The Best of Friends by Alex Day (accelerated reader books .txt) 📕

I see how her face drops, alarm flickering across her eyes.

‘Only joking,’ I interject hastily, trying to dispel her fears with a conspiratorial laugh. ‘Vindaloo isn’t known as an aphrodisiac, as far as I’m aware, nor soy sauce.’

The fact is though that Naomi slaves over the dishes she makes for Dan, and openly revels in the praise she receives. The other day she had a massive smile plastered on her overly made-up face for hours afterwards. It must have driven him mad the way she pestered him about it for the next two days, asking him every time he came in if he’d finished the portion he’d taken home. If he put it straight in the bin, he had far too much tact to tell her so.

I’m actually never quite sure what he does with all the goodies she plies him with – usually, when it’s homemade protein energy balls or flapjacks, they disappear into his bag and are never seen again. He always says, next time he’s in the cafe, that whatever it was tasted delicious, in the same way that he always tells her how lovely she’s looking. Which I guess would be true if peroxide-blonde locks, alarmingly thick and prominent eyebrows, orange-tinged foundation and false eyelashes were really his idea of beauty, which somehow I doubt. So the conclusion that I draw is that he’s adept at those little white lies that oil the wheels of social convention and that’s probably another reason why he’s such a successful businessman.

Few of us are immune to flattery and charm, after all.

‘I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,’ Charlotte suddenly announces.

‘Oh?’ I ask, conscious that I’m short of time but realising there’s something she needs to get off her chest. Perhaps she’s finally going to reveal all and tell me what’s bugging her.

‘I’ve left Dan out too much, monopolised the children, not allowed him in. All of that has to change.’

‘Right,’ I say. So no revelation, after all – or at least not the one I want her to make. This admission about the way she presides over all aspects of childcare, shutting Dan out, is only what he identified and told me himself so recently. ‘OK. That sounds like a good decision to make.’

‘And sex,’ she adds, out of the blue. ‘I need to have sex with him. More often than we have been – which, if I’m honest, is hardly ever recently. Men need that, don’t they?’

I’m blown off course by this disclosure. I mean, Dan has hinted at their lack of physical intimacy. But men generally have a distorted view of sex and how regularly they should be getting it. It’s a rare long-term relationship when both partners have exactly the same needs in terms of frequency of intercourse. I wonder if Dan puts pressure on her, if that could have anything to do with her despondency. Perhaps this is all it is, all that’s causing her diffidence, her perturbation. That bizarre mix of concern and guilt that women feel when they’re not doing something someone else wants them to.

‘You should never feel forced into sex, Charlotte,’ I say, keeping it gentle, trying not to sound prim. ‘It’s not an obligation.’

‘It’s just that I’ve been putting him off so much lately,’ she pauses. ‘Well, always, actually,’ she concludes, sadly. ‘I’m just not in the mood, and I hate how it messes up my hair. But really it’s because I’ve got too much on my mind. You see …’

I cast a surreptitious glance at the clock. I’m going to have to go.

‘I don’t think you should be worrying about it right now,’ I cut in firmly. ‘You should be concentrating on relaxing. That’s what you’re in Corsica for, after all.’

Charlotte’s face hovers closer to the screen. ‘I was just going to say that …’

I need to go. A blur in the background behind Charlotte morphs into Toby. He stops at the threshold of the door and starts yelling something about Sam.

‘I’ll leave you to it,’ I laugh, as Charlotte turns to wave a threatening fist at her son. ‘Speak soon. Bye!’

I press the button that, with the familiar robotic beep, sees Charlotte disappear from my screen. It’s only when I get to the club that it dawns on me that she had been about to make a revelation. That maybe she had finally been going to share something with me, something more than she already had when she told me about her and Dan’s sex life. Damn! Foiled by the children interrupting again.

Brushing the mystery to one side, I stow my bag in a locker. I can’t do anything about it now and I’m looking forward to this match with Dan. I take a quick look at my reflection, loosening my ponytail slightly; I never think it’s flattering to have it pulled back too tightly, pram-face style. I stroll outside to wait for Dan, who arrives only minutes later. I notice the grey in his hair tonight, but far from ageing him, it makes him look distinguished and wise, like the kind of man who can be depended on. This is not a man who would let his entire world collapse around him, who would leave his wife and children with neither a penny to their name nor a roof over their heads, like Justin did.

He kisses me on each cheek, and with the kisses comes an enticing waft of subtle aftershave and warm skin. Then he pulls a coin from his pocket and throws it flamboyantly upwards, catching it with a slap of one hand over the other. I win the toss to serve first and a tingle of anticipation ripples through me as I propel the ball into the air and then smash it over the net. Playing with Dan releases something in me: an animal instinct to get one over on him, to second guess his every move so that I can counter it; an urge to win because I