nobody else knew. Nobody. Not my dad, not my mum, nobody. It was all this huge, exciting secret. Until he hurt me. Until he became involved with somebody else and just threw me aside like some used toy. So I left the North East, tried to forget him by throwing myself into university life and it worked, y’know? For a while. Until I moved back home to find him still around. Only, this time he was single again.’

  ‘You went back to him?’ Ryan asked, finding it really hard to believe that someone like Amber could be so weak. She just hadn’t struck him as that kind of woman.

  Amber nodded. ‘For more years of secret meetings, lies… and then he did it again, didn’t he? He hurt me – again. By this time his playing days were over, of course, and I didn’t see why I should be the one to leave my home town… but I couldn’t move on if he was around. I was so in love with him, so fucking in love, it wouldn’t go away, even after everything he’d done. But I knew I couldn’t get on with my life if he stayed in the North East so he promised me… he promised me he’d stay away. He promised me…’ She turned and looked out of the window, watching as a giggling couple ran across the large, fairy-lit patio area down below, throwing themselves behind one of the giant Christmas trees before indulging in the kind of kissing and groping that seemed rife at Christmas parties.

  ‘And then he turns up as Red Star’s new manager,’ Ryan said, his voice monotone. ‘After all those years… and you’re still in love with him now, I take it?’

  Amber nodded again, hugging herself as she continued to stare out of the window. ‘I’m so sorry, Ryan.’ She turned round, tears she didn’t really deserve to cry beginning to fall slowly down her face. ‘I should never have got so close to you, but I thought… I thought… You didn’t deserve any of this.’

  He walked over to her, pulling her arms away from her body, his hand slipping into hers. ‘You thought that by being with me you could forget him. Is that it?’

  She looked up into his dark blue eyes. He really was one of the most beautiful men she’d ever seen, and somewhere deep inside she felt so much for him, she really did. She just couldn’t explain those feelings, couldn’t understand exactly why she was with him; she couldn’t work out whether she was with him for all the right reasons, or all the wrong ones, and that wasn’t fair on him. ‘I do care about you, Ryan. Please believe me when I say that, because it’s true. But… but sometimes it feels as though I’m more like your mother than your girlfriend. All the worrying about what you’re doing, where you’re going…’

  ‘It drove you back to him,’ Ryan said, an almost resigned tone to his voice.

  ‘Jesus, I don’t know, Ryan. I don’t know if that’s the case, I really don’t. Jim, he’s… he’s just always been there, y’know? There’s never been any other man who can make me feel the way he does.’

  ‘Even after the way he treated you in the past?’

  ‘He’s promised me that won’t happen again.’

  Ryan threw his head back and laughed a loud, cynical laugh. ‘For Christ’s sake, Amber. Have you heard yourself? What the hell’s happened to that hard-faced ice-queen I fell in love with, huh? You’re gonna let him do this to you all over again? Is that it? You’re gonna throw it all away because Jim Allen has decided to walk back into your life?’

  She pulled her hand free and wa
lked over to the bed, sitting down on the edge of it. ‘I can’t forget him, Ryan. I can’t spend my life with him here, and me pretending I don’t feel the way I do, that isn’t fair on me. And it certainly isn’t fair on you.’

  He sat down next to her, leaning forward and clasping his hands between his open legs. ‘I’ll change, Amber. All the partying, all the crap that goes with this life I’ll bin it, forget it. I’ll do that, I promise. Max was right…’

  She looked at him, smiling a weak smile. ‘I have to be with him, Ryan.’

  ‘Why? When there’s every chance he’s going to hurt you again?’

  ‘You don’t know him like I do.’

  ‘That’s such a clichéd thing to say, Amber. Jesus, babe, you’re such a strong woman, why are you acting like some love-sick teenager?’

  Because that’s what she was always going to be where Jim Allen was concerned – that sixteen-year-old, love-struck teenager. She turned away from Ryan again, getting up and walking back over to the window. ‘I’ve got to do this, Ryan. That’s all I know. If I want my life to get back to any kind of normality then I need to listen to my heart and I need to be with him.’ She turned round to face him as he walked over to her. ‘It’s all I know, Ryan. He’s all I know.’

  ‘It doesn’t have to be that way, Amber,’ Ryan said quietly, reaching out to gently touch her cheek. ‘You and me, we can make this work, if you’ll let me.’

  She shook her head, trying hard not to cry again. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve tried, and I can’t – you can’t. Deep down inside I don’t think it’s what you really want, Ryan. Not yet. But, promise me…’ He turned his head away but she put her hand to his face, making him look at her again. ‘Promise me you’ll pull yourself together and concentrate on your career. Please, Ryan. You don’t need a babysitter, you don’t need that, and Max is underestimating you if that’s what he really believes. You are an intelligent man, a talented man, and I don’t want you to throw that away, do you hear me? Promise me, Ryan.’

  Ryan said nothing. He couldn’t. Because only now did he realise how much she meant to him. Only now, when she was about to walk away from him, did he realise how much he really needed her. Only now did he feel something he’d never felt before – a sense of impending loss that almost took his breath away, and already he could feel a pain in his chest that hurt like hell. She was leaving him. For his manager. And she didn’t think she was what he wanted? She was so bloody wrong.

  ‘If I’d tried harder… if I’d tried to stop, if I’d made the effort…’

  She stroked his cheek, smiling as she looked into those beautiful deep-blue eyes. Her handsome, beautiful boy. ‘Jim was never going to go away, Ryan. I could never ignore him. I’ve been fighting it since the day he came back here, so… I don’t know. But I doubt it.’

  In a reflex action he couldn’t stop he lowered his mouth down onto hers, kissing her like he’d never kissed anyone before because it was probably the last time he was ever going to feel her this close. And that pain only got worse as she responded, her mouth moving on his like this was just some bad dream and they were fine, really. They were okay, and she wasn’t going anywhere. But she was. And he was just going to have to accept it. Somehow.

  Chapter Eighteen

  She was beginning to feel like a gypsy as she hauled boxes of her belongings back into her old house, thankful that she’d only ever rented it out and not sold it. It would be good to get settled back in her own home before Christmas. She loved this house. Back in her own territory she felt as though she could finally get some kind of control back over her life because, for a time, she’d lost that.

  Sighing heavily as the phone rang she dumped the box she was carrying down on the hall floor before running into the kitchen to answer it, tucking the receiver between her chin and shoulder as she filled the kettle. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Amber, it’s Max.’

  Amber let out a silent sigh, leaning back against the counter. ‘What do you want, Max?’

  ‘Have you seen Ryan lately?’

  ‘No. I haven’t. Why would I? We’re not together anymore.’

  ‘Yeah. So I heard.’

  ‘And what’s that tone of voice for?’ Amber was slightly agitated now. Why was he calling her? She had a million and one things to be getting on with; she didn’t have time for this.

  ‘He needed you, Amber. I needed you.’

  ‘Hang on a minute, that’s not fair. You’re making it sound like you wanted me to stick with Ryan to be nothing more than some glorified babysitter who could keep an eye on him for you.’

  ‘But you did stick with him. For a while, didn’t you? What changed your mind? I would’ve thought a woman like you could’ve pulled him back into line in no time yet all he did was go further down a path he should never have taken. Again.’

  ‘Okay, listen to me before you say anything else I could consider vaguely insulting. I stayed with Ryan because, at the time, I thought we had something. Do you understand? I cared about him, and yes, I wanted to help him. But as the relationship grew, it became evident that I couldn’t stay with him just to get him through a bad time…’

  ‘A bad time? Have you got any idea what that kid went through in London? He was washed-up, Amber. Or he would’ve been, if I hadn’t managed to pull him back from the brink and get him the help he needed.’

  ‘So, what’s this, then? You can’t be arsed to help him a second time?’

  ‘I’m not his father.’

  ‘Then maybe you should get in touch with his dad and let his parents deal with him.’

  ‘It nearly killed them, Amber. Seeing their son go through what he went through, almost losing it all…’

  Amber threw her head back, sighing silently again. ‘I’m not his social worker, Max. And I can’t let you pile guilt on me that I shouldn’t be feeling. That isn’t fair.’

  ‘He needs you, Amber.’

  ‘I can’t help that, Max.’

  She hung up before the conversation could go any further, but it was too late. The guilt had already set in.

  ‘Where do you want this one?’ Ronnie asked, coming into the kitchen with yet another box.

  ‘Just stick it over there,’ Amber replied, indicating the battered old sofa she loved so much.

  ‘Okay. What’s up?’ Ronnie put the box down on the floor at his feet and walked over to her.

  ‘What am I doing, Ronnie?’

  ‘Well,’ Ronnie began, folding his arms as he leaned back against the counter beside her, ‘… I’d say you’re moving house. Again.’

  She looked at him out the corner of her eye. ‘You know what I mean.’

  Ronnie sighed, reaching back to flick on the kettle. ‘Amber, sweetheart, I’m only going to irritate you if I start telling you what I think.’

  ‘Irritate me. Come on.’

  ‘I don’t think you should be with either of them. But, if you really think things with Jim are going to be different…’

  ‘I can’t guarantee that, can I?’ Amber sighed. ‘I just know that I can’t be without him right now.’ She shrugged, pushing a hand through her hair. ‘Maybe I just need to get him out of my system once and for all, who knows? But I feel so guilty about Ryan.’

  ‘Why are you feeling guilty? Come on, Amber, he was never your problem.’

  ‘Jesus, Ronnie, he was more than just a “problem”. I feel like I’ve let him down.’

  Ronnie pulled her into his arms, hugging her tight. ‘Hey, listen to me, alright? Ryan is a mixed-up but extremely talented young man who just needs someone to give him a kick up the arse and tell him to grow up.’

  ‘’Cause it’s that simple, right?’

  Ronnie hugged her again, kissing the top of her head. ‘He’s either going to see sense or self-implode, either way, it’s not your fight, Amber.’

  ‘I care about him, Ronnie. That was never in doubt. He just frustrated the hell out of me.’

  ‘Well, he’s not the first footballer to act like thi
s, and he won’t be the last. You know that, kiddo.’

  She pulled away, taking two mugs out of the cupboard and throwing teabags into them, covering them with boiling water from the kettle. ‘Doesn’t mean I have to stop caring, does it?’

  ‘No,’ Ronnie sighed. ‘But maybe you need to start getting your life back to normal now, sweetheart. When are you back at work?’

  ‘I’m popping into the office between Christmas and New Year. I want to get sorted before the transfer window opens again in January.’ She checked her watch.

  ‘Somewhere you’ve got to be?’ Ronnie asked, getting the milk from the fridge.

  ‘I said I’d meet Jim.’

  ‘Have you told your dad about you and Jim yet?’

  She stirred her tea slowly, looking out of the French doors onto her small but beautifully organised garden. Everything in her life had been organised, once-upon-a-time. Everything compartmentalised, because that’s the way she’d liked things. And now look at her. Everything was all over the place and she was still trying to get her head around it all.

  ‘No. Not yet. We’re going to wait, at least until after Christmas.’ She turned back to look at Ronnie. ‘And before you ask, no, we’re not going to tell him anything about the past. As far as he’s concerned – as far as everybody else is concerned – this is a recent thing.’

  ‘You’re gonna lie to him?’

  ‘It’s not lying, Ronnie. It’s just not telling him something he doesn’t need to know. It’s different.’

  Ronnie arched an eyebrow. ‘Really?’

  ‘Really,’ Amber said, handing him his tea. ‘Now, finish this and get out of here. Didn’t you say you were meeting Anna later at the MetroCentre?’

  ‘God help me,’ Ronnie sighed, smiling. ‘Christmas shopping is her idea of heaven, and my idea of hell.’

  Amber couldn’t help smiling, too. ‘It’s a necessary evil.’