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“How come?”
She shrugs and the light in her eyes dims a little bit. “I’ve always been a bit obsessed with creating a space for me.” She leans back in her seat and frowns. Any trace of the happiness she had just a few seconds ago is long gone.
“You don’t have to tell me,” I say quickly. “It’s personal. I get it.”
“It’s not that,” she says softly. “I just haven’t thought about why I chose this career in a long time.” She taps her fingers against the table, and I know she’s itching to twist them around her hair.
“My parents had me when they were really young. I think my mother had just turned sixteen, and my father wasn’t much older. They were just kids having a kid and, surprise, surprise, they didn’t last. I think they made it about three years before they called it quits. Which was probably for the best.” She snorts out a laugh void of any actual humour or warmth. “They weren’t good together. Atall. My father got a new girlfriend pretty quickly after and they didn’t have any room for me in their flat. Whenever I had to spend the night at his place, I slept on the sofa. I didn’t even have anywhere to put my clothes.” She winces slightly like she’s remembering something particularly unpleasant.
“Things were better at my mother’s house, but she was a young, single mother, and we couldn’t afford very much. We shared a bedroom until she met Patrick, her husband, and he moved us into his house. I had my own room there finally, but it wasn’t really mine. I wasn’t allowed to decorate or put any posters on the walls or even choose my own bedsheets. It always felt like I was just a guest in their home, even though it was supposed to be my home too.”
She blinks quickly and when she looks up at me again, her eyes are watery.
“Amber—”
“It’s fine.I’mfine,” she says, even as her voice cracks slightly. She reaches for the strands of hair falling in front of her face, but then she catches my eye and brings her hand back to the table. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted really. A home of my own. Some place I can decorate howIwant to. Somewhere I actually belong. I guess that’s where interior design came in. I love designing and decorating spaces and making them come to life. Until I can do it in a home of my own, I’ll do it for my clients.” She shakes her head and then laughs like she hasn’t just split my heart in two. “God, that was bleak.”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
She wrinkles her nose, and I feel a tiny bit of relief to see a glimmer of the Amber I’m used to coming back. “Don’tyouapologise. There’s nothing to apologise for. It is what it is.”
“Are things better at home now at least?” I ask. “With your parents?”
She reaches for her glass and takes a long sip before answering. “I see my fathermaybetwice a year at best, and we don’t really talk outside of that. I don’t even know where he is right now. And I wouldn’t say I’m close with my mother. Don’t get me wrong, I know she loves me and she tried her best, but sometimes I just feel like there’s this lingering resentment between us. Like every time she looks at me, she just sees a reminder of how much she missed out on growing up because she had to raise me.”
“That’s—” I swallow down the lump of anger rising in my throat. “That’s awful.”
She shrugs like it barely bothers her, even though it’s so painfully clear that it does. “I’ve got a little brother — Noah. He’s my angel.” Her face lights up when she says his name. “But it’s like night and day seeing how she treats him compared to how she treated me growing up and even the way she treats me now. I know that people can change and that I should be grateful that Noah only knows happiness with her. But sometimes I wonder what was so wrong withmethat she couldn’t be this kind of mother back when I needed her.”
If her words earlier cleaved my heart in two, that right there just smashed the remains into millions of tiny pieces.
“But enough of this extremely depressing deep dive into my life,” she says, cracking a weak smile. “Your turn. Did you always want to be a managing director?”
I feel like I should say something. No— What Iwantto do is leap over the table and pull her into my arms. I want to cradle her face in my hands and tell her over and over again that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with her and that anyone who can’t see that isn’t worth her time. Family or not. But it’s clear that she desperately wants to change the topic, so I follow her lead and force out a strained laugh. “No. I can’t imagine many little kids dream of being a managing director some day.”
“Fair. What did you want to be then?”
Successful? I think that’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to be. Successful in my own right, without it being attached to my last name. But I don’t think that’s the answer she’s looking for, andIdon’t want to get into all of that right now. “G.I. Joe.”
“I can see that.” She looks me up and down slowly, deliberately. “You’ve got the whole blond, muscled hero thing going on.”
“Is that your type?” I ask, leaning in. “Blond, muscled heroes?”
“I don’t have a type,” she says with a smirk. “Treat me nice, and we’ll see where it goes.”
Is that a challenge? It feels like a challenge and one I’d happily rise to.
“Really?” I ask. “That’s it? No big, romantic gestures or anything like that?”
Because I could definitely do that.
She shrugs and gives me a wry smile. “When I get one, I’ll let you know how it lands.”
I find it hard to believe that Amber isn’t swimming in romantic affection, that men aren’t lining up in the streets daily to profess their love to her.
The waiter comes back with our food, but we don’t break eye contact with each other. We sit in a charged silence as he places our dishes in front of us and tells us to enjoy our meal. When he’s gone, she asks, “What about you? Do you have a type?”
I don’t even have to think about it. “Beautiful, passionate,stubbornwomen who don’t have a problem telling me what they really think about me.”
