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

was out on his stag do. She smiled to herself remembering the ridiculous game of Prosecco Pong they’d played on the kitchen table with plastic cups and a ping-pong ball, and how ruthlessly determined Nisha had been to win and how equally determined Tara was to stop her. And then afterwards, how they’d had to abandon a game of Truth or Dare when Tara over-shared way too much about Baz’s performance in the bedroom. Then they’d all watched Love Actually and cried themselves silly.

‘Another bottle of fizz!’ the bride-to-be demanded stridently, crudely breaking into Charley’s reminiscing.

‘More fizz! More fizz!’ chanted Team Bride, waggling their half-empty flutes at her.

More fizz? thought Charley, swiftly totting up the number of empties on the table and deciding that applying any more alcohol to these already inebriated young women would be morally unethical and biologically unwise. Deftly avoiding actually saying ‘no’, she replied, ‘Sorry, but it’s nearly closing,’ and then, she even more skilfully avoided an all-out riot by announcing it was ‘Party bag time!’ Team Bride squealed with excitement and Charley nipped off to get the party favours the pub had provided, on top of the hire of the room.

God, those are ghastly, she cringed, as the women up-ended their sparkly pink bags onto the table to reveal a plastic badge that said, ‘I’m with the Bride’; a pink, heart-shaped balloon; a party popper and a mini bottle of Prosecco. And this time Charley didn’t beat herself up for being judgemental, not least because she knew for a fact the pub charged a fiver for each bag, and there were twenty of them, which meant the bride had shelled out a hundred quid. A hundred quid? she thought. Seriously! If you’re going to spend that much on party bags, surely you’d want something better than that? It was a scandalous rip-off.

It was well past eleven by the time the other bar staff and Charley had finally poured the last of the girls into a taxi and had started to clear up the room.

‘Those party bags were atrocious,’ Charley told her manager.

‘I know,’ Jacob replied with a shrug. ‘But they didn’t seem to mind.’

‘They might when they sober up,’ said Charley. ‘Honestly, for a fiver a head, I could do a lot better.’

Jacob stopped piling glasses onto a tray and looked at her. ‘Seriously?’

‘Yes!’

‘Okay then, bring us a couple of sample bags, and if they’re good, I’ll put in a word at Head Office.’

Cycling home through the dark, lamp-lit streets, Charley started thinking about the party bags, mostly to distract herself from the effort it took to pedal up the hill, but she was convinced she could definitely do something much better, much classier, and still make a profit.

Waking the following morning, Charley flung the duvet off and padded to the bathroom, but the door wouldn’t open. Momentarily confused, she rattled the handle.

‘Won’t be a minute!’ called Pam brightly from inside.

Dammit! ‘Sorry!’ Charley called, and went to put the kettle on.

A minute or two later, Pam came into kitchen, fully dressed and already wearing earrings and lippy – it wasn’t even eight o’clock. This is definitely not good for my self-esteem, thought Charley, knowing only too well what she looked like in her baggy old PJs, dregs of yesterday’s make-up, and with the remains of her top knot now closely resembling a bird’s nest on a windswept clifftop. She sloped off to the bathroom, emerging less than ten minutes later to find that while she’d showered and dressed, Pam had set the table with a pot of tea, a plate of toast, butter and jam, and was now tucking into a boiled egg.

‘Shall I do you an egg?’ Pam asked.

‘I don’t expect you to make my breakfast!’

‘I know.’ Pam smiled, then added getting up, ‘But do you want an egg?’

‘Actually, I’d love one,’ Charley said, sitting down and pouring herself a mug of tea.

When they’d finished eating, Pam reached for her dirty plate.

‘No! You cooked! I’ll clear.’ Charley stood up and gathered up her crockery.

‘Nonsense. I’ve got nothing else to do, and you’ve got to job-hunt.’

Taking everything from her, Pam ushered her out of the kitchen and Charley felt like a teenager sent off to do her homework, a feeling that intensified an hour or so later when Pam came in with a mug of coffee for her and asked, in a distinctly motherly kind of way, what she’d had for supper last night. Charley cringed and admitted to having had a burger and chips, like she did most nights in the pub – not that she was going to fess up to that particular habit. The pub did do healthier food, salads even, but halfway through a gruelling shift Charley craved junk – or comfort food, as she preferred to call it – telling herself she deserved it, or that at least she would burn it off on the ride home.

‘Why don’t we have our main meal at lunchtime?’ Pam suggested. ‘I’ll make it, because I know how busy you are.’

Charley felt a pang of irritation at Pam’s obvious attempts to organise her, and then, telling herself not to be ungrateful, replied echoing her previous statement at breakfast. ‘But I don’t expect you to do the cooking!’

‘If you expected me to, I wouldn’t!’ Pam returned. ‘I want to.’

‘We’ll take it in turns,’ said Charley firmly, privately thinking, we are really going to have to create some house rules, set some boundaries and draw up some rotas. It was Charley’s flat, not Pam’s, and, much as she loved her mother-in-law, Pam was the lodger, not her.

‘How about I make salmon en croûte?’ Pam suggested.

‘Oh my God, I love that!’ groaned Charley, instantly giving in. She wasn’t proud of herself.

A few moments later she could hear Pam rooting through the food cupboards and the fridge, and then shortly afterwards she appeared in the doorway and announced she was off to the shops.

‘Have you got a spare key?’ she asked.

‘Yes, of course!’ said Charley getting up to