Dirty Bad Strangers(74)

I lay on my bed, rooting around my brain for sensible Gemma. The Gemma who doesn’t get emotionally involved and definitely doesn’t want a relationship. If she was in there she was hiding, crouched amongst the beautifully filthy memories of my time with my Jason. I couldn’t shake them off, couldn’t shake him off. I rolled over to grab my laptop. Maybe Google would help bring sensible Gemma back.

Jason Redfern news. I pressed Enter.

Liverpool win sees Redfern all set for another season.

Redfern tops the polls as England’s favourite defender.

Victory for Redferns as cheating lies come to light.

April Redfern wears Armani. Shrugs off cheating rumours.

A decade of April and Jason. Why England is Redfern crazy.

I was fucking Redfern crazy.

April Redfern was gorgeous. Ridiculously gorgeous, in fact. She smiled out from every article, a shining beacon of perfect teeth and perfect hair. A perfect body, too. Chelsea had a point, what did a guy like him see in someone like me?

I flicked through an album of photos on some shitty entertainment website. April smiled at Jason like he was the only man in the universe. Every photo showed the same adoration, the same perfect smile. My heart dropped. Jason Redfern was as beautiful as his wife. Not in a model way, like the bronzed Adonis you’d find on an underwear advert. Jason was rugged, more human somehow. His eyes were dark and serious, his mouth often pitted in an expression just short of a scowl. He seemed like a guy with the weight of the world on his shoulders, not the Jason I knew, with the dirty, careless laugh at the end of the line.

I sighed aloud, maybe that’s what I wanted to see. Maybe I wanted to see the unhappiness, the validation of his we hate each other story. Jason and April Redfern sure didn’t look like they hated each other.

I clicked on a news story from weeks earlier. Burlesque night. Jason held tight onto April’s hand as they made their way through waiting journalists for their restaurant date night. He’d taken her to dinner, then left to stalk me outside Explicit. Make sense of that one, Sherlock.

I jumped as my phone buzzed, heart pounding.

Jason: Last night was perfect, dirty girl. You were perfect. Tomorrow night, no blindfold. I hope you’re ready. x

A kiss. He typed me a fucking kiss. My heart nearly stopped. No fucking blindfold? I typed a reply at least three times before I opted for ignorance.

As ready as I’ll ever be. What time? xx

I stared at his picture as I waited for a response, one of him mid-action on the football field, hair wild as he came in hard for a tackle. How on earth could he be that man?

Jason: 7 p.m. Just like the first time, dirty girl. Door unlocked, only this time you’ll be waiting with your eyes open. I mean it, Gemma. I want you to know me. x

My thumb hovered over the call button. One simple call. Are you really Jason Redfern, Jason? Are you? I wimped out enough to type an ok.

An online football encyclopaedia was my next stop.



Full name: Jason Robert Redfern

Age: 33

Place of Birth: Barking, London, England

Height 1.87m

Playing position: Defender

Current team: Kensington Rangers. 2005-current. 423 appearances.

National team: England. 2006–current. 78 Appearances.



I read all about my dirty bad stranger, and it was quite a read. The article didn’t skim any details of his rise to the top of the ladder. Signed for Tottenham United as a youth player at thirteen, he’d looked all set to break the Premier League as an early star. But Tottenham had dropped him from the squad at eighteen, after only two appearances in the first team. Change of manager, apparently. I clicked through to some early references, telling the sad story of Jason’s dad’s death the following summer, and then a slow tale of triumph against the odds as Jason made his career in the lower divisions, clawing his way up the ranks until he was signed by Kensington at twenty-two.

Older pictures of Jason showed the same serious eyes, the same heavy brows of someone determined to prove their worth. He was unstoppable, a demon on studded wings, so they called him. He looked like it, too.

Then came the personal history. His marriage to Cherry Electric singer, April, to the backdrop of champagne and glossy magazine deals. Their perfect celebrity pairing, all smiles and celebrity endorsements and personal appearances.

And then scandal.

My breath hitched.

Another kiss and tell, years earlier. A woman called Serena, professing how Jason’s interest in perverted sex led her to dogging sites and seedy hotel rooms, where he paid her to have sex with other men.

His PR team had come out fighting hard, and there was no real evidence. She seemed to disappear from the media without trace, bar an appearance in some z-list cookery programme a few years later, but there were whispers. Whispers of drink and gambling and perversion. Whispers of expensive call girls and bad investments. Whispers of affairs.