“It’s both of you,” Bex said sighing as she said it. “You both always had these little quirks that we’ve all noticed over the years. Like the way you sit and stand with each other for example. But after the accident you were different with each other, and when…”
“Bex,” Rich said interrupting her and shaking his head to indicate that she’d said enough.
“And when?” Charlie asked looking from Bex to Claire who she knew would tell them the truth.
“Matt was with Emily,” Claire said to Charlie; “he apparently wasn’t the same way with her.”
Matt felt his whole body tense, and the atmosphere in the room became noticeably uncomfortable. He waited for Charlie’s reaction, and he wished that she hadn’t been prompted to think about him and Emily in the company of their friends. Actually, he wished that she hadn’t been prompted to think about him having been with Emily at all.
“So hold on a minute, let me see if I’ve got this straight? You lot go all go gooey eyed because he wraps his arm around me, and I lean on his knee?” She asked checking that she’d understood correctly. “And what, you’ve all decided that these two actions are the indicators of love or something?” She asked before starting to laugh.
The tension in the room dissipated immediately as everyone started to laugh with her, and Matt kissed her on the cheek and she smiled at him.
“More wine?” Rich asked, and the room as a whole concurred.
As everyone’s glasses were being topped up, Charlie put hers on the floor by Claire.
“You’re being lame tonight Charlie. You’ve sipped at your wine all night, and now you’re not having anymore. Have you failed to remember how much you can put away?” Rich asked reaching down for her glass to fill it up anyway.
Matt noticed that Charlie looked embarrassed as everyone laughed, and when she did take the glass back from Rich she looked at Claire.
“Bathroom,” Claire said straightaway.
Charlie nodded and stood up quickly, putting the full untouched glass of wine down on the floor. “Anyone else,” Charlie said smiling at the other girls, but recognisable to him alone was the fact that it was a false smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
None of the other girls went though and the conversation resumed, but as he took a drink from his own re-filled wine glass he suddenly realised what was going on with Charlie.
“Back in a sec,” he said to everyone as he got up to leave the living room.
Matt had noticed that Charlie hadn’t been drinking much, but he’d assumed that she was tired. He’d also been enjoying the night so much that he hadn’t really given it much thought, until that was he’d seen her pass off a full glass of wine to Adam when they’d been coming into the living room. Yet before he’d had a chance to query this with her, he’d gotten side tracked by all the staring at him and Charlie.
As he went upstairs to Rich and Bex’s bathroom he felt a twinge of jealousy that Adam had known before he did, but then he supposed that he was grateful to him for helping Charlie not to drink tonight.
He tapped on the bathroom door, and when Charlie opened it he saw that she looked upset.
“Aren’t we supposed to be happy about this?” He asked her before smiling at her.
“You know?” Claire asked him from inside the bathroom.
“Yeah I managed to put a couple of clues together,” he said rolling his eyes at her.
“Are you angry with me for not telling you?” Charlie asked.
“No, but I’ll assume this is what the surprise comment was about earlier?” He asked before smiling at her again.
She nodded. “I wanted to tell you at home. So I asked Claire and Adam to help me with the wine situation tonight,” she said sounding like she was unveiling a major conspiracy plot to him.
“I guessed as much when I saw you pass off a full glass of wine to Adam,” he said.
“I’ll see you back downstairs,” Claire said. But neither Matt nor Charlie looked or said anything to her as she passed by them.
“How far along are you?” Matt asked.
“Ten weeks,” Charlie said.
“Ten,” he said sounding shocked.
“I think it dates back to when I was off work with gastroenteritis,” she said smiling wickedly.
“Come on,” he said taking her hand and leading her downstairs. “Wait here,” he said to her at the bottom of the stairs as he walked over to the living room and popped his head round door and said to the others; “Charlie and I have gotta pop out. We’ll be back in about twenty minutes.”
“You’re optimistic. We all saw the kiss earlier. I reckon five minutes is far more realistic,” Rich said. To which everyone laughed.
“Come on,” Matt said to Charlie still smiling at Rich’s quip as he led her from the house.
They walked hand in hand, but as they past their house Charlie asked; “aren’t we going home?”
“Why does everyone assume I’ve taken you off for sex?” He asked shaking his head and smiling.
Charlie didn’t reply, but he felt her grip on his hand tighten as she recognised where they were heading and he looked across at her.
“Do you think there’s something wrong?” Charlie asked anxiously.
He stopped walking, feeling guilty that he’d obviously scared her, and he pulled her into a hug and said; “no, I just want to see our baby.”
As they got closer to the hospital he could feel the excitement bubbling up inside of him, and he knew that he was all but dragging Charlie along in his stead.
When they arrived he found an empty exam room, and he told her to lie down on the bed. He went off to get a monitor so that he could do an ultrasound, and when he returned he saw that Charlie was lying down just like he’d told her to. Yet he could see that she looked nervous. He walked over to her and kissed her on the lips, and said; “you’re going to need to lift up your shirt, and undo your jeans.”
Matt watched Charlie lift up her shirt to reveal her beautiful flat stomach, but he could also see her hands fumbling with the button and zip on her jeans because her hands were shaking.
“Here,” he said undoing her jeans for her before asking; “what?” He could feel her eyes on him.
“I’m just curious. Do you help all your patients undress?” She asked him cheekily.
“Only the hot ones,” he said winking at her. He was also relieved to see her smile and relax a little. “This is going to be cold,” he said squeezing gel onto her abdomen.
He focused on the ultrasound and said; “okay, let’s see how good your doctor is shall we?”
“You or my other doctor,” Charlie said clearly confused.
“Both,” Matt said smiling but also concentrating at the same time. “Okay it looks like your other doctor was right. You are, by the looks of things, ten weeks along. Your foetus looks fine,” he said sounding relieved and turning back to Charlie who he saw looked close to tears. “What’s wrong?” He asked and then saying reassuringly; “its fine, I promise.”
“Its fine? Your foetus looks fine? Not the baby or better yet our baby?” She asked, and he watched helplessly as she started to cry.
“I’m sorry,” he said smiling at her reaction and knowing that it was just her hormones. “I was concentrating on what I was doing, and not on what I was saying. Ultrasounds aren’t that clear this early on. Of course I meant our baby. I can’t wait for us to be able to hold our baby.”
He kissed her on the lips, wiped her abdomen, and then kissed her there too. Yet the door of the exam room suddenly opened, and they saw Emily. She looked from Matt and Charlie to the image that was still on the screen, and she turned on her heel and walked away.
***
“You said twenty minutes. Where the hell have you been?” Rich asked Matt and Charlie as he let them back in.
“Is everyone still here?” Matt asked, and Rich nodded. He walked past Rich and went into the living room, once again all but pulling Charlie along behind him.
“We’ve got an announcement,” Matt said.
“Claire’s already killed your moment,” Nick said.
Matt looked angrily at Claire, and she said; “they all wanted to know why you couldn’t wait till you got home. So I let the cat out of the bag, and told them that you were getting remarried.”
“Oh,” Charlie said exchanging a look with Matt.
“Yeah,” Matt said nonchalantly; “that’s true, but most of you knew that already. We have much newer news than that though.”
Everyone looked at him expectantly, but he waited for a few seconds before he finally announced; “Charlie’s having my baby.”
“Congratulations,” everyone said in unison before getting up to give Charlie a hug and to shake his hand.
“You’re a lucky bastard,” Rich said to him quietly.
“I know,” Matt said to his best friend.
“He won’t be as handsome as if I was the daddy,” Rich said to Charlie. He then hugged her and kissed her a little too closely to the lips for Matt’s liking. He also noticed Bex look as well.
“Who say’s the baby’s a he?” Charlie said putting her hands on her currently flat stomach.
“God help us if it’s a little girl,” Ben said. “If she’s anything like you, she’ll have Matt in an early grave. He won’t be able to cope with all of her potential suitors!”
Charlie smiled, and Matt stood behind her and put his arms around her and his hands over hers which were still on her stomach. “I’ll just ground her from the age of twelve,” he said.
“Or you can just hope for a boy,” Rich said; “and then cross your fingers that he doesn’t inherit your drug addiction!” The whole room went silent. That was until Matt burst out laughing, which seemed to make everyone else feel free to laugh at the comment as well.
The excitement and chatter went on long into the night, and Matt felt immensely proud and lucky to have Charlie back in his life again.
“I have a question,” Adam said when everyone except Charlie was a little on the drunk side.”It’s all a little incestuous this group isn’t it? You all grew together. You’ve all dated, kissed, and slept with one another. So what I want to know is, are there any of you that haven’t dated, kissed, or whatever with any of the others?”
“I’m out,” Charlie said laughing; “well, assuming that I can discount the girls of course?”
Adam nodded, and smiled appreciatively at her comment.
Charlie laughed again and said; “okay, then I’m definitely out. A kiss during spin the bottle with Ben, and Nick once stuck his tongue down my throat when we were at the cinema. But before he even tries to claim that it was a date,” she added looking straight at Nick who was looking very guilty; “it wasn’t! Sorry Mel,” she said to a giggling Mel; “he’s genuinely lovely. Er where was I,” she continued as Adam started laughing. “I dated and slept with Rich, and I’m married and pregnant with Matt. Oh and not to be forgotten I suppose, I once snogged Claire for a bet.”
Everyone looked at her, and Claire who was now laughing said; “Shit I’d forgotten about that!”
“I hadn’t,” Matt and Rich said in unison. But only Rich was looking amused.
Charlie stroked Matt’s face and kissed his cheek, yet he simply shook his head at her.
“When was this trip to the cinema?” Matt asked Nick.
“Oh mate it was pre-Rich,” he said. To which everyone started to laugh as Matt once again shook his head, but this time at Nick rather than at Charlie.
“I’m also out,” Bex said. “Spin the bottle with Matt and Nick, dated Ben, and married to Rich.”
“I’m out as well,” Nick announced. “Spin the bottle kisses with Rach and Bex, and I copped a cheeky feel of Charlie along with the whole tongue incident at the cinema until she hit me. Sorry Matt. Oh, and I lived with Claire obviously.”
Again everyone started laughing, but more at Matt who was looking unimpressed with Nick.
“I’m also out,” Ben said. “Spin the bottle with Charlie and Claire in the same night, every boy’s fantasy! Sorry Adam, sorry Matt. Dated Bex, and now married to the lovely Rach.”
“I’m in,” Rach said proudly. “Spin the bottle with Nick and Matt, and I’m married to Ben, but I’ve never done anything with Rich thank god. Sorry Bex.”
“I’m in,” Rich said. But he sounded disconcerted. “Who’d have thought it? Charlie and Bex we all know about, nothing with Rach or Claire though. God, what have I been doing with my time?”
“So Claire, you must be in too?” Bex asked, and Claire nodded.
“And Matt must be in as well?” Mel asked, and Matt nodded.
“You fucking liar!” Rich said laughing. “Seriously play the game fair and answer honestly.”
“I’m out,” Matt said making everyone laugh. “Spin the bottle with Bex and Rach, married and have impregnated Charlie, and... kissed Claire a few times.”
“Kissed Claire a few times? That’s what you’re going with?” Rich asked.
Claire and Matt exchanged an awkward look, before looking across at Charlie who returned their looks innocently.
“Did you two have at it in school?” Ben asked sounding shocked.
“Let’s just say they visited some bases,” Charlie said serenely. “Although I always wondered how they found the time, you know in between all of their arguing that is.”
Matt was stunned by what Charlie had just said. He’d had no idea that she’d known, and it looked like Claire hadn’t either.
“How do you know that?” Claire asked Charlie.
“Hmm, you two are both pretty clever and both claim to know me better than the other. Yet neither of you can piece this together?” Charlie asked them before laughing.
Matt looked at Charlie and asked; “you’ve always known?”
Charlie exchanged a look with Rich, and then nodded.
“We walked in on you in a pretty compromising situation mate,” Rich said smirking. “Not something I’d want to see again,” he added pulling a face at Charlie who laughed again.
Matt was feeling mortified and he saw that Claire was blushing. Yet the moment was made even more horrifying and cringe-worthy for them both, when Rich made a lewd gesture to the room to show exactly what they’d been doing when he and Charlie had walked in on them.
“Note no unimpressed look on my face,” Nick said laughing.
“Nor mine,” Adam said laughing; “but you really are incestuous, you get that right?”
“Yeah, and it gets worse if you include our older brothers in this!” Claire said smirking at the girls. To which all the boys looked at her, and Rach, Bex, and Charlie all burst out laughing.
Emily
It hadn’t been an easy couple of months for her since she’d moved out of Matt’s home. The initial feelings of indignation, and impromptu I’m too good for him platitudes, had quickly dissipated and her life had returned to what it had been like when she’d first moved to Birmingham. It was lonely again.
Emily spent her days and nights, if not on call or at work, alone in her flat. She had no friends, and the nurses at the hospital – that had on occasion asked her to join them for drinks, no longer seemed to bother now that it was common knowledge that she was no longer with Dr Grayson.
She missed Matt more than she wanted to admit to herself. She missed his company. She missed their conversations about patients and about the hospital, and more generally she missed just having someone to come home to and be able to share her day with.
Emily dwelled upon the memories of the times that they had spent together. She thought about them making love, the way that she would watch him sleep, and the way that he would pull her close in the night. The pain of no longer being with him sometimes felt like it would cripple her.
Each day after the breakup had been a milestone for her; the first day that she’d spoken to him, the first time that she’d spoken to him without it being intensely awkward, the first time that she’d been able to have a conversation
with him without having to fight the urge to beg him to take her back, and the first time that she’d been able to go to bed following an encounter with him and not cry herself to sleep.
After more than two months of being apart from him, her heartache had seemed to be getting better. Yet as she lay on her sofa in a ball with tears pouring from her eyes, trying desperately to shut out of her mind the image of absolute joy on Matt’s face as he’d kissed Charlie’s stomach, she felt like her heart was back on fire.
She tried to alter the picture in her head, and she tried to visualise Matt kissing her stomach instead of Charlie’s as they looked at an ultrasound of their baby. Yet as the image of their happiness burned in her mind again it felt like a blow to the face, and at the same time there was a knock at the door.
Emily ignored it and wiped her face with a tissue. There was a knock again, but she turned on her television and continued to ignore the knocking despite the fact that it was getting louder. After ten minutes of continual knocking though, she couldn’t ignore it any longer and she got up to answer it.
She was surprised, and angry, to find that it was Charlie who had been knocking on her door. She was stood there in front of Emily holding a bottle of wine and a big bunch of flowers.
“Hi,” she said. “Don’t happen to know a doctor do you? I’ve been banging on this door for so long that I think I’ve broken a bone in my hand.”
“What do you want?” Emily asked coldly, refusing to allow herself to be taken in by Charlie’s kindness and her pretty smiling face and innocent eyes.
“Can I come in?” Charlie asked lightly.
“I’d rather you didn’t,” Emily said.
“Oh, okay,” Charlie said sounding a little taken aback. “I’m just going to leave these with you then,” Charlie said passing the bottle of wine and the flowers to Emily.
“I don’t want them,” Emily said passing them straight back.
“Okay. I’m just going to leave them here then,” Charlie said putting them down on the floor in the hallway. “The flowers will die, but I’m sure one of your neighbours will take the wine.”
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