Extra Time

She opened her eyes, pushing her sunglasses up onto her head. ‘Yeah. Thanks for that, Ronnie.’

He smiled at her. Amber pushed her sunglasses down over her eyes and lay back again.

‘You’re doing great, Amber. Everyone back home is loving you, believe me.’

‘You’re not just saying that, are you? To placate me. I know what you’re like.’

‘As if. Anyway, you’ve done live TV before, haven’t you? Loads of times. Why should this be any different?’

‘I used to be on local TV, Ronnie. This is a whole different ball game.’

‘No it’s not. Where’s Jim?’

‘Team talk. They’re off to the ground for a training session in a little while.’ She sat up again, propping herself up on her elbows. ‘Why didn’t you bring Karen with you?’

Ronnie looked away for a second, staring out at the sea view in front of him. ‘I’m working, Amber.’

‘Yeah, and so am I. But I’m here with my husband.’

Ronnie looked at her. ‘Your husband is the manager of the team we’re following.’

‘So?’

He laughed slightly. ‘Come on, kiddo. Karen doesn’t want to hang around while I’m working. She’d only get bored.’

Amber sat up properly, pulling her knees up to her chest and hugging them to her. ‘She’d get bored? Here? Look at it, Ronnie. It’s beautiful! She could have…’

‘Leave it, Amber, okay? Just – just leave it.’

She widened her eyes as she looked at him, slightly taken aback by his tone. ‘All right. I’m sorry. Look, is everything okay?’

He sighed, pushing a hand through his hair. ‘No, and it’s me who should be sorry. Things are just a bit… a bit weird at the minute, that’s all.’

Amber cocked her head, desperate to know what he meant by that but getting the feeling that, whatever it was, he wasn’t in the mood to talk about it. But she couldn’t leave the subject alone altogether. ‘All the more reason to bring her with you, then, surely?’

‘No, Amber. Don’t you see? If I’d brought her with me, if I’d insisted she come here, wouldn’t that just have looked as though I wanted to keep an eye on her? Keep tabs on her? Make sure she wasn’t…’ He stopped talking, looking out at the sea view again.

‘If it was me, I wouldn’t have seen it that way.’

‘Well, Karen’s not you, all right?’

Amber frowned. ‘You’re happy though, aren’t you? I mean, you don’t regret marrying her again, do you?’

Ronnie continued to look out over the stunning clear-blue sea that was dotted with the odd jet ski and a catamaran way off in the distance, no doubt out on a whale and dolphin sightseeing trip.

‘I’m happy, yeah. I’m happy.’

Amber rested her chin on her knees as she looked at him. ‘Really?’

He finally turned to face her again. ‘What is this, Amber? I came over for a chat not a frigging interrogation. Things are fine and I’m happy, end of story.’ He closed his eyes for a second, taking a deep breath, and although Amber badly wanted to continue grilling him over his slightly erratic moods, she thought better of it. Whatever was on his mind he quite obviously didn’t want to go into it here. Not yet, anyway. But she’d get it out of him, eventually. She always did.

‘Right,’ he sighed, leaning over to quickly kiss her forehead, giving her hand a small squeeze before standing up, shoving both his hands in his pockets. ‘I’ll see you later.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘For a walk. Clear my head before we set off for the match.’

Amber watched as he headed back into the hotel, still frowning slightly. Something didn’t seem right, but she wasn’t going to push it.

Grabbing a short, bright pink kaftan from the table by her side, she pulled it over her head and stood up, smoothing it down over her white bikini. She was tired of sitting out in the sun now. Being out here on her own was only giving her far too much time to think about things, to dwell on stuff that she shouldn’t really be dwelling on, stuff that wasn’t important. Stuff that didn’t matter. And some stuff that did.

She was missing Debbie, too. She’d never really had a close female friend before, not until she’d met Debbie Hogan – part-time glamour model, North East socialite, gossip columnist, and new wife of Gary Blandford, Newcastle Red Star’s top defender and Ryan Fisher’s best friend. When she’d first met Debbie just a few months ago, Amber had thought there was no way the two of them could, or would, ever get on – Debbie was, more or less, your ‘typical’ WAG, if there really was such a thing, because Amber was beginning to think there wasn’t. Not really. Her attitude towards the women who shared the lives of these sometimes overpaid, cosseted, egotistical men had certainly changed after everything she’d been through with Ryan. And Debbie had become a friend Amber loved like a sister now. There were things she could talk to her about that she couldn’t share with anyone else, not even Ronnie, and especially not Jim. And right now, Amber missed her. Right now, Amber needed her.

Breathing an inner sigh of relief as the cool, air-conditioned interior of the hotel hit her, Amber strode towards the elevator, hoping with all her heart that Jim was in their room. She really wanted to spend just a little bit more time with him, on their own, before work took over once again, because sometimes she felt a little bit like she was still living in that glorious honeymoon period, and she was scared to let that feeling go. Scared to let reality back in.

Sliding her key card into the lock on the door of the hotel suite that had been their home for the past few days, she closed it behind her and walked inside, throwing her beach bag down onto the floor and pulling off her kaftan, casting it aside as she continued to walk through into the bedroom.

He was sitting on the edge of the bed, her handsome husband, flicking through a pile of papers, his mobile phone close beside him, a frown covering his face.

‘You okay?’ Amber asked, watching as he lifted his head, his frown quickly turning into a smile.

‘I am now.’

She smiled back, climbing onto the bed and kneeling up behind him, sliding her arms around his shoulders, kissing the back of his neck. ‘You look tired,’ she said, slowly beginning to massage his shoulders, feeling the knot of tension below her fingers as she kneaded deep. ‘And you feel so tense.’

He threw his head back, still holding onto the papers he’d been flicking through. ‘I’m fine, honey.’

She continued to knead his shoulders, listening to his quiet moans as her fingers pressed harder. ‘What are you looking at?’ she asked, resting her chin on the top of his head. He quickly turned the papers over, placing them on the bed beside him, his hand palm-down on top of them.

‘Just work stuff. Nothing important.’

It was Amber’s turn to frown at the way he’d quickly hidden those papers from her view. But maybe he just didn’t want to talk about work anymore. That would be understandable. ‘Anyway,’ she said, shrugging it off. ‘How about trying to ease that tension just a little bit more, huh?’

‘What you got in mind?’ He smiled, closing his eyes as her thumbs stroked the back of his neck in small, circular motions.

She stopped what she was doing for a second, untying her bikini top and throwing it onto the floor before pressing her naked breasts against his back, running her hands up and down his arms as she rested her chin on his shoulder. ‘Oh, I don’t know. You got any ideas?’

He gave a low, sexy laugh. ‘Get over here. I need to look at you.’

She slid round in front of him, climbing astride him, pushing her breasts out as an invitation for him to touch her because, oh God, she wanted to be touched. She wanted him to touch her so badly.

‘Jesus, Amber,’ he groaned, running his fingers ever-so-lightly over her nipples, his eyes watching their every movement. ‘I don’t think I’d have got through this trip without you here.’

‘Yeah, you would,’ she breathed, throwing her head back as his fingers pressed harder against her naked breasts before travelling slowly down her body, trailing over her stomach, stroking her hips. ‘You’d have managed.’

‘You know that for sure, do you?’ he whispered, his lips lightly brushing the base of her throat as he began slowly untying the sides of her bikini bottoms, pulling them away from her so she was completely naked.

‘You’d have found some way of relieving the tension.’ She smiled, burying her fingers in his hair as his mouth covered one of her breasts, his tongue flicking over her nipple, sending her stomach on another major somersaulting session.