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

be lovely,’ Pam assured her. ‘Listen, when I first married Geoff we couldn’t afford a bedroom suite. We just got some odds and ends from the second-hand shops and painted everything white. You’ll be amazed at how it’ll pull together. Trust me! But if you’re worried, why not ask Angie?’

Charley did, but then Angie was determined to help with painting it all up, although, as Charley pointed out, they wouldn’t get much done with Finn and Eliot running round like the gorgeous, little turbo-charged terrors they were. ‘Unless you can take their batteries out?’ Charley asked.

‘Sadly, no,’ admitted Angie.

‘I’ll look after them,’ offered Pam.

‘Are you out of your mind?’ laughed Charley.

Pam merely smiled. ‘I doubt they’ll be any more of a handful than Luke and Josh were!’

The next day Angie arrived with both the boys, Finn’s changing bag, and a bag full of toys and games. She looked slightly anxious as if she wondered whether Pam knew what she’d let herself in for.

‘You can sit down and paint the trays,’ Pam told her, steering her into one of the wicker chairs.

‘Fine,’ smiled Angie.

‘Don’t get too comfy,’ Charley warned, ‘I’ll be painting that later!’

Pam had nipped into Bristol earlier to buy the boys some full-sleeve plastic painting aprons. ‘You can help me paint a bookcase,’ she informed them, helping them into their aprons, and giving them each a small paintbrush. Angie looked mildly horrified.

Naturally, Charley and Angie had put on old clothes, but Pam had covered her crops and top with a pristine, long white shirt.

‘Isn’t that a bit good to be painting in?’ asked Angie.

‘Absolutely. It’s almost new,’ agreed Pam, before adding with a mischievous gleam in her eye, ‘It’s Geoff’s. I popped back to get some decorating clothes, but grabbed this instead!’

‘You’re a wicked woman,’ said Angie.

‘What’s the point of being a woman if you can’t be wicked?’ returned Pam.

Pam let the boys loose on the back of the bookcase, which wouldn’t be on show. They happily sloshed paint around for all of fifteen minutes, until it occurred to Eliot that it would be much more fun to slosh paint all over his brother, who eagerly returned the compliment.

‘Boys! No!’ cried Angie, aghast and clearly worried about what Pam would think of their behaviour, but the older woman just laughed, gently removed the boys’ brushes, and lured them indoors with the promise of doing something else much more exciting.

‘Come on lads, let’s get cleaned up, and then we’ll make some cookies!’

‘Yaaaay!’ chorused the boys, happily relinquishing their painting duties, peeling off their paint-splattered aprons and following her indoors.

‘These are looking good,’ enthused Angie, as Charley finished off the bookcase Pam and the boys had started.

‘Yeah, it’s amazing how everything seems to match now they’re the same colour.’

‘I was thinking I could paint some logos onto them, if you like? I could use the Charley’s signature.’

Charley’s face lit up eagerly. ‘Yes! Thank you!’ Then she went on, ‘Actually I’ve been thinking. I wondered if you’d like to make some Prosecco-themed wall plaques or… something, for the shop.’

‘What, to decorate it? Willingly!’

‘No, I meant to sell.’ Angie stopped painting and looked over to Charley, who carried on, keenly warming to her theme, ‘And maybe you could design a range of greetings cards, or tote bags or anything else you fancy. You could do it in your own time, no deadlines or anything. But it’d be great to have something original to offer, as well as the stuff everyone else stocks.’

A slow smile swept across Angie’s face. ‘I’d love to.’

‘You’d have to work out your costings carefully,’ Charley warned her, taking a leaf out of Nisha’s book, ‘Otherwise you’ll end up working for peanuts! I won’t take a cut,’ she said hurriedly, ‘You can take all the profit.’

Frowning, Angie shook her head, ‘No, you have to take a cut, the shop is your business.’

Charley put her paintbrush down and eyed her mate squarely. ‘Two can play at that game. In that case I’d have to pay you for any artwork you do in the shop.’ Angie gave a light, noncommittal shrug in reply, so Charley said, ‘Here’s the deal, you get the profits, but I want to be your exclusive outlet!’

The following day, Charley loaded as much of the furniture she could cram into her car and drove it all down to the shop. Technically, only delivery vehicles were allowed on the access road, but she’d seen other cars parked outside the units to drop stuff off, so, flicking her hazards on, she decided to take a risk. When nobody flagged her down, and the other shopkeepers just gave her a cheery wave as she passed, she relaxed and parked right outside her unit, hoping it would be okay. She was just hauling the first bookcase out of the back of the car when a shout stopped her in her tracks.

‘Hey!’

She looked round, half expecting a jobsworth of a parking attendant to give her a ticket, but it was Ricky.

‘Let me help,’ he offered, hurrying across to her, Carlo at heel, as ever.

She waved him off airily. ‘Thanks, but I can manage, honestly.’

‘Did I say you couldn’t?’ he asked her, coming over anyway.

‘Er… no,’ she laughed.

She stood back while Ricky lifted the bookcase up one-handed as if it was a bag of sugar and carried it into the shop. It took them less than five minutes to empty the car, a fraction of the time it had taken Charley to load it.

‘Give me a shout if you need me,’ he said cheerfully, and headed back to his shop.

‘Thanks,’ she called after him, then she paused to watch his retreating back, with the faithful Carlo loping along beside him, and caught herself wondering what it was about seeing a man walking with a dog at heel that made him look so… cool and attractive. Sexy, even.

Charley dumped the car in the multi-storey for the day and then spent the morning arranging and then rearranging the furniture until she was happy with