After the One, Cass Lester [top romance novels .txt] 📗

bloody rude!’ exclaimed Tara, then, helping herself to a second Danish, she paused for a moment, before saying, ‘You know what you could do? Get a lodger.’ Charley frowned at her. ‘Why not?’ challenged Tara. ‘Do you ever even use the spare room?’

There was a beat before Charley replied, ‘Not really.’

As a point of fact nobody had ever stayed in the second bedroom, there wasn’t even a bed in it, and Charley rarely ventured in there, only using it to store stuff. When she and Josh had first moved in, she’d envisaged it as a future nursery, picturing it furnished with a white-painted wooden cot, a musical mobile hanging above it, an old armchair for night feeds in the corner and a changing table under the window. If Josh hadn’t died, there might even have been bunk beds in there by now…

They’d both wanted kids. On what had turned out to be his last Christmas, when they’d been at his mum’s as usual, Josh had sprawled on the living-room floor building a Lego fort with Ben, his five-year-old nephew. Ben’s little sister, Jessica, had been desperate to join in, but the bricks were far too fiddly for her tiny fingers, and, sensing a full-scale tantrum looming followed by an outburst of mass destruction, Charley had pulled the toddler onto her lap and read a pile of picture books to her. The warmth of the fire and the excitement of the day had soon overtaken the little girl, and she’d lolled backwards in Charley’s arms, a soft, sleepy bundle. Josh had glanced up and smiled at her. ‘Comfy?’ Charley had smiled back in reply, loving the feel of the little body so trustingly slumped against her.

But whatever Charley’s plans had been for her spare room, she wasn’t going to need a nursery now. She realised that Tara had put down her pastry and was heading indoors to recce the room, so with a sigh, Charley got up to follow her.

‘Actually, it needs a bit of a clear-out,’ she warned, and she tensed as Tara pushed open the door to reveal a jumble of boxes, carriers and bin-liners spilled across the floor, all full, some to overflowing. It seemed to take less than a fraction of a second for Tara to realise what was in them, but then Tara’s garage had housed a similar pile of baggage, for months.

After Kim died Tara hadn’t been able to face the ordeal of sorting out her flat, so Charley had done it for her. She had diligently boxed and bagged everything up, and then discreetly handed it all over to Baz to store in the garage so that Tara wouldn’t have to even look at anything until she was ready. Almost a year later, when Tara had finally felt she could cope with the task, Charley had helped her again, and they’d spent an emotionally exhausting morning, while Monnie was at school, sifting through Kim’s possessions. There was nothing, nothing at all, of any monetary value, but a wealth of things with huge sentimental value. When Tara had clung onto Kim’s chipped old Brown Betty teapot, and her tatty jam-stained cookery book and said, ‘I can’t get rid of these. I just can’t,’ and when she’d clutched Kim’s favourite blue scarf to her face to inhale her perfume, and said she couldn’t bring herself to give that away either, Charley had simply said, ‘Then don’t,’ and had gently taken them out of her hands and put them into the box labelled ‘Keep’, along with photos and myriad other priceless treasures. Afterwards Charley had taken the rest of Kim’s belongings to the charity shop to save her friend the heartache.

Nobody had offered to help Charley sort out Josh’s belongings. She’d tried to do it, once or twice, but had been defeated by the seeming impossibility of psychologically separating Josh from his possessions. The thought of disposing of anything in the aftermath of his death had felt like an act of betrayal, as if throwing out his belongings somehow implied Josh no longer mattered, or was not wanted any more.

Tara put her arm round Charley, and breaking into her thoughts, said gently, ‘Can I help you sort this lot out?’

Taking a deep breath Charley let it out slowly before shaking her head firmly. ‘No. It’s all right. I’ll do it.’

Tara pulled back, looking mildly offended. ‘Oh, okay.’

‘I’ll be fine,’ Charley assured her, for all the world not wanting to hurt her friend’s feelings. ‘I’d rather do it myself. Honest.’ She knew it was going to be a gruelling and unholy blub-fest, and she didn’t want to inflict that on anyone or have anyone witness it.

But then suddenly Tara floored her by saying, ‘I was rubbish to you when Josh died.’

Charley was completely taken aback. ‘No. No, you weren’t!’

‘I was. I didn’t do anything to help you. I didn’t even come round. I just sent you a bunch of texts.’

A small, confused frown slid onto Charley’s face. ‘I thought you came to the funeral, with the others?’

‘Yes, of course I did. But I didn’t support you the way you supported me when Mum died.’ Tara shrugged apologetically. ‘I just didn’t know what you were going through. I’m sorry.’

Those first terrible days after Josh died, Charley had felt numb and cut off from reality. It was the texts pinging to her phone, brief messages of care, which had cut through the thick fog of sorrow and kept her connected to the world, like a mooring line to the shore. ‘You don’t have to apologise, really,’ said Charley, giving Tara a hug. ‘Sending me texts helped. They let me know you were thinking about me.’ Then she quickly changed the subject. Glancing around the spare room she said, ‘I’ll have to buy a bed and do the room up a bit.’

‘Actually, the whole flat needs doing up,’ Tara said bluntly.

Charley winced, but she knew the walls hadn’t seen a paintbrush for years and the cheap magnolia paint that she and Josh had