Nina Harrington - The First Crush Is the Deepest

Her gaze shifted from the casual trainers he had found stuffed in the bottom of the wardrobe in the spare bedroom, faded blue jeans and the scraggy, oil-stained T-shirt he kept for garage work. ‘I can see that your fashion sense hasn’t changed very much. Shame, really. I was hoping for some improvement.’

Sam glanced down at his jeans and flicked the polishing cloth against his thigh. ‘Oh, this little old outfit? Don’t you just hate it when all of your chiffon is at the dry cleaner’s and you can’t find a thing to wear?’ He crossed his arms. ‘And no, Amber, I don’t mind you popping in at all, especially since my editor has been harassing your agent for weeks to arrange an interview. He will be delighted to hear that you turned up out of the blue, expecting me to be here.’

Amber floated forward so that Sam inhaled a rich, sweet floral scent which was almost as intoxicating as the woman who was wearing it.

A whirlwind of memories slammed home. Long summer days walking through the streets of London as he memorised routes and names and places for the limo business. Hand in hand, chatting, laughing and enjoying each other’s company as they shared secrets about themselves that nobody else knew. Amber had been his best friend for so long, he hadn’t even realised how much she had come to mean to him until they were ripped apart.

‘Don’t flatter yourself. May I sit?’

Sam gestured to the hard wooden chair his dad used at the makeshift desk in the corner. ‘It may not be quite what you’re used to, but please.’

She nodded him a thanks and lowered herself gracefully onto the chair and turned it around so that she was facing him.

Sam shook his head. ‘You are full of surprises, Amber DuBois. I thought that it would take a very exclusive restaurant in the city to tempt you to come out of your lair long enough to give me an interview.’

Her reply was to lift her flawless chin and cross her legs. Sam took in a flash of long tanned legs ending in peep toe low wedge sandals made out of plaited strips of straw and transparent plastic. Her toenails were painted in the same pale pink as her nails, which perfectly matched her lipstick and the colour motif in her dress.

She was class, elegance and designer luxury and for a fraction of a second he wanted nothing better than to pick her tiny slim body up and lay it along the bonnet of the car and find out for himself whether her skin felt the same under his fingertips.

‘What makes you think that I am here to give you an interview?’ she replied with a certain hardness in her voice which plunged him back into the cold waters of the real world. ‘Perhaps I am here to congratulate you on your engagement? Has your fiancée come with you from Los Angeles and my wedding invitation is in the post? I can see that you would want to give me heads-up on that.’

He reeled back. ‘My what?’

‘Oh—didn’t you announce your engagement in the Los Angeles press? Or is there another Samuel Patrick Richards, investigative reporter and photojournalist of London, walking the streets of that lovely town?’

Sam sucked in a breath then shrugged. ‘That was a misunderstanding. My girlfriend at the time was getting a little impatient and decided to organise a wedding without asking me first. Apparently she forgot that anything to do with weddings brings me out in a nasty rash. It’s a long-standing allergy but I have learnt to live with it. So you can save your congratulations for another time.’

Amber inhaled very slowly before speaking again. ‘Well, it seems that this garage is not the only thing that hasn’t changed, is it, Sam? You do seem to make a habit out of running out on girls. Maybe we should all get together and form a support group.’

She raised both of her arms and wrote in the air. ‘“Girls Sam Richards has dumped and ran out on.” We could have our own blog. What? What is it?’

Sam crossed the few steps which separated them and gently tugged at her cardigan. ‘Your arm is in plaster. Hell, Bambi, what happened? I mean, you have to play the piano...’

She pulled her cardigan over the plaster, but lifted her left arm across her chest.

‘I broke my wrist a few weeks ago and I’m officially on medical leave. And that is strictly off the record. My career is fine, thank you. In fact, I am enjoying the holiday. It is very restorative.’

Sam shook his head. ‘Must make your daily practice interesting...but are you okay? I mean there won’t be any lasting damage?’

She parted her lips and took a breath before answering, and for some reason Sam got the idea that she was about to tell him something then changed her mind at the very last minute. ‘Clean break, no problem. The exercises are working well and I should be as good as new in a few months.’

‘Glad to hear it. This brings us right back to my original question. What are you doing here?’

He stepped forward and stood in front of her, with one hand on each arm of his dad’s old wooden chair, her legs now stretched out in front of her and trapped between his. He was so close that he could feel her fast breath on his cheek and see the pulse of her heart in her throat.

Her mouth narrowed and this time it did connect with the hard look in her eyes.

But, instead of backing away, Amber bent forward from the waist, challenging him, those blue eyes flashing with something he had never seen before. And when she spoke her voice was as gentle and soft as a feather duvet. And just as tempting.

‘Okay. It goes like this. I understand that you want to interview me in the light of my recent press release concerning my retirement. I’m curious about what it is that you think you can offer me which is so special that I would want to talk to you instead of all the other journalists who are knocking at my door. You have never been the shy or modest type, so it must be something rather remarkable.’

‘Absolutely. Remember that dream I used to talk about? The one where I am a big, important investigative journalist working at that broadsheet newspaper my dad still reads every day? Well, it turns out that to win the editor’s desk I have to deliver one final celebrity interview.’ Sam pointed at Amber with two fingers pressed tight together and fired his thumb like a pistol trigger.

Amber nodded. ‘I thought it might be something like that.’ Her eyebrows went skywards. ‘I take it your editor doesn’t know about our teenage fling?’

‘Fling? Is that what you call it? No. He certainly doesn’t, or he would have sent me to your last known address with a bunch of supermarket flowers and a box of chocolates as soon as I walked into his office. No. That part of my life is filed under “private”. Okay?’

She gave him a closed mouth smile. ‘Why? I know you must have been tempted. I can see the headline now. “The real truth about how I broke Amber Du Bois’ heart”? Yes, there are plenty of television reality shows who would love to have you on their list. I could hardly sue, could I?’

‘I suppose not, but let’s just say that I was saving that for a financial emergency. Okay?’

‘An emergency? You were saving me to get you out of some money crisis? I don’t know whether to be flattered or insulted. Or both. I’m not sure I like being compared to a stash of used notes which you keep under the mattress.’

‘Oh—is that where you keep yours? I prefer banks myself. Much more secure.’

Her eyes narrowed and she licked her lower lip as though she was trying to decide about something important.

He could remember the first time he’d kissed those lips. They had just come out of a pizza restaurant and got caught in a heavy rain shower. He had pulled her under the shelter of his coat, his arm around her waist and, just as they got to the car, laughing and yelling as the rain bounced off the pavement around them, she had turned towards him to thank him and her stunning face was only inches away from his. And he couldn’t resist any longer. And he had kissed her. Warm lips, scented skin, alive and pungent in the rain, and the feeling of her breath on his neck as she rested her head on his shoulder for a fleeting second before diving into the warm, dry car.