What a Girl Wants - Lindsey Kelk

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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 finally woken up and realized that you are the absolute dog’s bollocks and that he wants to make an honest woman out of you, conveniently at the exact time you’re looking elsewhere. He wants what he suddenly might not be able to have. Awesome.’

      ‘It’s not like that,’ I said, wondering whether or not it might not be a little bit like that.

      But Amy wasn’t finished. ‘And regardless of how you feel about Charlie and regardless of how many phone calls or emails you have not received, you cannot sit there and tell me you don’t have feelings for Nick which, at the very least, says something about your feelings for Charlie.’

      It was altogether too close to home.

      ‘What have I told you about using the “N” word?’ I pulled my feet up underneath me, burrowing into the settee.

      ‘And you can’t keep referring to him as “the N word”,’ she said. ‘People really aren’t going to be OK with that.’

      ‘What’s happening with him anyway? You called him and he hasn’t called you back?’ Paige was trying to look supportive but I knew it was a strain. After all, she had history with Nick and much more of a history than I did, even if it was a history of rejection.

      ‘Pretty much.’ I shook my head. ‘But what’s the point anyway? It was a holiday fling. He didn’t even know my real name, for God’s sake. This is real life: Charlie and the agency and chicken cook-in sauces. Maybe that doesn’t seem as glamorous and exciting to everyone as Milan and photoshoots, but it’s exciting to me. And the Charlie thing … It’s throwing me because I’ve wanted this for so long and now maybe I have it. How would that not be confusing? To anyone?’

      ‘That’s how I felt when I got my first Chanel 2.55 bag,’ Paige nodded with genuine sympathy this time. ‘It was like “can I actually take this out? Can I actually use this?” It’s hard.’

      ‘You’re both fucking mental.’ Amy was not big on Chanel bags or metaphors. ‘And Tess, I know how long you’ve been in love with that cockwomble, but you’re not the kind of girl who only wants what she can’t have. I should know, because I am. So if you’re not champing at the bit to shack up with Mr Wonderful, there’s a good reason for it and I don’t believe it’s just nerves. I think you’ve got real feelings for Nick and I don’t think you can ignore that.’

      ‘How can I have real feelings for him?’ I asked, burning up. ‘I only knew him for a week. And he didn’t really know me at all.’

      It was a question I’d been asking myself a lot, only Amy and Paige didn’t realize it was rhetorical. I did have feelings for him – big, scary feelings that I didn’t understand and, in all honesty, did not want to. I’d always been so safe and secure in my feelings for Charlie but every time I thought about Nick, my stomach clenched and my hands made tiny fists and I wanted to hit something. Preferably him. I wanted to go to sleep and wake up with nothing but my über-crush on Charlie back the way it was. Everything would be so much simpler.

      ‘To be fair, you did lie to the man about your entire existence while merrily shagging him senseless,’ Amy said. ‘Even after he bared his soul to you. I might take a few days to call you back for a chat, to be fair.’

      ‘He bared his soul?’ Paige looked less than impressed. ‘You mean, he pulled out some of his cheesy old lines?’

      ‘There were cheesy lines in the beginning,’ I admitted, not wanting to come to his defence but entirely incapable of stopping myself, ‘but there was a certain degree of soul-baring after a bit. Maybe not baring, maybe it was more like soul-flashing.’

      ‘What a knob,’ she breathed, taking a big deep drink of her wine. ‘Him, not you.’

      ‘It’s starting to feel like it never happened.’ I flipped to the sent messages in my phone and saw his name over and over. I wondered what would give out first, his refusal to reply or my dignity. ‘Every morning when I wake up, it feels more and more like I was never in Hawaii, like he never existed.’

      ‘Don’t upset yourself over it,’ Paige said, shifting in her seat. ‘I’m sure it was all bullshit. I don’t know if that man is capable of anything other than trying to get into a woman’s pants.’

      Paige had known Nick a lot longer than I had and I was fully aware that she had tried very hard to get into his pants, and not the other way around. And that didn’t make this conversation awkward at all.

      ‘Bottom line is,’ Amy shrugged and emptied her second glass of wine, ‘something is stopping you from moving on with Charlie. Something’s got you stuck. That something is Nick.’

      ‘Paige, can you come and check these shots?’ the photographer bellowed from the set below. With a very grumpy look on her face, Paige dutifully stood up and marched down the stairs.

      ‘Shout if the models need oiling. The male models,’ Amy yelled as she went before turning her attention back to me. ‘I know I haven’t been entirely Team Charlie when it comes to you

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