Dirty Bad Strangers (22 page)

I tried to brush the social media tirades aside, but my stomach didn’t rest easy. That could be me. It could easily be me, except the hate would be ten times worse. I couldn’t even imagine my worst picture up alongside April Redfern’s best. The keyboard warriors wouldn’t even be hating, they’d be laughing too hard. And then they’d dig, trowelling up my personal history, my chatline job, my poor family back in Hatfield. His, too. They’d drag Jason through the mud all over again, maybe even
Serena
would seize another reality TV job on the back of it.

That didn’t sting so hard as the thought of him smiling brightly for the camera and denying the whole sorry lot of it. Maybe he’d laugh with them.

No, he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t have the chance. The world would never know about this, not any of it.

I’d make sure of it.

Sensible Gemma was back in the driving seat.

***

Jason

I stared at the flowers on the passenger seat. Overkill? Most likely. I picked them up anyway. Steve was already waiting with his keys, a sly smirk on his face.

“Fucking hell, mate. Roses? Jesus.”

“Just trying to make a good impression.”

He laughed as he threw me the keys. “Nothing says romance like flowers after a gangbang. You’ve got it bad, you soft twat. Never seen you like this before.” He looked me up and down. “Christ on a bike, you look like you’re ready to meet the fucking Queen.”

“Yes, because everyone wears new jeans to meet her Royal Highness.”

“Haircut?”

“Fuck off, Steve. I haven’t had a fucking haircut.”

He grinned his head off. “Hope she doesn’t faint on you.”

“She can faint, just as long as she doesn’t call the
Daily Bullshit
hotline and sell me out straight afterwards.”

“She might.”

I smiled. “She won’t. Not my dirty girl.”

“Hope you’re right.”

So did I.

I was used to nerves and adrenaline and pressure. Used to a million pairs of eyes on me, judging me, rooting for me, hating me. But this was something else. My heart was thumping as I pulled up outside my dirty girl’s flat. I checked my reflection in the rearview mirror, then ditched my shades. I couldn’t walk in there in a cap and sunglasses, not today. I looked around the yard to check for onlookers, but the place was dead as a dodo. It’d be safe, just a few paces. Roses or no roses? Shit. Did Gemma even like flowers? I guess I’d find out.

The communal door was open, my path to her flat clear. I took a breath outside.

Hi, I’m Jason.

Hi, dirty girl, I’m your dirty bad stranger.

Hi Gemma, pleased to meet you. I’m Jason Redfern, not quite the trucker you were expecting.

I pushed the door open.

Gemma was stood in the kitchen with her back to me. I saw her take a breath, heard the kettle boiling. Not quite the scenario I had in mind. I lingered with the stupid roses in front of me, uncharacteristically nervous. I should have charged in and taken her, spun her by the wrists and commanded her to look at the man who’d fucked her raw. I should have slapped her beautiful chubby arse and told her this was just the beginning, that the games would get a lot fucking better from here on in. But instead I stood mute, clutching those flowers like a stupid shield.

“Hi Jason.” Her voice was so soft.

“I was expecting you on your knees,” I said. “But I’ll have a coffee if you’re making one.”

She turned to face me, and swayed for just a second, like someone had thumped her in the gut. “I wasn’t sure footballers were allowed coffee.”

Shit. My face burned.

“How long have you known?” God, her eyes, beautiful green eyes, and those freckles. Gemma Taylor was truly beautiful.

“Only since yesterday. I saw you interviewed on TV. Thought you were in the bloody pub with me, stupid hey?”

“I didn’t think you liked football.”

“I don’t. I was out on a forced mission to reintroduce Chelsea to daylight. She’s been having a shitty time since she made up all that crap for the papers. But you know all about that, don’t you?” She smiled, but there was a sadness in it. “I really thought you were a trucker. I was so wrong.”

“Sorry to disappoint you.”

She gestured in my direction, her dainty little fingers dancing in the air. “Like you could ever disappoint. Look at you. Jesus, Jason, you’re fucking gorgeous. You’re a football star. A fucking pin-up.”

“And a man, Gemma. My shit still stinks like the rest, you said so yourself, remember? On the phone? You said my shit would still stink, and it does. I bleed, and shit, and breathe and fuck, same as anyone else.”

“You don’t fuck like anyone else.” Her beautiful cheeks bloomed. “I can’t believe I jabbered on about Chelsea and all that crap and you didn’t say a word. My idiot friend did that to you and I had absolutely no idea. I must have seemed a right moron.”

“Of course you didn’t.”

“I feel one now.”

My heart kept on thumping, but this time it wasn’t nerves. It was dread. “You aren’t a moron, Gemma.” I ditched the stupid flowers on the draining board. “This really isn’t how I imagined things.”

“Are those for me?”

“I didn’t know if you liked flowers or not.”

“Nobody’s ever given me flowers. They don’t usually know where I live.”

I smiled. “Of course, Miss Anti-domesticity. I should’ve left them in the car.”

“In
Steve’s
car, you mean. Roses are nice. It was a nice thought.” She turned her back to make the coffee, then slammed her hands on the worktop. “Shit, I’m sorry. This is all coming out wrong.”

I closed the distance, put my hands on the hips I’d come to know so well, breathing in her hair. She tensed. Shoulders tight. “It’s ok, dirty girl. There isn’t a rulebook. We’re well off script here.”

She coughed and sidestepped, busying herself with sugar and milk. I took mine black. She took hers with three sugars and about a gallon of milk. So many little details to learn about the girl, it seemed a good place to start. I assigned it to memory.

She scooted past me to take a seat on the sofa. “I looked you up on the internet.”

“I bet that was enlightening.” I sat down, not too close.

“I saw your wife. I bought her single, you know, when I was younger.”

“Good for you, I bet she looked so fucking happy, didn’t she? Smiling away for the cameras?”

“You told me you couldn’t stand the sight of each other.”

I fought back a scowl. “I wasn’t lying. I haven’t lied, Gemma. Just omitted details. We both did, it was the game.”

“You don’t look like you can’t stand the sight of each other.”

“And there’s the beauty of the media for you. We smile. We go to dinner. We donate money to all the right charities. That’s the life. It doesn’t mean shit.”

“You weren’t joking about the house, were you?” She risked a smile. “It’s quite impressive.”

“Quite fucking expensive.”

“The rumours about the call girls, are they true?”

I took a sip of my coffee, then opted for honesty. “Some of them.”

“The Serena girl?”

“I took her dogging, invited her to hotel rooms to have sex with other men. I didn’t pay her, though. That was just sensationalism for a better pay cheque.”

“And April? She knows about all that?”

Hearing Gemma speak the bitch’s name was like a nail in my fucking side. “She knows enough. She doesn’t give a shit, so long as the press keep printing our happy pictures and telling her how fucking wonderful she is.”

“Does she know about me?” Her eyes looked to her knees, nervous. I could have reached out to touch her, but I didn’t.

“She suspects.”

“Are there others? More like me?” She played with the hem of her skirt, blessing me with the slightest glimpse of her gorgeous white thighs.

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ve got a chatline girl lined up in every city. Whenever there’s an away game I try and hook them up, ship up a busload of mates for a gangbang and then turn up with a bunch of shitty roses wanting to get to know them.” I sighed. “Of course there aren’t any others. Gemma, don’t do this. You
know
me.”

“I don’t, though, do I?”

I did touch her this time. My hand on hers as she gripped her knee, squeezing tight. “Yesterday, in the rain and the mud, you knew me. That was real, dirty girl.”

“
This
is real. You’re a footballer. You’re on TV every weekend. You’re married to a pop star and you live on an estate in Surrey.”

“It sounds like you’ve reached the end of the road before we’ve even started.”

Her beautiful green eyes were so sad when they finally met mine. “There is no road. You’re married. I’ve seen her face, seen the way she smiles at you.”

“All fake, like I said.”

“Even so. I pictured trucker Jason with some dowdy wife who didn’t care a shit for him. Figured she’d probably be having an affair herself, maybe a toy boy while he was out on the road.”

“April’s been screwing her stylist since before we got married. Don’t believe the hype.” I finished my coffee, ditched the mug on the floor. “So, it’s the wife? That’s the deal breaker?”

She struggled for words. “It’s all of it. I told you, I can’t be a footballer’s wife, or lover, or whatever the hell this is. I’m not that girl! I’m not a celebrity type, Jason, I’m just a girl. I don’t want my face in the papers, I don’t want people talking about me. Look at you, and look at me.”

I did look at her, I’d never get bored of looking at her. I watched her pink cheeks darken, highlighting her freckles and those gorgeous eyes. “I haven’t stopped looking at you, Gemma. I love looking at you. You have beautiful eyes.”

“I can’t believe this is happening. Me being the one to tell Jason fucking Redfern that this crazy fling can’t work.”

“Is that what you’re telling me?” Fuck, it stung. It stung bad.

“It’s the truth.”

I gritted my teeth, strangely hurt. “Do you want me to leave?”

She didn’t answer, which was answer enough on its own. “I wish you were a trucker, Jason. A nobody, like me.”

“You aren’t a nobody, dirty girl.” I got to my feet, hovering like a prick before getting myself together. “This really isn’t what I was hoping for.”

“Nor me. I can’t believe this is real, this stuff doesn’t happen to people like me.”

“This is really it? We walk away?”

She shrugged, chewing on her thumbnail. She wouldn’t look at me. “We carry on this thing and one of us is going to get hurt. You won’t leave your wife, and I couldn’t stand it if you did. The papers would tear the shit out of us, Jason, and that’s the best case scenario. The worst is that one day someone spots us, and then the media would really go to town.
Slutty chatline girl seduces Premier League superstar
. It would be hell for both of us.”

I couldn’t argue with her. She was right.

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.