Font Size:  

I watched her chewing her fingers, the most vulnerable I’d ever seen her, even spread and gaping and fucked raw she’d been happy, confident. The media would have a field day with this Gemma. They’d chew her up and spit her out for the sake of a decent print run. My dirty girl would be all broken up.

“I wish things were different,” I said. “You have no idea how much I wish things were different.”

“I do.” She flashed me a look for just a second, and there were tears brewing. It crushed my chest. “I wish they were different, too.”

“I’m sorry, Gemma.”

“Don’t apologise,” she said, swatting a tear away. “It was a crazy ride, Jason. I loved it. All of it.”

“Me, too.”

I choked back my own tears on the way down the stairs, and was really fucking grateful I had my shades in the Land Rover.

***

Gemma

I hadn’t even touched him. Hadn’t taken the chance to kiss him one last time, hadn’t even really looked at him. How I’d wanted to. Fuck, how I’d wanted to succumb to the recklessness and have him take me. My body was aching, battered from everything he’d given me, all the crazy fantasies he’d fulfilled, and still I’d wanted him. I’d never wanted anyone so badly as I wanted that man.

And now he was gone.

I gripped a cushion, fighting against tears that paid no attention whatsoever. Crying over a footballer, some famous married guy who drove an Aston Martin. So this was heartbreak? This was the horrible romantic anguish that sent people loopy? It sucked bad.

Not as bad as a public scandal would suck. Not as bad as losing someone like Jason Redfern when I was in well deep over my head. Worse than this. Properly entangled with all the lovey dovey stuff. I could feel it brewing. It wouldn’t have taken much.

He’d have made a sap out of me, and it would’ve hurt like a motherfucker when it all went wrong.

This was for the best. The sensible option. End on a high, right?

But this was no high. This was the fucking pits.

I scrolled to his name on my phone, desperate to hear his voice one last time.

No. That would be crazy.

I pressed delete instead. Temptation removed. Forever.

***

Jason

“Come on, Redfern! He strolled straight fucking past you!” Trevor shook his head, shot me one of his looks. “Keep your eye on the fucking ball, lad.”

The weather befitted my mood. Grey as fuck. Cold and pissing drizzly. I couldn’t even pretend to care about this training shit. We’d been here since bastard dawn, practicing for the next shitty game against Newcastle. Two days without my dirty girl and life was fucking sour. I’d tried to forget about her, struggling to lose the itch with an overdose of porn and chatline girls. None of it had worked. The itch ran way too fucking deep for that. She’d squirmed all the way inside and left a bitter fucking ache in my gut.

The ball headed in my direction and I booted it wide, sailing it past Winstanley’s head to bounce off the side rail.

“Pissing hell, Redfern. Did you wake up on the wrong side of April this morning, you clumsy shit?”

Lunch couldn’t come soon enough. I checked my phone, heart stuttering to see a load of missed calls. Numbers I didn’t recognise.

I checked my answerphone, hoping to hell it would be my dirty girl’s voice waiting for me.

It wasn’t. It was so much worse.

It was Caroline Vaughan from Gables PR.

Jason, please call me. I’ve had the Daily Times on the phone seeking comment on an article that went to press this morning. About a chatline girl? Call me, urgently.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
Articles you may like