to make the decision right now, pick one and never do the other ever again, which would it be?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, wishing I didn’t see Nick and Charlie in my head when she asked that question. ‘I had a plan, you know? I knew where I was going and I knew what I wanted. And now it’s like, boom! decision time. But if I make the wrong decision, what happens then? I’m buggered. Completely buggered and miserable and I die alone with seventeen cats all called Steve. It’s too hard.’
‘Have I missed something? How does picking the wrong job leave you as a crazy cat lady?’ Paige looked swiftly from me to Amy and back again. ‘Were you drinking before you got here?’
‘She’s not drunk,’ Amy said, patting my hand as though I was a deranged nana. ‘She’s just not really thinking about the jobs, are you?’
‘Oh, bloody hell.’ Paige rolled her eyes. ‘And we were doing so well at avoiding the subject of cock. OK. Hang on a sec, I just need to set up this last shot and then we can get trashed and talk about this properly.’
Trashed? I looked at my watch. It was barely even three o’clock.
Amy looked at me with a ‘well?’ expression, an already empty wine glass in her hand. I genuinely didn’t know where she put it; the woman was miniscule and drank more than Lindsay Lohan on the average Thursday.
‘What?’ I picked up my glass and gave my wine one more sip. ‘Spit it out.’
‘Have you explained it all to Charlie?’ she asked.
‘No.’
‘Have you heard from the other one?’
‘No.’
Just then, my text message alert sounded loudly in the bottom of my handbag and every internal organ jumped. Even my spleen wanted to know who was it was from. It was Charlie.
One by one, my organs settled back into their usual positions, consoling each other on their way down. I didn’t know why I was surprised. Nick wasn’t going to call. Nick wasn’t going to call. Nick wasn’t going to call. And no matter how many times I told myself that, it did not feel any better.
‘Speak of the devil,’ I said, my voice unexpectedly scratchy. ‘Charlie wants to know where we are.’
‘Tell him to fuck the fuck off, we’re talking about him, not to him,’ Amy replied. ‘You thought it was Nick, didn’t you?’
‘It’s fine,’ I said for the millionth time, tapping out a quick message to Charlie. ‘Everything is fine.’
‘So,’ Paige reappeared at the top of the stairs with her hands on her annoyingly slim hips, ‘can we please get to the bottom of this?’
‘Yes please.’ Amy cocked her head to one side and squinted at me. ‘But we’ve been going too easy on her. Tess, quick-fire decision time: Charlie or Nick?’
‘There is no decision to make.’ I could hear my voice rising along with my blood pressure as I spoke every syllable. ‘You know we’re not talking about him.’
‘The name Nick is verboten,’ Amy explained to Paige. ‘I’m not allowed to mention him, even though she’s been checking her phone to see if he’s called every other second since Monday night.’
‘Well, I haven’t agreed to that,’ Paige replied. ‘So she’s going to have to talk about it, isn’t she?’
‘Can I have another drink, please?’ I asked, holding out my suddenly empty glass.
‘What do you want?’ She reached over to the small fridge beside her. ‘Wine, champagne, beer, Pimm’s in a can – ick – or I think there’s some vodka in the freezer? I bet one of the models is holding, if you want anything else.’
‘Holding what?’ I asked.
‘Bless her, she’s very naïve,’ Amy said, rolling off the settee and crawling into the fridge to grab the other bottle of white. ‘So, Nick or Charlie? If you had to marry one and throw the other off the side of a boat?’
‘Why are we having this conversation when there is no Nick in the equation?’ I asked. I hated myself for it but even saying his name out loud made me want to do a little cry. The sharp ‘k’ sound at the end of his name seemed to hang in the air forever and I felt like I’d been punched. ‘There is only Charlie.’
‘And if this was three weeks ago, you would be jumping up and down and picking out Tiffany engagement rings by now,’ Amy replied. ‘So how come you’re sitting here, drinking Paige’s wine with a face like an arse instead of at Charlie’s, drinking his wine and throwing out all his porn?’
All four of the male models looked up at us with their blank, handsome faces. The female model didn’t even blink.
I blinked. I refilled my glass. I sighed. My daydreams of being in love with Charlie and Charlie being in love with me rarely got as far as domesticity and I felt like a dog that had been chasing a car – I finally had what I’d always wanted and now what was I supposed to do with it?
‘I know I should be stashing my pink toothbrush next to Charlie’s toothbrush and doing a happy dance,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what’s going on with me.’
‘You’re such a liar.’ Was it just me or did Paige look a little bit annoyed? ‘Just admit it.’
‘I need time to think about things.’ I was not going to say it. ‘Charlie was totally cool about it.’
‘Good for Charlie,’ she replied. ‘I don’t want to be biased or anything, but I’ve got to be honest, I really don’t see any competition. I know Nick is hot and everything but Tess, he’s such a twat.’
‘I know,’ I nodded. There was that sick feeling again. Why did I want to defend him? She was right, after all.
‘And Charlie fucked up, he did, but he’s only a man,’ she went on. ‘Vanessa is hot and we’ve only got to look at Angelina Jolie to know that men have no control over themselves when it comes to hot women. Brad cheated on Jen because of a hot woman. On Jen, Tess, Rachel from Friends. Do you see what I’m saying?’
‘Sort of …’ I frowned.
‘You weren’t together when it happened, you know. You can’t hold this against him forever.’
‘I bet I could,’ Amy said. ‘Charlie’s not good enough for you.’
‘And what’s not good enough?’ I asked, coming over all spikey and defensive on Charlie’s behalf. I was giving myself emotional whiplash. ‘The fact that he’s sweet and caring and funny? That he’s always been there for you and me whenever we’ve really needed him? That he comes home with me so I don’t have to deal with my mum on my own? Shit, the fact that he’s met my mum and still wants to be with me should be reason enough to put a bloody ring on it.’
‘Fine, I’m convinced,’ she replied. ‘After ten years of you giving him the puppy dog eyes, Charlie Wilder is the world’s most amazing man, apart from when he’s being a thoughtless shithead, and has
