Chapter 3

Monday morning had arrived and Rachel was rushing around getting ready to go to work. Phoebe was feeling a lot happier, and they had both managed to put it behind them. Rachel had had a chat with Chloe on Sunday about defying her Mum and now that was all sorted. However, Chloe was on a warning.

Rachel needed to give Chloe her dinner money. She knocked on the door but didn't wait for a reply before she entered because she was rushing. Chloe was just about to put on her blouse, so felt embarrassed when Rachel saw her in just her bra. Chloe had become very private lately with hiding her body and not letting anyone see it. Chloe quickly put on her school blouse, but it didn't stop Rachel noticing how skinny she was. Chloe had always been a slender girl, but Rachel felt concerned at the size of her daughter's body.

"Sorry Chlo, I didn't realise you were getting dressed. I was just bringing you your dinner money."

"What's the point in knocking if you're just going to come straight in anyway?" Chloe scouled

Rachel couldn't help but notice that this wasn't like Chloe at all. She never used to care if her Mum saw her in her bra and pants. In fact since the death of Rachel's husband all four of them had been quite happy to just walk around in their underwear, after coming out of the bathroom or if they needed something out of the airing cupboard. Rachel decided not to say anything about this at the moment but knew that she needed to keep an eye on her daughter.

Once they were all ready and had breakfast they got into the car. First Rachel dropped Lily off at her primary school and then drove to Waterloo Road. Chloe quickly ran off to find Em, her best friend, whilst Phoebe stayed behind and walked in with her Mum.

...

At lunch time Rachel went into the school cantine to see Phoebe because she felt as though she was a bit nervous when they were walking into school together. But when she got there, there was no sign of her. However, she did see Chloe sat at a table with Em and some of her other friends. Rachel saw that Chloe was the only one not eating but didn't want to make anything of it in front of her friends. Instead, she just returned to her office.

When she got back to her office Eddie was in there. Rachel suddenly got butterflies in her stomach. Lately she got them whenever she was with Eddie.

"Hi Rach. Did you have a good weekend?" Eddie asked

"Yes it was good thank you. Did you?" Rachel replied politely, despite the fact that Rachel wouldn't have considered this weekend to have been a good one.

"Not too bad. I had Michael for the night on Saturday which was nice. Nice to have some company"

"Why don't you come over for dinner tonight and we can go over those budgets at the same time?" Rachel couldn't believe she had just invited him over for dinner. What was she thinking. Although she had dreamed about having dinner with Eddie many times, she was worried that Eddie might not feel the same way. Not to mention, how her children were going to feel. But then she told herself to calm down because he was coming over for dinner as her deputy, not as a date.

...

The end of the school day arrived and Rachel's two eldest daughters came up to her office.

"Hi girls, have you had a good day?" Rachel asked whilst looking up from the mountain of paper work on her desk.

"Yes thanks" Phoebe replied, but Chloe didn't say anything.

Rachel was glad to see that her eldest daughter wasn't feeling nervous, like she was this morning. Maybe she was worried about what people were going to be saying about her today. However, Rachel thought that Chloe was looking a bit upset. Rachel had already been to pick up Lily, as usual, who was sat in Rachel's office doing some colouring. Phoebe and Chloe started to get some homework out of their bag because this was usually how things worked. They would sit in their Mum's office until she was ready to go home.

"Don't get any work out, you can do it at home. We're not stopping today" Rachel exclaimed.

On the journey home from school Rachel told the girls that Eddie was coming over for dinner tonight. She thought that it was acceptable for the girls to call him Eddie when they were outside of school. To Rachel's surprise, none of the girls seemed to think anything of it. She was worried that they were going to be upset that their mother had invited a man around for dinner. Maybe Rachel was just thinking too far into things.

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