After the One by Cass Lester (novels for students .txt) 📗

wash. Charley dreaded to think what the state of the sink and towels would be like when they’d finished.

Angie heaved her pregnant bulk down into a plastic garden chair. ‘Shame about the shop.’

Oh God, don’t you start, thought Charley shooting her a sideways look, before admitting, ‘Tara thinks I should have taken it.’

‘Do you wish you had?’

‘No.’

‘Then what does it matter what Tara thinks?’

Nothing, Charley lied to herself. ‘Actually, we’ve had a bit of a falling out. I love Tara to death, but she can be very… opinionated.’

Angie said nothing, but waited patiently for her friend to continue. Charley assumed that Tara had already told Angie about their row, so she gave her friend her version of the story, editing out Tara’s comment about Josh entirely, and completely failing to mention Tara’s numerous attempts to apologise afterwards.

Angie’s response caught Charley on the backfoot. She’d expected Angie to be on her side, but her friend said, ‘Don’t let this come between you two, Charley. Please. I know Tara can be a bit… outspoken.’

‘Just a bit.’

‘And sometimes she doesn’t think before she speaks…’

‘Only sometimes?’

Angie ignored the interruption. ‘But she’s very fond of you and she’s trying to help you.’ Charley looked away, unwilling to hear what she already knew was the truth. ‘And if I’m honest, Charley, well… I think she might be right.’ Charley sighed, wishing everyone would stop making her feel like she’d bottled out and let them all down. ‘I mean, isn’t it better to at least try to do something you want to do, rather than stick at a job you hate?’ finished Angie.

The boys reappeared, their hands only slightly less muddy than before, but nevertheless Angie handed them their drinks and cookies. ‘Take them to the tree house,’ she suggested, skilfully giving her and Charley a child-free zone for a while longer.

‘A job has a guaranteed salary,’ Charley said to Angie.

‘Not always! You got made redundant,’ Angie reminded her. ‘Nothing’s guaranteed in life, Charley, you of all people know that.’ When Charley didn’t reply, Angie went on. ‘I just think you might look back and regret not doing something that might really fulfil you.’

‘Like you do,’ remarked Charley pointedly.

‘Yes. Like I do,’ Angie freely admitted. ‘I loved being a designer, and I loved people telling me how good I was at it, but then I met Will. I thought we’d just have a couple of kids and then at least I could have a part-time career working round the children, but Will wanted a big family, and… and it turns out you can’t have everything.’

Charley reeled inside. She’d always assumed it was Angie who’d wanted a large family, with all its attendant chaos and never-ending stream of demands, but clearly she hadn’t. Suddenly she saw Will in a different light, not as the loving husband and father she’d always assumed him to be, but as a rather selfish man, who’d put his own desires before Angie’s. Her thoughts must have shown in her face, because Angie leant forward and put her hand on Charley’s arm, and she was moved by the look of love softening her face.

‘Don’t judge him, Charley,’ she said, lowering her voice, and clearly not wanting the boys to overhear her. ‘He had a lousy childhood, in and out of more care homes and foster homes than you could shake a stick at.’ As if that explained everything to Charley, which, in a way of course it did. ‘I just want to give him the big, happy family he missed out on and always dreamed of.’

‘But what about you?’ asked Charley gently.

Angie looked her friend squarely in the eyes. ‘I have full hands and a full heart. Not to mention a full dishwasher and an overflowing laundry basket! What more could a girl need!’

Cycling back from Angie’s house, pangs of doubt began to niggle away at Charley. If even Angie reckoned she might come to regret turning down the shop, then perhaps she should have taken it. Well, it was too late now, she told herself, unless of course…

But she didn’t even get to finish that thought, because it was violently interrupted when her front wheel crunched into a pothole in the road. Desperately she grabbed at the brakes, but she was way too late, and the bike juddered sideways, flinging her off. Fortunately she fell towards the pavement rather than under the wheels of a passing truck. With a sickeningly pounding heart and trembling knees, Charley scrambled to her feet and dragged her bike off the road. Bloody hell! That was close. For a moment she was too shaken to do anything but stand leaning on the bike and try to get her breathing back under control. Running her eye over the bike she couldn’t see anything obviously wrong, but when she tried to ride it, the front wheel scraped against the front fork with a decidedly unhealthy grinding noise.

Bloody, bloody, bloody hell!

‘I can fix it now if you want to wait?’

Relief flooded over Charley. She’d taken the bike back to the nice bike man she’d bought it from, and if said he could mend it while she waited, then hopefully it wasn’t going to cost too much.

‘How much will it be?’

He looked across at her. ‘It’s not going to need a new part, and it’ll only take me a few minutes, so… will a fiver be okay?’

‘Yes. Absolutely. Is it something I could have done myself?’ she added, beginning to feel vaguely foolish since it was obviously only something minor although, funnily enough, they hadn’t covered straightening bike forks in the car maintenance course.

‘That depends,’ he replied deadpan, before picking up a metal tool with a ratcheted hook attachment and continuing, ‘Have you got one of these?’

‘Oddly, no, I haven’t!’

‘Then, no!’ His face broke into a broad smile and, rolling up the sleeves of his white shirt, he knelt down and started to mend the bike.

She watched him idly, impressed by how easy he made the task look, and struck by