new messages appeared, she heard another bout of laughter emanate from her living room. She knew that she needed to get back to her party.
Currently six of her closest and oldest serving friends were sat drinking wine, and apparently entertaining themselves whilst they waited for her to serve dinner. This had been something that she’d been trying to delay. Yet just as she contemplated putting down her phone, she felt someone come and stand behind her and rest their chin on her shoulder.
“You have no new messages,” Rich said imitating the voice heard on answering machines.
Charlie turned to look at him and shook her head. “Nope,” she said trying not to sound despondent about this. “Who’d be sending me messages anyway?” She asked smiling cheekily at him. “It’s not like it’s a special occasion or anything.”
Before he could reply though, she asked; “how hungry do you reckon everyone is?”
“Well speaking personally, I’m starving,” Rich said smiling; “but I believe that tonight is a special occasion,” he said winking at her. To which Charlie felt her face flush as she returned his smile.
Rich had always been good looking, which is why she’d dated him when they’d been kids. He was tall and rugged looking. He had dirty blond hair, and blue eyes that she often told him had a hint of dirty in them. He was, and always had been, confident, charismatic, and popular, and he’d been an obvious first choice boyfriend for most teenage girls. Yet Charlie had never been as attracted to him as some of the girls at their school, and she’d known long before they’d broken up that her feelings for him hadn’t been as strong as either of them had wanted them to be.
“Come on then,” Charlie said putting down her phone and throwing the tea towel that she had in her hand at him. “Help me carry some of this through. It looks like I’m hosting alone tonight.”
“But I’m a guest,” Rich said sounding aggrieved and looking at her in an appalled manner.
“Yeah you are a guest. So shouldn’t you be drinking my good wine, and telling filthy jokes about my wife? Or at the very least making inappropriate comments about her age?” A voice said from behind them, and both Charlie and Rich turned towards the back door.
Rich grinned broadly as Matt walked in through the back door, and Charlie could see that he looked worn out. In fact she thought that he looked like he could pass out at any minute, but there he was smiling at her whilst at the same time taking the towel off Rich and whipping him with it lightly.
“Happy birthday,” he said before kissing her on the cheek and adding; “sorry I’m late.”
Charlie felt the familiar feeling of happiness flow through her. Matt was she knew, the real reason why she’d never fallen properly for Rich. She’d had a crush on Matt for as long as she could remember, but when he hadn’t shown any interest in her she’d done what any girl in her position would’ve done. She’d set out to make him jealous, and she’d known just how to do it. She’d accepted a date with another boy, and that boy had just happened to be his best friend.
Matt was, as Charlie’s best friend Claire had always described him, ridiculously handsome. At school all the girls had fancied him, and he’d been the stereotypical high school heart throb. He was tall, good looking, and very charismatic. His hair was such a deep shade of brown that it appeared nearly black, and he had for as long as Charlie could remember worn it short and tousled. His eyes were hazel in colour, and he had smile that set his whole face alight.
Charlie and Matt had started dating when she was fifteen, and very shortly after she’d broken up with Rich. She’d gotten a pretty bad time of it when she’d initially made this switch, but this had been partly to do with the fact that Matt and Rich were best friends. Yet it had also been partly to do with the fact that they’d all grown up in Cheddar. In Cheddar everyone knew everyone else’s business, and they liked to comment on it.
No one had thought that their relationship would last. It had been seen as just another young romance that would peter out when he went off to university, but theirs hadn’t. He’d gone to Birmingham Uni to study medicine, and a year later she’d followed