Page 28 of Charlie Sunshine (Close Proximity #2)

ELEVEN

CHARLIE

The next morning, I find Bethany waiting by the library’s back door.

“Sorry I’m late,” I pant as I hurry towards her. “Have you been waiting for ages?”

She shakes her head. Her hair is dyed a deep purple today. I remember my grandma having that colour, but concern for my bollocks means I won’t mention it.

“I’ve only been here for ten minutes.” She holds up a cardboard cup. “Your coffee should still be warm.”

“Oh thank God,” I groan, pulling out the library keys and opening the door. “I haven’t had a cup yet. I’m gagging for it.”

“A fact that most of Haunt nightclub now knows,” she says primly. Then she spoils the effect by laughing loudly. “Oh, Charlie, your face.” She hands me my coffee and then pokes me in the ribs. “You obviously had a good night, you dirty stop-out. You smell like a polecat.”

I will not blush. I will not blush . I turn off the burglar alarm and gesture her in. “When did you last sniff a polecat?”

“When we went to London Zoo. Don’t you remember? The little enclosure that smelt bad and they kept popping out of holes. ”

“That was the meerkats.”

“Oh.” She considers my words. “Oh well, that makes me look at the Compare the Market adverts a lot more favourably.” She shakes her head. “Anyway, back to your sex life, Charlie.”

“Shut up,” I mutter as I see Sue walking up to us.

“Morning,” Sue says happily and then gives us both a suspicious second glance. “What’s going on here?” She pauses before saying with delight, “Tell me it’s gossip?”

My “Not at all” is completely ruined by Bethany saying loudly over me, “Charlie slept with Misha last night.”

“Oh God,” I groan, rattling my keys and opening the door that leads upstairs to the staff area. “Bethany, did you miss out on queuing up for the discretion gene?”

She winks. “I’m not sure that’s how biology works, but I’ll bow to you, Charlie, as your sex life is vastly more active than mine these days.”

“You slept with Misha?” Sue squeals. “How exciting.”

“What are you doing?” I ask as she starts to root through her handbag.

“Ringing my husband.”

“Why? Please tell me it’s not to relay that piece of information?”

“Pah! Of course it is. We’ve had a bet on it for years. He was about to give up, but I said no after seeing you both at Jemma’s Halloween party. I said this year is our year.”

“How romantic,” I sniff. I try to conjure details of the Halloween party that had been held by one of the library assistants. I’d talked to Misha most of the night and…

I give up. My thoughts are muddled enough trying to deal with the present.

“Bugger romance,” Sue says. “There’s two hundred quid on it. I can get my hair done and still have spare change for a dress.”

“You should have told me. My sex life can always adapt to your need to get your roots sorted,” I say sourly as I troop up the stairs. They follow, whispering together. “I am still here,” I say. They roll their eyes and walk through to the staff room to drop their coats off.

I zip into the men’s bathroom while they’re putting the coffee on for Susan and talking, and pull out my spare toiletries bag from my locker.

My wash is perfunctory, but at least I manage to wipe off the remainder of the dried come on my stomach that I missed in this morning’s rush.

I look at myself in the mirror for a long minute before sighing and shaking my head at my reflection.

I straighten my tie before heading back to my office.

The room is dark with no windows, and it’s crammed with comfortable clutter—piles of books, boxes of leaflets, and a book stand that takes a layer of skin off my ankles every day.

But my favourite scent of books and paper is soothing, and the sofa is insanely comfortable. It’s a necessary sanctuary today.

Bethany wanders in with the till drawer as I retrieve the cash bags from the safe.

“Sue is setting the counter up,” she says, looking in the big desk diary.

“For programmes, we’ve got the MP’s surgery today.

He can commune with members of the public and fail to answer any of the questions they ask him. ”

“Goodness, I hope he hasn’t forgotten to get a drink before he gets here. Knowing how you feel about making tea, he’s got a long dry morning in front of him.”

“Charlie, my feelings are as negative about making that twat’s tea as they are about him presuming that a woman has nothing to do apart from wait on his fat arse,” she says. “He’s an arrogant wanker. Ordering me to fetch him a drink like I was a waitress.”

“I don’t think he’ll make that mistake again,” I murmur, moving a pile of books and spilling the till money out onto the table.

“Not when you asked him if he’d prefer you to grind the beans on your inner thighs before you had to leave on a quest to find more women whose equal rights he could grind to dust under his shoes. ”

She laughs. “I still can’t believe he never reported me.”

“Too busy cowering in the toilets.”

She draws a chair up next to me, and the next few minutes are spent quietly as we sort the money into piles and start to count it. It’s obvious she’s biding her time, and I foolishly decide to pre-empt her.

“So, where did you and Rupert vanish off to last night?”

Bethany chokes on her coffee and gives me the evil eye. “We didn’t vanish anywhere. ”

“Well, you’d gone by the time we left.” I inhale and roll my eyes because I walked into that one.

She leans forward delightedly. “You mean when you and Misha left together? When you were wrapped around each other tighter than ivy.”

“So, you were there?”

“You didn’t look very hard for us.” She pauses. “Unless you were looking for us in Misha’s underpants. You were ferreting around down there in a very intense fashion.”

Groaning, I knock my head gently against the table. “Please help me,” I say to whichever deity might be listening, but unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be one available in Southwark today.

“No one can hear you scream, baby,” Bethany hisses and laughs. She pets my hair, probably managing to completely disarrange my ponytail in the process. “Come on, Charlie,” she croons. “Spill the beans.”

“Whatever that means.” I sit and scrub my face with my hands.

“I’ve been waiting for this to happen for so long.”

“Don’t tell me that you had a bet?” I say sourly.

She shakes her head. “I’m not risking my hard-earned money on you two twats.”

“Charming,” I sniff. She stares at me with a gimlet gaze, and I give in. “Okay, we slept together.” I wince at her squeal.

“Yay, I’m so pleased.”

“Why?” I ask, bewildered. “Why is everyone so ecstatic about my sex life? What is there to be pleased about? We’ve probably just fucked up the most important relationship of our lives by having sex together.”

“But was it good sex?”

I glare in answer.

She nudges me. “Come on. It’s been a long dry spell for me. Was it good? That boy certainly looks like he knows what he’s doing. I’d hate to think it was false advertising.”

“He should know what he’s doing,” I say sourly.

“He’s had enough practice over the years.

” She pushes a strand of my hair behind my ear and looks at me expectantly.

I sigh. “It was absolutely amazing.” I swallow as I remember him poised over me, his cock in my arse and a transported look on his face.

“The heavens opened, and the angels sang,” I finish flippantly.

“I knew it.”

“How did you know that?”

“Because the two of you have this insane chemistry. You always have, Charlie.”

“Well, I must have missed it during the wilderness of my best-friend years.”

“You both missed it.” She scoops some pound coins and puts them in the little plastic bag. “You were so busy looking outwards. You never saw what was right in front of you.”

“Well, we’ve done it now.” I shove my hair back from my face. “There’s no avoiding it.”

There’s a shocked silence. “Wait,” she says. “Do you want to avoid it?” I look at her, and she groans. “Oh, Charlie, don’t fucking say that.”

“Why?”

“Because the two of you are perfect for each other. That’s why.”

“How are we perfect for each other? I go for commitment and relationships. The longest relationship Misha has had has been with his right hand, and he hardly needed to use that with the amount of men trooping through his boudoir.” I slump in my chair.

“This has disaster written all over it. We’ll fall into bed a few times, he’ll get bored and cheat, and then we’ll never speak to each other again.

The sex was amazing, but nothing will ever be worth losing Misha from my life. ”

Bethany eyes fill with busy thoughts, and then she pokes me hard.

“Ouch! What was that for?” I protest.

“Because you’re astonishingly pessimistic for someone who everyone calls Charlie Sunshine. Why on earth does it have to turn out like that?”

“Because that’s how it is. I nest, while Misha flies around showing off his feathers.”

“Just because something has always been like that doesn’t mean that it will stay that way forever.”

“What do you mean? ”

“I mean that Misha has never had a relationship with you . That’s the unknown equation.”

“I was always terrible at maths,” I say glumly.

“Well, he wasn’t. Hopefully anyway, because otherwise, the British banking system might be in for a nasty surprise.” She shoots me a quizzical look. “What did he say this morning?”

I stack the notes on the table, focusing on the movement of my fingers. “Oh, well, not much,” I say brightly.

There’s a long silence, and against my will, I look up. She’s regarding me sternly. “Charlie, what did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything,” I say crossly. Bethany carries on looking at me with her sharp eyes, and I slump. “I didn’t talk to him this morning, so I’m not sure what he thinks about anything,” I mutter.

“Why?”

I tug at my hair. “Because he was still asleep when I left.”

“And did you leave making any noise?”