Your Little Secret (28 page)

Connor smirked, if anything, it was evil and sadistic. “I’ll tell you why,” he began to say, chortling a little at the situation. “I’ve been sleeping around behind her back, and right now I am so fucking glad I did. She sleeps with you, you abandon her, and I sleep with someone else. I’d say Karma struck beautifully.”

“She loved you!” Ethan spat out at Connor, not caring about the people passing by. “She stayed in bed for four days before she had to literally be dragged out of bed, and you were the reason! She cried over you and worried over you, and for what? Wait for me to tell her that her irrationalities
were just that, irrational? I made her believe you were Mr. Right even when you fucked it up, and I sat back and let you swan in and out as you so pleased, and for what?” Ethan laughed as he probed with another rhetorical question. “For you to be the lying cheating bastard I always had you pegged as!”

“I’m the lying cheating bastard? I’d say we’re all even here seeing as she slept with you,” Connor seethed at Ethan, his throat growing tight with his heaving breaths.

Ethan threw his hands up in mock defeat, unable to contend with Connor for much longer. “You think it’s all about getting one up on someone, when all she did was fucking love you and you abandoned her first! I hope you take a good, hard look at the perfect girl you lost.”

Without allowing him a moment to react, Ethan grabbed Amber’s bag and her hand all over again and began to walk off with her.

“I don’t think so,” Connor’s voice shouted from behind him and stormed after them.

Amber pulled her hands away and stepped up to Connor, outrage on her mind. "You!" she exclaimed, pushing his chest with her palm. "You left me on my own and all that time you were sleeping with someone else! How do you think I slept at night? Why do you think I let you do what you did? I could have finished with you Con, I could have moved on. But yet I was the mug who let you Skype me whilst 'George' interrupted when you phoned me. You had the fucking cheek to come home and ask me to marry you! When you've been cheating on me from the beginning! How many girls, huh?
Just the one? Two? Three?" Amber held back as Ethan pulled on her arm. "No, Ethan, I need to do this."

Ethan listened, but apparently Connor still needed to goad the situation. "Yeah Ethan, let her be. Not like you're helping the matter. You're just here for easy access. She'll just use you and dump you," Connor jumped in gleefully, he was feeling ready to destroy Ethan’s chances of ever having Amber in his life. After all, if he couldn’t have her, Ethan certainly wouldn’t.

"You need to back off!" Ethan warned walking toward Connor.

"Ethan, stop okay?" Nodding, he backed off. "Connor, we're done. I want nothing more to do with you. I'll send you your shit. Enjoy your whore." Amber turned her back to him.

"Amber, wait!" Connor begged, grabbing her arm.

"Let me go." She spotted through clenched teeth, punctuating each fresh word. "Or I'll match your other eye." Her threat might have only been that, but the way she was feeling she was prepared to make Connor see stars and not in the way he’d like.

"I don't want to lose you, Amber," Connor’s voice suddenly morphed from its heightened octave, to a low, remorseful sound that ricocheted from his throat. He almost sounded genuine in his bid to start winning her back.

"Little too late for that don't you think, Con? Goodbye.” Amber had nothing more to say to Connor. She needed closure, and she felt she had gained it. Now she needed to close the door on her part of her life with Connor. She needed to learn to be herself without him lingering in the back of her mind. She needed to free herself of his hold on her.

"Is this it?" Connor asked, his arms spread wide as defeat began to filter into his conscious mind. "I've lost you?"

Amber shook her head and smiled sadly at him. "Connor you never had me. I’m thankful I now see that.” She gave a shrug as if this didn’t matter, but it was killing her to realise at long last this part of her life had come to a close. She looked to Ethan, took a deep breath and decided this was
it, she needed to walk away before Connor managed some sort of manipulation to win her heart back. She knew how well he could do that. “Come on, Ethan.”

And so, she left him, in the middle of London and the comfort she felt from having her best friend in her life, caused Amber to feel finally much better about the whole situation.  She needed to sort her life out. Fast.

“It’s a nice place you have here,” Amber called out as she sunk onto one of the dining room chairs. She felt at home here. She felt relaxed and like she had a place even though she knew she would be leaving it any day now.

“It’s costly, but I love it,” Ethan called out moments later. “Not as much as my place up North, but I think that’s more to do with the price tag.”

Amber laughed; she had noticed how expensive the cost of things were down in London compared to Leeds. She wouldn’t be able to live down here and she knew going back to that little run down cottage was her only option now. She could beg for her job back and she could live on that income. She had done before. The house still stood sturdy. It was still a house to live in. It would do.

“You’re looking thoughtful,” Ethan’s voice penetrated her thoughts and threw her off course for a moment. She had almost forgotten where she was sat. “Here,” he commented as he popped a glass of brown liquor that smelt strongly of Bourbon. “It’ll help you get some sleep.”

“I don’t want alcohol,” Amber said pushing the drink away. “Sorry.”

“No, don’t apologise, I should have asked,” Ethan said taking the glass
away, he disappeared quickly leaving Amber alone again.

Amber smiled weakly as he took the drink away from her. She ran a hand over the back of her neck, and gave herself a metaphorical pat on the back. She wasn’t going to go for the bottle when life got tough. This was her chance to turn her life around and make something of her life. She wasn’t going to be the miserable, self-wallowing alcoholic Connor’s life had made of her.

She wanted to be the confident girl who drank for fun and giggled all the time. She wanted to wake up and not concern herself with just surviving. No, she wanted to be so much more than that. Hell, she wanted to be the girl that Ethan made her. He always made her the best version of herself. It was time to pick herself up and dust herself off and leave the dark shadow behind.

“Seriously, girl, what’s on that mind?” Ethan asked as he finally sat down, coming back with only a glass of water for them both. He didn’t want to delay talking to her any longer. He wanted the truth from
her, he wanted to help her get over this moment of horror.

Amber gave him the same small smile. “What’s not on my mind?” she asked and looked up at him. Her eyes traced over his face quickly, literally soaking in the sight of him and she felt so content with being near him again. “I really have missed you,
Ethie,” she murmured softly, thankful that he had caught her. “Life’s empty without you.”

“I realised that fact a little too late,” Ethan agreed
, his tone filled with dry sarcasm. He looked down at his hands on the table top and sighed, “The moment I walked into this flat, I felt like a part of me was missing. I thought that by ignoring Facebook and just leaving I wouldn’t be like this, but I saw Connor’s updates on Facebook, then Eva’s and I just shut off. Then she dropped that bombshell on me.”

“Who is he?” Amber asked, treading delicately on the situation.

“Her ex-boyfriend apparently. She said she just couldn’t stop thinking about him. She wanted me away from you and then was going to leave me anyway.” Ethan shook his head at the entire situation. “We both got cheated,” Ethan spoke, stating the obvious. “Think it’s fate?”

Amber smiled. “If it is then I love fate.”

"Listen Ambi," Ethan started. Sucking in a deep breath he held onto her perfect hand as it clasped with his. "I have been in love with you for years, okay? Eva, she was a distraction from everything I wanted, everything I needed. You've always been the girl there for me, to pick me up and help me through life. You're everything, Amber. Where would we be without each other? I know you've been looking for yourself all these years, but personally, I think Connor has brought you down. He ground you down to a point that you broke." Ethan pulled back and closed his eyes. "I want to make you happy. Today was fate. I was just heading home from work, thinking about you and bang! You fell into my arms. You're an angel dropped down from heaven," he gently tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. "You've become the best of me, the safest part of me. All these years where we could have been together, creating more memories. We forced ourselves to suffer the heartbreak and I'm so sorry we had to do that." Ethan stroked the pad of his thumb along her cheek where her tears fell. "We've been holding on to our friendship for too long. I'm fed up of trying to find a reason why we shouldn't do this. I've wasted time on other women, when you were right there every single day. I could never let you go, Amber. Not now." Ethan felt his own emotions fall out of him, spiralling with his words. "I need you." He whispered before letting his lips gently graze hers.

Amber cried as a smile fell across her face. "Just hold me, Ethan. Just hold me please." Amber felt his arms wrap around her and she sat in his lap. He was her reason why.

***

"Morning."
Soft lips caressed across Amber's forehead and she felt the bed dip beside her. Ethan placed a mug of coffee on the bedside table and she groaned at its aroma.

"You made coffee," she groaned through a smile. Sitting up, she stretched and smiled. "Thank you." She whispered as she picked up the mug and held it with both hands. Ethan's eyes were her weakness. The aquamarine was astonishing. Laughing, shyly, she took a sip of her drink.

"I have the day off," Ethan told her, tucking a loose strand of soft, unruly brown hair behind her ear. "We can do whatever you want. Okay?"

“Okay,” Amber remarked and bit her lip for a moment. “Do we have to leave the flat?” she asked him softly, hoping he would say that they could hide away.

Ethan smirked, “Duvet day on the sofa?” he asked her and watched her face ignite. “Okay, then Missy, I’m going to kick start breakfast, get your butt up and on that sofa with the quilt.” He watched her nod, but she remained unmoved, and if he had to admit it, she was acting off. Not that he could blame her for yesterday, but it still unnerved him nonetheless. “What’s wrong, Ambi?”

Amber flicked her doleful eyes up to him. “Did yesterday really happen?”

“Oh, Ambs,” Ethan murmured, “I’m sorry to say it did, and I know that doesn’t make any better. I wish you never had to go through any of this. I wish I had just gotten my act together sooner and I wish I had stopped you starting that damn relationship with Connor.”

“Do you think though without all that we would have realised how in love we are now?” Amber asked him, certainty painting her tone. She knew her answer, but she needed Ethan’s. “I mean we both say we knew we loved each other, but look at the trail of destruction we caused to get us
here
.”

Ethan gave her a small smirk, “Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and-”

“It's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring,” Amber finished off and just couldn’t help the surprise that rolled over her. “You remember that?”

“Babe, you had it on your wall all through
Uni, plus it lives on your bedroom wall now. Of course, I remember it, and to be honest I never truly understood it because through all this madness, I now know that getting to this point is absolute genius.”

“And there’s definitely nothing boring about it,” Amber agreed and then felt herself become overwhelmed with a rush of emotions, each fuelled by the adrenaline rush she was feeling. Amber placed her cup of coffee down onto the bedside table and turned back to Ethan, she pushed herself onto her knees, her hands grazing his cheeks before rounding to the back of his neck, and she elicited the kiss.

At first, she was tentative, worried he wasn’t going to respond, but the moment he eased the kiss into a deepened state, she reacted and kissed him how she had when they last made love. She felt volt after volt of electricity race through her body, electrifying her, sensitising her to the love she felt and she just couldn’t believe how long it had taken her to get to this level of perfection. As they reluctantly pulled away from one another, she grinned at him sheepishly, a blush slowly gracing her cheeks. “Yeah, you still got it.”

“I’m glad,” he said and leaned in for another kiss. He pulled away, his lips just hovering above hers, “Sofa, duvet, you now.” He punctuated his plan for her to follow before he stole another kiss and got up and left her in the bedroom. “Now,
Ambi Pambi!” he cried out making her react.

Amber groaned, pulled herself out of bed and decided to look for one of Ethan's T-shirts. Approaching the dresser, she pushed her pyjama bottoms from her waist so they pooled at her feet, allowing her to step out of them with ease and peeled the vest from her body. Looking through his drawer, she found something unwanted.
A little black box. Running her finger delicately along the top of it she felt a shiver run through her. Was this going to be an engagement ring? For Eva? Amber pulled out a shirt and closed the drawer quickly. She didn't want to ruin today. Today she just wanted Ethan, Ben and Jerry's and pointless movies.  Pulling the duvet from the bed she wrapped it around her. She was only dressed in his tee and a pair of light pink lace underwear. It wasn't too early to tease. The rain was falling heavy onto the windows as she reached the living area. Sitting down on his sofa that she loved, she looked properly around the room at all the things he had brought with him from Yorkshire.