Good Enough to Share (Good Enough, Book 1 - Christmas)

by Zara Stoneley

  He runs his hands over my head with a caress that feels more reverential than it should and pulls away. His gaze meets mine as I sway, still sitting on Charlie, and there’s something there that embarrasses both of us. I glance down and he clears his throat then steps to one side and offers me a hand.

  “Always the gentleman.” It’s a stupid thing to say but it’s the best I can do right now.

  “Sure am.” We stand there for a second too long, and it’s a weird situation to be in and I don’t know how to get out of it. Dane sorts it for me. Dropping hold of my hand, not too abruptly, and steps away.

  “I’ll get beers, shall I?” Charlie gives me a quick peck on the cheek then a pat on the bum and squeezes past.

  “Not for me, mate, I’ve got to get back.” I want to ask why. He’s already sorted the dogs, doesn’t need to rush off. He gives me one straight look, as though daring me to push it further and then grabs his jacket from the back of the door. “I’ll catch you round.” I want to ask him so many things, like did he want the fuck before he went so that he’d know we wouldn’t when he’d gone? Was that oh so gentle touch a goodbye, because that touch, that look was different. Or was he scared? I don’t ask any of them of course. I let him kiss me goodbye and I watched out of the window as he strides out to his Landrover and gets in. But he glances up as he swings in, and he looks straight at me and then he does the strangest thing. He smiles. He isn’t walking away from me yet.

  ***

  “You don’t fancy hot chocolate instead do you?”

  Charlie grins, his normal, easygoing comforting grin which has the same effect on me as a blanket. Warm, safe. “If you’re making.”

  We cuddle up together on the sofa.

  “Do you miss her?”

  He blows on the frothy chocolate top of his drink. “I didn’t think I still did. But, yes, seeing her today.”

  “You loved her a lot didn’t you?”

  “Yep. I loved her as a friend and I couldn’t believe it could get any better, but it did. Anna was everything to me, I worshipped the ground she stood on.” He gave a self deprecating laugh and I squeezed his hand.

  “I think she loved you too.”

  “Sure.”

  “Well, why did she come back if she didn’t?”

  “To ease her conscience?”

  “Oh, come on Charlie, you know her better than that.”

  “Maybe.”

  “I can’t replace her you know.”

  “I know you can’t. I thought for a while that maybe if you and me, you know, but then I didn’t want to spoil it.”

  “Well, we did, but we didn’t did we? We did the y’know bit but it hasn’t made any difference has it? We’re still friends.” I think it only just occurred to me as I said the words, how true they were. We fancied each other, but not enough to destroy anything. And we liked each other far too much to mess it up. Me and Charlie were cool. But he and Anna were different. “You need to talk to her.”

  “We just did that.”

  “No, you didn’t. She told you stuff and that was it. Find out why she came back, find out why she thought you’d moved on.”

  “I already know that bit. The moving on.”

  “You do?” I squirmed round so I could look at him properly

  He gives me a slightly lopsided smile. “Are you okay, Charlie?” His arm tightens around me.

  “She didn’t come back because of Sophie.”

  Chapter Eight

  “Anna didn’t come back because of Sophie?” My stomach suddenly felt hollow and I pulled away slightly from the warmth of his arm.

  “That’s exactly what she thought.” He sounded dry, which was a new one for even toned Charlie.

  “What?”

  “She thought exactly what you just did.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  He laughed, his normal friendly Charlie laugh but with just a hint of pain. “Yes, you do. She thought we were involved and we never have been. Me and Soph are friends, there’s never been anything else.”

  “There has on her side.”

  He shifted uncomfortably. Why are relationships always so complicated? It’s like a grown up game of tag where too often the person we’re trying to catch is too busy chasing someone else to notice. Or at least to admit they’ve noticed. I wanted James and he wanted a gang bang, Sophie wanted Charlie, Charlie thought he wanted me whereas I know the heart he gave to Anna was never his to give again, and me? I don’t want to think about me. I’d moved back unconsciously towards the warmth and safety of Charlie’s lean body.

  “Okay, maybe you’re right. But—”

  “I am right.”

  “Maybe I’ve always kidded myself thinking I can have friends who are girls, but I like girls.”

  Sweet, sweet Charlie sounded all little boy lost again and I let myself relax against him. Charlie liked girls, and girls liked Charlie, but life always had to try and get complicated.

  “Anna really was the best friend I ever had you know, then when it all went wrong I promised myself I wouldn’t let it happen again. Friends don’t have sex.”

  “We just have.”

  “You’re different.” I didn’t know whether that was good or bad, so I ask. “I’ve fancied you like mad since I met you Holly, bet all the boys chased you at school didn’t they?”

  “Nope, I was podgy and wore specs and kept coming top of the class. The only time they chased me was when they wanted help with their homework.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “Sadly true. But I didn’t want boys anyway, they were spotty and stupid and smelled.” I remember that smell of teenage boys, arousal mixed with B.O. and cigarette smoke after they’d sneaked behind the shed for a fag. Eergh.

  “Well you’re not like that now.” His kissed the top of my head and hugged me a bit closer. I’d always had this kind of barrier around me in the past, not wanting anyone in my personal space. Not even James, unless it was for sex. But with Charlie it was different, he just glided in under my defenses as though he was meant to be there. “And I do fancy you like mad, and I love touching ever inch of your body. But I know you’ll never be mine, will you?” I didn’t answer because I didn’t know how, and he didn’t expect it. “I think we both wanted this, and it feels comfortable and great, but it’s almost like…” He paused, stroking my hair and I could imagine him frowning as he tried to find the right words. “It’s like just taking a brilliant friendship that bit deeper, but not turning it into forever. Like an affair, but one that really means something. Oh I don’t know… Maybe all the time I was resisting you because I didn’t want to cock up again, maybe I was just building the chance of it being something into more than it ever could be.”

  “Sophie would be so upset if she thought we’d done something.”

  “I know. But Sophie can’t always plan out what everyone does. I’m not her puppet even though she’d like me to be.”

  “She wouldn’t.” I knew she didn’t want him to be a puppet, she wanted to look after him, see he didn’t get hurt. “She’s like an overprotective mother hen, she loves you Charlie and she knows she can’t have you, but she wants you to be happy.”

  “And she doesn’t like Anna.”

  “No.” I sighed, she really didn’t like Anna. “But maybe that’s because she doesn’t understand. It’s not up to her what you do about Anna.” I worried sometimes about Sophie, she was so damned keen to organize our lives, to create the perfect solution and yet she wasn’t happy. She hadn’t got everything sorted in her own life, for a start she did love Charlie, and she had run to Dane and jumped him in an effort to forget. I was sure she had. “What did Anna say about Soph then?”

  “She said when she came back someone told her I’d gone to Sheffield so she came to find me and she saw me with Sophie. She said I was so happy, laughing and joking.” That stupid lump was back in my throat, I could just imagine Anna upset about losing her baby, upset about running away from Ch
arlie, then standing all alone watching while he hugged and laughed with another girl.

  “She must have cared to come back and find you.”

  “She just wanted to tell me.” I wanted to scream at him then, how can a man be so stupid?

  “She could have written if that was all it was.”

  “She’s not like that, she’d have wanted to tell me face to face, do it properly.”

  “Charlie, she didn’t do it properly when she ran away. Maybe because she really couldn’t face leaving you, but she could face trying to get you back.”

  “I think you’re reading too much into this. Anyhow she said she accepted that I was with Sophie now, and she hoped I’d be happy and she was sorry about everything.”

  “You did tell her you’re not with Soph?” I had a horrible feeling he hadn’t. “Oh for heaven’s sake, you are being so stupid.” I squeezed his hand a little tighter. “What would you think if it was you? Sophie answered your frigging door.” I was getting to admire Anna more by the minute, even though the girl who she was sure Charlie had fallen for had opened the door, she still had the guts to insist on seeing him. But there again what else did I expect, Charlie was nice, if he’d fallen for Anna big time then she just had to be a genuine person.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know.” He slouched a bit deeper into the seat, his head resting on the top of mine. “It was a long time ago, me and Anna. What if it’s different now?”

  It wasn’t different. The way they had been looking at each other had brought a lump to my throat, corny but true. I wished someone would look at me like that.

  “You won’t know if you don’t try.”

  “She gave me her number, said if I wanted to get in touch it would be nice, but she understood if I didn’t want to speak to her again.”

  “You should. You’ve got to.”

  “I might.” He squeezed me closer, his breath stirred my hair slightly. “Shall we go to bed?”

  So we did, we went to bed. We didn’t need to discuss it. We got in his bed, him in PJ bottoms, me in the long T-shirt I used when I was cold, and we cuddled up close.

  “Charlie?”

  “Yes.” His voice is soft and sleepy.

  “You know all those nights when you’ve stayed out?”

  “Mm.”

  “Where’ve you been, cos it wasn’t a girl, was it?”

  “It was a girl.” He pulls me tighter against him and murmurs into my hair. “It was you. Sometimes I just had to get away from you because I knew if I didn’t I’d fuck you and I didn’t want to wreck things.”

  “Oh.” I can feel the silly smile on my face. “Night, Charlie.” His breathing is already deeper as we lay spooned together, his arm wrapped round me protectively. The big brother I never had. And I let myself breathe in time with him, and I dream about horses, and Dane, and dogs, and babies.

  ***

  Life went a bit more back to normal after all the fun of Boxing Day, which was a bit of a relief. Dane had done a disappearing act, and although I grabbed my mobile phone every time it sprung into life (and sometimes when I’d just imagined it) it was probably good that it wasn’t him. After all I’d promised myself, and Sophie, that I wasn’t about to jump into another relationship and I had a horrible feeling that I was getting too involved with the hunk of man who was my farrier.

  I wasn’t even having the same dreams about him anymore. The passionate sex scenes that had filled my sleeping head in the past had been replaced by images of him staring into my head and it felt a bit like he was staring into my heart as well. He’d be begging me to let him close, asking why I wouldn’t let him touch me and I’d be telling him he didn’t understand, that if he touched me he’d ruin it all. And every dream seemed to end with him ignoring what I said, touching me and then he’d shatter into a million little pieces and I’d wake up in a sweat screaming that I’d told him so.

  Charlie just pottered around in his normal way, and I knew he had Anna on his mind from the way he stared out of the window, and forgot to put the coffee in his cup before the water. And we didn’t share a bed, just silent thoughts.

  A couple of days later Sophie kicked us out of our musings.

  “We’re all invited to Dane’s tonight.” She’d arrived unannounced, grabbed herself a coffee and settled herself on her favorite chair.

  “Are you sure? All of us?” What I really meant was, does he want to see me?

  “Yes, we’re all going, we always do.” Well she might have, but I hadn’t. It looked like I was always going to feel like the new girl on the block.

  “You have told him?”

  She gave me a look. “I didn’t have to tell him, he brought it up to check we were all going. So what have you two been up to?” We hadn’t seen Sophie for a few days, she had been at her sister’s rescuing hamsters and the like. She was always a reluctant visitor there, but I think secretly she quite liked being the big capable Auntie. She also seemed to have forgiven Charlie, or at least decided to ignore the situation.

  “Not a lot.” I try to keep my voice casual. “Have you seen Dane then?” I hadn’t meant to ask, show an interest, but it just tumbled out. Words have a habit of doing that with me.

  “Not really, I just had a quick word. What happened between you two?” She’d taken the opening and jumped in feet first. I knew I shouldn’t have said anything.

  “Nothing.”

  “Holly! You’ve done something, I know something has happened.”

  “No, you don’t. You just think something has happened, you just have a brilliant imagination.” She was good at filling in the gaps, but she was normally pretty close to the truth. Thing is, I don’t know what had happened between me and Dane, and I wasn’t brave enough to try and work it out. I still didn’t know why he left so abruptly.

  “He does like you, a lot.”

  “So you said.”

  “But he does.”

  “It’s a bit of fun Soph, like you said it should be.”

  “I think he’s jealous.”

  “Dane isn’t the type to get jealous.” She was being daft now. The man didn’t have a green streak in him..

  “No, I didn’t think so either.” Her voice was soft, for Sophie, as though she was thinking. “But he is.” She was warming to the subject.

  “Don’t be daft, what’s he got to be jealous of?”

  “You. You and Charlie. You’re always so frigging cosy you pair, as though you know a secret and you’re not sharing.”

  “No, we’re not.” This was getting more than stupid now. Out of hand. “We’re just close because we live together.” If Dane was jealous why the hell would he have engineered Charlie’s diversion the other night, and then left the two of us alone? I nearly said it, but I stopped myself just in time. Some things are better left unsaid.

  Sophie gave a little harrumph and stared at me. “You’re going red.”

  “Only because you’re staring at me.”

  “I know I told you to have a bit of fun with Dane and not get too serious, but that was because I didn’t think he could get serious again.”

  “Fine, so that’s that then.”

  “But he has got serious. Don’t hurt him Holly by messing around with Charlie.”

  “Sophie, stop. First you tell me to just have fun, then you tell me not to hurt Charlie, and now you’re telling me not to lead Dane on. You can’t run everybody’s lives you know. Why not just concentrate on your own?” I wanted to grab the last bit back the moment I said it. But I couldn’t.

  “My life is fine.” Her voice was all tight. “I’m not running your life, is that what you think that I’m interfering?”

  “No, Sophie. It came out wrong, I didn’t mean…”

  “It’s fine for you isn’t it? You waltz in and they’re all running round after you and you just have a shag here and a shag there.”

  “Sophie, it’s not like that.” It wasn’t like that. “You set up the whole me and Dane thi
ng.”

  “Yes, but I didn’t think—” She stopped herself short.

  “What didn’t you think? That it would get serious?”

  “I wanted you to get serious, I didn’t want you to be fucking around with Charlie as well.” The words came out in a rush and then she stopped and we both stared at each other.

  “You wanted us to get serious?” She looked down at her hands, avoiding me, started twiddling. “But you know I don’t want to get involved—” She knew I didn’t want anyone, knew I never wanted to go through the same thing I’d had with James. I didn’t want to fall for anyone, I didn’t want to be left again. And she’d tried to fix me up with Dane.

  “You can’t do that, Sophie, you can’t fix my life for me.” She couldn’t, no-one could. I had to learn to do that for myself. “And there isn’t a me and Charlie.”

  “Does he know that?” She still wasn’t looking at me. I waited until she was.

  “He knows that Sophie. He still loves Anna and no-one can change that but him.”

  “Oh.” She picked up her bag. “I’ll see you at Dane’s at seven shall I?”

  “Sure. Why are we going?”

  “To sort out the New Year’s Eve party of course.” She wasn’t happy, at all.

  “Don’t go Soph, stay have a chat?” She just shook her head and I had a horrible feeling that my accusation of her interfering would stick in her head for a long time. “I love you, Soph and I know you’ve done so much for me, and for Charlie and Dane.”

  She shrugged. “Yeah, well. Maybe I do need to fix me.”

  I didn’t know much about Sophie at all, and it had never really occurred to me. She was like a mother hen, looking after everyone, sorting problems out. She had found me a place with Charlie, she’d found me a job, and she’d set me up with Dane. She was bubbly, bouncy Soph and I hadn’t a clue about the problems I was sure she was hiding from me so successfully.