The Comeback (BWWM Interracial Romance Book 7) (2 page)

Tucked away among her former friends, Amber saw Brenton. She smiled, taking a sip of her drink. “What are you so quiet for over there?” she asked him. Brenton echoed her smile and Amber felt a frisson of something work through her spine; she was surprised to see him out with the old crew. Heat rushed into her cheeks as she remembered him back in high school—preparing to enter the Army after graduation, clean-cut and confident almost to the point of cockiness. He had always been the best dressed of all of her male friends, and she was glad to see that that hadn’t changed. 

Brenton had lost the “high and tight” haircut of his military days, but there was still a look on his face that made Amber think that he was still, mentally, in the service; something in his bright green eyes that gave a more serious look to him, and in the way he smiled. His dark brown hair was brushed down, covering the tips of his ears, sweeping lightly across his forehead. He stood and walked around the table, and everyone shifted around again, playing the expected game of bar-musical-chairs to accommodate his change in seating to be closer to her.

“I’m surprised to see you out,” Brenton said, his gaze flicking up and down over her.

Amber shrugged. “Care-bear told me not to disappoint her, and you know I can’t let her down,” she replied.

Brenton laughed. “She didn’t tell any of us you were on the guest list! How have you been?”

Amber took another sip of her drink; she wondered if Brenton was asking because he really wanted to know, or if he was curious like so many of her former friends seemed to be—if she was losing her cool still, if she was going to accept her washout status. “I’ve been okay. Living with mom now. Living down the horrible humiliation of my boyfriend screwing around on me. Trying to keep off the front page news.” She smiled awkwardly.

Brenton frowned, glancing around the table quickly to make sure that no one was paying particular attention to them. “I’m sorry, Am-bear,” he said, keeping his voice low—just loud enough for her to hear in the crowded bar. “I completely forgot about that.”

Amber shrugged. “Yeah, well, you didn’t forget I existed, so at least you have that going for you.”

Brenton grinned. “I couldn’t ever forget you existed.” He shook his head. “Even before you became a big star, I would never have been able to forget you.”

Amber felt her cheeks burning with a blush. “Did you see… I don’t know if you’ve followed my career at all…”

Brenton nodded.

“Well, did you see the notes on my first album? I totally name-checked you.”

Brenton’s bright eyes widened. “I didn’t even look! Okay, now you have to sign it for me. I kept the CD in the plastic and everything—I downloaded the album—legally, mind you—so I could listen to it wherever I went.”

Amber laughed. “You did? Of course I’ll sign it for you, you big dummy.” She gave his shoulder a playful shove and Brenton pretended to nearly fall over, recovering at the last moment. He took the last swallow of his beer and checked his watch, grimacing.

“Something wrong?” she asked.

Brenton shook his head. “Nah, I just have to go home soon—my baby girl is waiting for me.”

Amber remembered—all at once—that Brenton had a daughter. “Well, I’m glad you were able to come out,” she said, smiling; she stopped short of adding that she wished that he could stay.

“I hate having to leave, especially since I don’t think we’ve talked in years.”

Amber nodded. “I’ve got nothing but time these days, so you just let me know when you want to catch up.”

Brenton held her gaze for a long moment. “Let’s grab lunch next week. I’ll bring my copy of your first album and you can sign it for me, and we can spend the whole time reconnecting.” Amber hesitated for a moment; Brenton was undeniably attractive. But all he wanted was to catch up. She shouldn’t read so much into things, she told herself firmly. “I’d love that. Now scoot on out of here and give your baby some love.” Brenton leaned in and kissed her on the cheek, turning to the rest of the assembled group and making his farewells. Amber watched him leave and tried not to feel too deflated as she turned her attention back to Cara and the people who had once known her so well. It was hard not to feel like she had really lost something in Brenton’s departure, but she told herself again and again that it was nothing, that she was just being silly. She’d see him again soon enough and maybe she’d actually expand her social life a little bit in the process.

Amber fidgeted a little bit as she stood outside of Treebeards, waiting for Brenton to arrive. He had called her earlier in the week, and she could hear the smile in his voice when he asked if she really wanted to meet up for lunch, or if she was too busy with her life to manage it. She had barely held herself back enough to not admit that as a performer whose spotlight was waning, the one thing she really had in abundance was time.

She was a little ashamed of just how much effort she had put into preparing for the lunch date; in the past, with anyone else, she would have just thrown on something comfortable, maybe put on a little makeup, wrapped her hair up in a scarf and be done with it. Amber knew, deep down, that she was beautiful—she would never have gotten as far as she had in the music industry if she wasn’t. But the idea of going on a date for the first time since she had fallen from grace made her more nervous than meeting with producers to find someone to bring her next album to life. She styled her hair three different ways trying to find the best style that would somehow hit the balance between being glamorous enough to impress and not looking as though she was trying too hard to impress. She had gone through four or five different outfits; Treebeards, where they had agreed to meet for lunch, was not a formal restaurant by any means, but Amber had obsessed over just how informal she should be.

Finally, knowing that she was running out of time—and that, more to the point, she was being a little ridiculous—Amber had decided on a deep blue skirt and a cream-white blouse with a yellow floral pattern, a pair of blue heels, and just enough accessories to look put-together without looking like she was showing off. She didn’t exactly think about why it was that she wanted to impress Brenton so much; if she had been meeting with Cara, she would have just worn jeans and a nice shirt, maybe a good pair of sandals. If she were meeting with a producer, she would have dressed a little bit more glamorously than she had for Brenton. The fact that she had a certain image to maintain was definitely part of her motivation; but the image she wanted to present to Brenton, who had known her long before she had ever even hoped of becoming a celebrity, was a little different. She told herself it was just because she hadn’t seen him in so long that she was obsessing over details—but the truth was, she didn’t want to disappoint him. She had a very real fear of coming across as a snob, and an equal aversion to showing up looking like a slob.

When Amber spotted Brenton as he walked up to the front of the restaurant from wherever he’d parked his car; she felt herself immediately smiling, taking in the sight of him. His time in the military had given him a straight-legged, upright gait, on point and businesslike, as different from the meandering of the people around him as anything could be. Over the years they had been kept apart by their demanding careers, Brenton had put on muscle but he was still lean. Amber could see where his slim shoulders had bulked up a little, where his body was tougher under his clothes than she remembered him being in high school.

He spotted her and Amber felt her cheeks burning slightly at the delighted smile that came over his face. “I can’t believe I’m late,” he said, hurrying to her side.

Amber laughed. “You’re not late, I’m early.”

Brenton hugged her quickly, kissing her on the cheek in greeting, and Amber felt her heart beating a little bit faster. It was silly, but after Kobe’s betrayal, it was nice—flattering—to have a handsome man be affectionate to her, even if he was just a friend, and even if it meant nothing. Brenton draped an arm around her and led her into the busy early-lunch crowd. “Normally I’m the first one to show up anywhere,” he said, giving her a bashful grin. “Military time—if they tell you to show up at 0800, you get there at 0745.”

Amber rolled her eyes, grinning back at him.

“I had to drop the baby off at her grandparents’ house,” Brenton went on to explain. “She had lots of questions for me about my famous friend.”

“By the way, did you remember my CD?” Amber nudged his ribs. “That was the whole reason you had for coming to meet me.”

Brenton laughed again. “I do have it with me, actually; nearly forgot it.” Brenton reached into the jacket pocket of his sport coat and withdrew a copy of Amber’s first album—the one that had catapulted her to fame. It was, just as he’d said at the bar a few nights before, still in its plastic.

Amber laughed, shaking her head. “That’s even the original release packaging! You weren’t lying.” They were led to a table and Amber looked at the CD for a long moment, smiling ruefully and shaking her head again. “You know, you could have sent it to my mom and she’d have given it to me to sign for you.”

Brenton shook his head. “If I was going to get it signed, I was going to have it done in person. I mean—what’s the use in having it on display if I don’t have a great story to go with it?”

Amber rolled her eyes, still grinning. “Oh, so it’s not good enough to say, ‘Oh yeah, she was my friend in high school, I’m still in touch with her mom’?”

Brenton shook his head. “Nah. Saying, ‘I bought her lunch and we talked about old times together’ is way better.” Amber had to concede that he was right.

They put in their orders: Brenton got the beans and rice with iced tea, Amber the gumbo and lemonade, and they decided to share a side of jalapeno cornbread. A lingering moment of silence persisted between them as Amber looked down at the CD again. It was hard to believe that it existed—she had sung the songs from that album so many times, she had heard herself on the radio, but the woman she had been when she’d recorded the album, when she’d promoted it, was a totally different person to who she was now.

“God, I was just a baby,” she said, touching the picture of herself. She looked up at Brenton.

Brenton smiled at her. “Yeah, but you don’t look any different. Well—maybe a little bit wiser. But you’re still just as beautiful, with those same sweet eyes.”

Amber shrugged. “Black don’t crack, you know,” she said, thinking of the effort she put into her skincare routine. She took a deep breath. “Let’s get this baby opened up and I’ll show you right where I made you famous.” Amber peeled the plastic off of the case, shaking her head at how difficult it was. She crumpled up the film, stuffing it into her purse to throw away later, and withdrew the Sharpie that always lived in any bag she carried with her; in spite of being something of a has-been, she still got the occasional fan on the street asking her to sign something, and she liked to be prepared.

Amber carefully slid the liner notes out of the case, flipping through the pages and smiling to herself. She had been so excited to put out her first album; she had been so full of hope, so full of belief in herself. She came to her own personal notes—the thank you and acknowledgements. “Ah—here we go. ‘Huge thanks and big props to Brenton Reed, who kept me out of trouble in Algebra 2, and who put up with my screeching voice on road trips.’ See? Totally made you famous, bud.” She turned the liner notes towards Brenton and he looked to where she pointed, laughing.

“You did indeed. I wish I’d known about that when I was telling the boys in my unit I knew you—it’d be proof.”

Amber’s eyes widened as she grinned. “They didn’t believe you knew me?”

Brenton shook his head. “Not for a second. No matter how many pictures I showed them, they just said I was some stalker or something.”

“I signed your yearbook! You could have shown them that!”

Brenton shrugged. “Yeah, well, I wasn’t carrying my yearbook around with me. If only because my picture in there wasn’t nearly as perfect as yours was.”

Amber winked and shrugged. “Some of us have always been image-conscious I guess.” She brought the liner notes back to the cleared spot on the table in front of her and uncapped her marker. “Well, now they will have to believe you, if you ever run into them again.” She closed the notes and tilted the packet.
To my long-time friend Brent: if this doesn’t prove you know me, you’ll just have to grin and bear it and show them your yearbook picture. Love Am-bear.
She signed it with her professional autograph as well, just to make it legitimate.

“Love Am-bear!” Brenton chuckled. “Yeah, that should sell it. Nobody but the crew knows you by that name.” Their food started to arrive and Amber felt herself relaxing. They reminisced about high school as they tucked into their rich, delicious food, and Amber dabbed at the gravy of her gumbo with the cornbread.

“Everything is so different from what I thought it would be,” Amber admitted. “Back then I thought if I was some big star I could do anything I wanted—get my friends into the hottest clubs, take people to premiers, all that.” She shook her head, dismissing the ridiculous assumptions she’d made.

“Yeah, I don’t think any of us really had a good idea of where we were going or what would happen to us,” Brenton said. “I figured I’d stay in the military until I was an old man, some huge General.” He shook his head, sighing. “Life is very different from the movies.”

Amber nodded. “Did you at least get to do some of what you wanted in the military?”

Brenton shrugged, his fingers playing at a crease in the tablecloth. “It wasn’t bad. I got a lot out of it—and I probably wouldn’t have the career I have now if it weren’t for the military and the benefits. I probably wouldn’t have Felicity.”

Amber smiled, hearing the love in his voice at the name. “That’s your little girl, right?”

Brenton nodded. “She’s two—just had her birthday a couple of months ago. Beautiful.” Brenton slipped his phone out of his pocket and unlocked it, and Amber obediently looked as he brought up his pictures, swiping through a few; the little girl he showed her had Brenton’s dark hair, but what could only be her mother’s dark eyes. Amber could see the resemblance to Brent in her nose and ears. She was obviously the apple of her father’s eye, the sole love of his life.

“Her mother passed away?”

Brenton’s bright eyes were shadowed as she looked up from the phone screen to see him nod slowly.

“We lost her about a year ago,” he said, sighing. “It was—sudden.” He swallowed and Amber watched his face transform from grief-stricken solemnity to bright cheer once more. “So, of course someone had to be with Felicity—I got out of the military, got a civilian job, and here I am.”

Amber decided to change the subject, and asked Brenton all about his new life as a civilian, his life as a father; he told stories about the difficult adaptation to civilian life, the differences, how things were so much more casual than he had become accustomed to. He told Amber about Felicity—how she was so precocious, she was already starting to figure out books, though it would be a while before she was actually reading.

They laughed and joked, and Amber—for the first time in months—began to really feel at home. She relaxed; she was for once not worried about how the music and entertainment press would be portraying her, about the possibility of the stupid, short lunch date ending up in the tabloids. She could just be herself.

“Oh God, I can’t believe you still have that picture,” she exclaimed as Brenton showed her the snap they had taken before a major competition; she had been immured in a practice room at the high school, practicing in the quiet, and Brenton had bust in on her to grab a candid picture of her in the middle of her vocal practice.

They had been in the same group of friends in spite of being from different backgrounds and belonging to different clubs and doing different extra-curricular activities. Everyone in the group had gotten along, and their ritual meet-ups at the front of the school before classes started for the day, and their hangouts after club meetings, rehearsals and practices had formed the backbone of friendships that they had insisted amongst themselves would last their whole lives. They’d all had their roles to play; Amber had been the diva, Cara had been the wild one, Brenton had been the swaggering future soldier—charming and serious but not too serious.

Finally, there was no way to extend the date any longer; Brenton had to get back to his daughter, and Amber would rather die than admit that she had nowhere to be. Brenton insisted on paying for her meal as well as his, and Amber—after putting up the token resistance she knew he wanted—let him have his way. She could have afforded it even more easily than he could, but she knew he’d feel bad if she managed to argue him down and paid for their lunch. “We should get together again,” Brenton suggested as they both stepped out of Treebeards. “I can’t remember the last time I had this much fun.”

Amber smiled, leaning up onto the balls of her feet to kiss him on the cheek. “Me too. It’s been too long for both of us.”

Brent gave her a quick hug, and Amber watched him leave, her heart beating faster, feeling a mixture of happiness that she’d seen him, and a faint regret that they couldn’t keep talking; that they both had to get back to their normal lives. She took a deep breath and turned back to her car, smiling to herself, remembering how good it had felt to be around Brenton.

Brenton took a deep breath as he pulled into his in-laws’ driveway. The fun, the ease that he had felt during lunch with Amber had left him all in a rush the moment he had gotten into his car; he knew that he was about to get into yet another battle.

His wife’s parents were always happy to take Felicity for a few hours; but it was always difficult to extract the girl from them when the time was up. Brenton thought, for just a moment, about Kelsey. He smiled bitterly, remembering the sight of her, the smell of her, and the way that she’d held Felicity in her arms in the hospital the day the little girl had been born. How she had managed to be so sweet, so friendly and kind and personable, with parents like she’d had, was beyond Brenton’s understanding. Kelsey had been like an angel to Brent—she had been patient, she had understood that he had to be away most of the time, that if he’d had any say in the situation, he’d have been with her and with Felicity much more than he was. She had understood, too, that he had wanted to join the military ever since he had been a child, and that it was the place where he had truly felt alive, and like a real part of something bigger than himself.