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

can’t stand whisky – or at least I thought I couldn’t until tonight – but I don’t want to be troublesome by asking for something else. And when I try it, I find that I quite like the peaty, boggy taste that seems to contain the essence of the Highlands. I express my surprise, inadvertently giving away the fact that I’ve agreed to have a drink I know I don’t like.

‘You’ve just been having the wrong whisky,’ Dan assures me, in the way he has that makes him impossible to argue with. ‘In other words, cheap stuff. You’re enjoying this because it’s nearly £150 a bottle.’

I almost choke when he says the price. It’s more than my budget allows for my monthly food shop. But then I remember how Justin didn’t think twice about spending £40 or £50 on wine, which doesn’t last nearly as long, and I get off my high horse tout suite. As Dan has said before, if you’ve got it, why not spend it and I have to agree. After all, there are no pockets in a shroud.

We chat and drink and I start to feel a little tipsy, but in the most pleasant, agreeable way. At one point I suggest to Dan that I really should be off but he begs me to stay.

‘Please don’t go yet,’ he pleads plaintively. ‘Let’s watch a movie or, well, just talk. It’s so nice – Charlotte and I hardly ever do this anymore, just sit here and chat. And anyway, I don’t want to spend another evening alone.’

I smile. ‘I know how you feel. It’s weird when every room is deserted, every door you open leads to another empty space. I’m not used to it at all.’

‘It’s awful. I hate it.’ Dan takes another slug of whisky. ‘But it’s not just that. It’s not just because they’re all away. Even if they’re here, I’m left out. They’re a unit, the boys and Charlotte, and I haven’t been part of it for years and the worst thing is that I’m not sure if I’ve created that situation or they have. I really don’t know.’

My heart breaks for him anew. The elite businessman, the go-getter, the walking success story, is as messed up and unsure and insecure as all the rest of us underneath. We’re all blustering most of the time, putting on an act, hoping we don’t get found out – even Dan, the archetypal alpha male. It seems so wrong that he’s been ousted from the family bosom, left to provide the money and not much else. Though Charlotte might feel it’s only what he deserves, that he’s reaping what he’s sown – he simply doesn’t understand it. I feel sorry for him, and sorry for her. For a moment, I feel sorry for myself, too.

‘It sounds very difficult,’ I reply quietly. ‘But if it’s that bad, perhaps it’s time to call it a day? Not all marriages last forever – I can vouch for that. Perhaps you’d both be better off out of it. Happier. Saner.’

We’re sitting at either end of a capacious sofa. Dan listens to what I’m saying and then slides himself nearer to me. He stretches his arm across the back of the sofa, behind my shoulders.

‘You’re so wise, Susannah,’ he says softly. ‘And so understanding. I can talk to you in a way I’ve never been able to with Charlotte. Thank you.’

It all happens so quickly, his arms encircling me, his mouth on mine, that I hardly have time to process it, let alone to resist. Before I can react he’s kissing me passionately, long and hard, a kiss that lasts and lasts, and I find myself kissing him back just as urgently, and at first I’m thinking of my friend Charlotte and what the hell is going on, and I can’t believe that I’m betraying her like this but then I stop thinking of her and concentrate on the kiss and there is nothing else in the world but me and Dan. The fleeting thought that, as Charlotte so clearly can’t really be bothered with him then it’s all right for me to have him, crosses my mind before that, too, is forgotten and I sink further into his embrace.

After a while, I’ve no idea how long, he stands, pulling me up after him, and still kissing me he leads me up the stairs and into the bedroom where he lays me on the bed, rips off my clothes and makes love to me in a way I’ve never experienced before, not with Justin nor even with Charlie.

By the time it’s over, I’ve lost all sense of who, what, or where I am. He puts an arm around me and nestles into my back and soon I hear his breathing settle into the regular pattern of sleep.

I lie in bed – in Charlotte’s bed – wondering what on earth I’ve done. Until it suddenly occurs to me that it’s the innate attraction that Dan and I have for each other that’s been fuelling all our encounters, almost since that very first day when he arrived late to the party with a bunch of helium balloons.

That this had always been bound to happen. That however much I tried to be the friend Charlotte wanted me to be, the desire Dan and I have for one another was always going to win out. I have a sudden feeling of panic about whether Charlotte is definitely in Corsica and all of her boys, too. But I know she is and once I’ve reminded myself that it’s all fine and she’s not about to walk in the door and find us here, I fall asleep too.

But not before wondering how on earth I’m going to tell her.

Chapter 24

Susannah

It’s surreal to wake up in Dan’s arms, in Dan’s house, in Dan’s bed.

Charlotte’s house. Charlotte’s bed.

Racked with guilt, I put my arms over my face, shielding my eyes from the daylight that’s streaming in from behind