After the One by Cass Lester (e book reader free .TXT) 📕

her feet. ‘Life-saver!’ Then, looking round for the lurcher, she added, ‘Where’s Carlo?’

‘Guarding the shop, so I can’t stop long.’

He sat down next to her on the floor, looking over her shoulder at her sketch pad.

‘A friend of mine’s building me a dresser,’ she explained.

‘Great,’ said Ricky. ‘Useful sort of friend,’ he added, but a shade flatly.

Charley didn’t pick up on his tone. ‘I’m going for a sort of shabby chic look.’

He nodded approvingly. ‘You need a signature style. It makes a shop stand out.’

‘Like yours. I love the retro sixties look!’

He rewarded her with one of his usual, easy smiles. ‘Thanks. I was trying to find a way of making second-hand bikes look cool.’

‘It worked!’

He smiled again.

‘So, why second-hand bikes?’

Ricky paused as if he were marshalling his thoughts. ‘Well, partly because I like bikes, they’re good for the environment, and partly because new bikes are very expensive, so there’s always a market for used ones, but mostly, I suppose, because I don’t like things going to waste. Why junk a perfectly good bike when all it needs is a bit of TLC to get it back on the road again. What about you?’ he asked. ‘Why Prosecco gifts?’

Good question, thought Charley, still anxious that the idea might be a bit too niche. ‘Well, I help run a Prosecco-themed annual fundraiser for the Patience House Hospice and I buy little gifts to sell for that. Everything always goes, plus I’m setting up a small party-bag business, you know for weddings, hen parties etc… and the two ventures just seemed to fit together.’

‘Sounds like a good plan.’ Ricky then added, ‘Let me know when it is. The fundraiser, I mean. I’ll come along. If I’ve not missed it already, that is.’

Charley briefly pictured Ricky at the Prosecco Night, probably the only man there, and mercilessly teased by Tara and the rest of her gang. Much as she would have liked him to be there, she couldn’t inflict that ordeal on him.

‘I should probably warn you that it’ll probably be only women there.’

‘Is that meant to put me off?’ he asked, a glint of amusement in his eyes.

‘No, not at all! You’ll be more than welcome! It’ll be in November.’ As soon as she said that, she realised the next Annual Kim Henderson Memorial Prosecco Night was looming up soon, alarmingly soon. She made a note to mention it to Tara when she took the sketches round later.

Carlo then started barking. Ricky grabbed his coffee and got up. ‘Sounds like a customer,’ he said, heading off.

‘Thanks for the coffee!’ she called after him.

When Charley took the measurements over to Tara’s that evening, Baz hadn’t got back from work. Tara cast her eye over the drawing. ‘He can easily make that for you,’ she promised.

‘Sure? I was worried it was a bit too fiddly?’

‘Nothing’s too fiddly for Baz! He’ll knock that up in a weekend!’

Charley frowned, clearly unconvinced. ‘If it’s too complicated, tell him to make something simpler. Whatever he does will be great.’

‘It’ll be fine,’ Tara assured her, then she opened the kitchen door and yelled up the stairs to Monnie who was playing in her bedroom. ‘Five minutes, then bed-time, Monnie-moo.’

There was a protesting groan, and Tara rolled her eyes.

‘Bedtime comes at the same time every night, but it’s always a complete surprise to Monnie!’

Charley laughed, and then she reminded Tara about the upcoming Prosecco Night. ‘Sorry, I’ve been so distracted I didn’t realise the date was coming round so quickly! We’ll have to get cracking.’

‘Yes… right,’ said Tara uneasily. ‘Actually, I was going to talk to you about that. I think I should organise it this year.’

In point of fact, it was Baz who’d suggested that. ‘Charley’s got enough on her plate setting up her business. She can’t run a charity event as well,’ he’d said, and Tara assumed that Charley would be pleased to be relieved of the duty.

She wasn’t. ‘No!’ she exclaimed, so heatedly that Tara must have looked startled by the forcefulness of her reply, because Charley laughed and said, ‘Sorry, that was a bit full on! But it’s just that I really love running the Prosecco night and hosting it in my flat. It’s the highlight of my year, you know it is! I’m already looking forward to it.’

‘Fine,’ shrugged Tara, ‘if that’s what you want.’

‘It is, and I’m sure I’ll be able to cope with it. As a matter of fact, I’m going for a personal best!’ Charley assured her. Tara conceded. She genuinely hadn’t wanted to take over organising the evening. It was Charley’s baby and she’d run it brilliantly every year, and Tara was only too happy to let her carry on doing it.

The first Annual Kim Henderson Memorial Prosecco Night had been a modest affair, with just their mates and a few of the mums from Monnie’s class pitching up at Charley’s one Thursday evening. They’d charged everyone a fiver for a glass of fizz, and laid on a few posh party snacks. Purely on a whim, Charley had had the inspired idea to buy a few little Prosecco-themed goodies to sell on the night to make a little more money and to make it more of an event. They’d raised enough to buy the hospice a Remembrance Book for the bereaved and Tara had been chuffed to bits.

Afterwards, she and Charley had taken the donation round to Patience House and then they’d driven to the cemetery to put flowers on Kim’s grave, in celebration of her birthday. It had been a dull, grey day with a thin November mist hanging in the air. Tara had also brought a sparkly purple helium balloon, which was ostensibly from Monnie. It had looked completely out of place, bobbing along between the graves but Tara didn’t care, it was her mum’s birthday and she’d celebrate it how she damn well liked. She’d tied the balloon around Kim’s headstone, where it bobbed about garishly wishing Kim a Happy Birthday in large, lurid orange letters, in