Chapter Three

Joey felt anxious when she and Charlie arrived home. For the latter part of the meal and their journey back, Charlie had been quiet and that usually meant that something was bothering her. She followed her into the living room and watched her tumble down onto the couch.

"It was a nice evening, wasn't it?" Joey tried, hovering nearby.

"Amazing," Charlie said sarcastically. "I didn't feel like a third wheel at all."

They both closed their eyes and sighed. Joey felt utterly confused. She was certain she hadn't ignored Charlie, not once. It wasn't even possible. Whenever they were together, all Joey could think about was her. Come to think of it, even when they were apart, Charlie was always on her mind. It was bordering on embarrassing after four years. She told her so and Charlie looked up at her with a slightly warmer expression.

"Sorry," she said finally.

She knew that Joey hadn't done anything wrong and she immediately felt guilty for taking her bad mood over Lauren's behaviour out on her. If anyone was an innocent party in this, it was Joey. She probably had no idea that Lauren had designs on her and Charlie was positive that if she had done anything to encourage it, it would have only been by being her usual, friendly self. Joey came to sit beside her, still feeling a little wounded.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"I just… I don't…"

"You don't like Lauren," Joey concluded.

Charlie sighed.

"Do we have to go out with her again?"

"Well, I guess we don't. But I still have to see her."

"Why?" Charlie asked, alarmed.

"Um, because I have to work with her," Joey pointed out. "And because it's a nice gesture if I continue to offer to be her friend."

Charlie threw her head back against the cushions dramatically.

"She doesn't want to be your friend, Joey!" she cried exasperated.

Joey just stared at her, looking helplessly puzzled.

"She wants you," Charlie explained. "She wants you like I want you. Like I have you. Like you're mine and nobody else is allowed to touch you."

Charlie felt possessive and Joey felt confused. Lauren was flirty. She hadn't missed it but that didn't mean anything. Sometimes people were just flirty.

"Charlie, you're being ridiculous," she said, attempting to dismiss the accusation.

"No, I'm not. She spent so much time looking down your shirt tonight that she might as well have climbed inside it!"

"Now you're exaggerating."

"Not to mention the fact that she told me!"

"She told you what, exactly?"

"She apologised for stealing you."

Now it was Joey's turn to feel exasperated.

"Charlie, sweetheart, light of my life, she was talking about stealing my time. She knows all the overtime is pissing you off so she apologised for it," Joey explained, reaching out to hold Charlie's hand.

"She was not apologising for stealing your time," Charlie replied firmly.

"Well, what did she say exactly?"

Charlie cursed herself for not storing everything word for word because she was suddenly drawing a blank. But she knew that Lauren had an ulterior motive. She knew it.

"It was just… Just trust me, okay?"

"She's just come out of a long-term relationship," Joey said. "She's not into anyone right now – least of all me."

Joey was struggling with the concept of anyone liking her. Still, sometimes, she had to pinch herself and remember that it was really true that Charlie loved her. It seemed unrealistic to have someone she deemed the most beautiful creation in the whole universe as a partner all of her very own.

"Joey, sometimes you're too innocent for your own good," Charlie told her.

"And sometimes you're not innocent enough," Joey said.

Charlie smiled in defeat. Obviously Joey was choosing not to believe the truth. It was exactly like her to prefer to remain oblivious to something like this. She sighed and lifted Joey's hand to her lips.

"Let's not argue about it," she said.

Joey smiled, grateful that it wasn't going to turn into a drama. She didn't have long to sleep before yet another early start and she wasn't ready to part from Charlie's company in favour of a world of dreams just yet.

Work felt strangely awkward the following morning and Joey was trying to avoid her boss. She was certain that Charlie was being paranoid and inventing problems but then, what if she wasn't? She had no reason to doubt Charlie. She was a perceptive woman who was trained to spot behaviours for a living. What if Lauren had behaved inappropriately somehow, even by accident and Joey had disbelieved her for nothing? She sighed and focussed on the task in hand, trying to shake all negative or confusing thoughts out of her head. She didn't understand why people couldn't just be upfront about everything like she was. She much preferred to keep things simple. She always had. When she'd fallen in love with Charlie all those years before, she'd been immediately honest about her feelings. As soon as she'd known she loved her, she'd told her. But Charlie had run and hid from her emotions for a long time. She'd played games out of fright and worry about who she was and what loving another woman would mean for her life. And now, if Lauren did like her, she felt very strongly that her boss should just leave it alone. Joey was in a relationship, a loving committed relationship, from which she would never stray and that was that. No amount of manipulation or making Charlie jealous would ever work to get her to change that.

"Hey, are you okay?" said a voice.

Joey nearly jumped out of her skin and promptly dropped the rope she was holding. She turned to face Lauren and forced a smile.

"Yeah," she said. "Just concentrating."

Lauren smiled back broadly.

"Thanks for last night," she said. "I had a great time. It was nice to feel normal again after everything."

Joey nodded.

"Maybe the three of us could do something at the weekend?" Lauren suggested, sounding nervous.

"Oh, yeah, great," Joey replied vaguely. "It might just be me though. I think Charlie's working unsociable hours this weekend."

She picked the rope back up.

"She doesn't like me, does she?" Lauren asked.

"Of course she does," Joey replied, sounding rather too high pitched.

She coloured and silently cursed her own inability to lie.

"I think I might have made some comment that she took the wrong way," Lauren ventured.

"Really?" Joey asked, hoping it was what she thought it was.

If they could clear this up now then everything would be okay.

"I apologised for stealing you. But I meant your time. I didn't mean... anything else."

Joey nodded enthusiastically, feeling relieved.

"She wasn't sure how to take it," she said.

"I mean, you're lovely and all but I'm so not ready for... anything. And I know how much you love Charlie."

Joey smiled.

"I do," she agreed.

"So, this weekend?"

"Sounds like a plan to me."

Charlie was pleased when she her phone rang and Joey's name flashed up on the screen. She was working but she happily took the call anyway, sneaking into her office for some privacy.

"Hey, how are you?" she asked.

"I'm pretty good. Tired. You?"

"Same!"

"Hey, I spoke to Lauren," Joey ventured.

Charlie's heart sank. She didn't want to talk about her.

"And she was really apologetic. She said she that she'd said something that you'd probably taken wrong and she's really, really sorry and can we all go out this weekend?"

Charlie shrieked a few internal words about Lauren being a manipulative cow but made sure they remained in her head. Out loud, she accepted the apology and reluctantly agreed to some weekend activity, although she had been desperately hoping for some alone-time with Joey.

"Great! I'll tell her. I'm going to be working a bit but we can still do stuff in the evening."

"Wait, you're going to be working at the weekend?" Charlie asked.

"Just a little," Joey replied.

"I think I'm going to need to carry your picture round with me in case I forget who you are," Charlie said sarcastically.

"Think of the holiday," Joey told her.

Inside, Charlie wanted to scream that she didn't care about the stupid holiday and that the stupid holiday was wrecking their relationship and pushing Joey into the arms of another woman. But she determined to be supportive. If Joey had got it into her head that she was going to pay for a trip, then Charlie wasn't going to ruin it. It obviously meant too much to her.

The weekend arrived and Charlie couldn't help but still feel a little sore at the lack of Joey's presence in her life. The moments that she was around were as wonderful as they had always been but they felt too infrequent and Charlie was desperately trying not to get irate about it. Joey had worked constantly for nine days and counting and the idea of her working so closely with Lauren was driving Charlie crazy. The thought of her eyes poring all over her girlfriend or her hands finding a way to touch her somehow, with innocent Joey being so oblivious, was torture. And it was driving her to distraction.

"You ready?" Joey called from the living room.

Charlie appeared in the doorway wearing a black dress cut off at the middle of her thigh. She smiled to herself as she watched Joey's breath catch in her throat.

"Wow. I swear you get more beautiful every day," Joey said, stepped forward to slip her arms around Charlie's waist.

She kissed her gently on the lips. Charlie stepped back to take in Joey who was wearing a new trouser suit that Charlie had made her buy, insisting that casual really didn't suit every occasion. Joey took the moment to do a twirl.

"Will I do?" she asked.

"You look amazing," Charlie smiled.

"Shall we?"

The two of them headed out to the car. They were meeting Lauren at the theatre, having booked tickets to see Fame for the evening. Charlie was disappointed that it wasn't just the two of them but providing Lauren kept her eyes, hands and comments to herself, she hoped that everything would be okay.

"That was amazing!" Joey enthused, skipping ahead and performing some kind of unfathomable dance routine reticent of what they had just seen on stage. Charlie chuckled and then frowned when she spotted the same kind of amused affection on Lauren's face. It was not her place to find Joey cute.

"Do you guys want to go for a drink or something?" Lauren asked.

Joey wandered back to them and linked her arm with Charlie's. The evening had gone well so far. There didn't seem to have been any tension between Charlie and Lauren, which could only be a good thing. Joey had tried to be more self-aware throughout the evening, like she had all week about any kind of signals Lauren might be sending her and yet again, she could detect nothing so she was comforted by the fact that it was all some strange misunderstanding.

"Sounds good to me. Charlie?"

Charlie nodded. As much as she wanted to just take Joey home, she told herself sternly not to be selfish and to keep the evening going a little longer.

Settled at the table in a nearby pub, Charlie was pleased to note that Joey immediately settled into her side of the booth without even considering sitting beside Lauren and was now tucked under her arm.

"So, how did you two get together then?" Lauren asked.

Joey looked up at Charlie and grinned.

"Well, we met," she said. "We fell in love. I spent a lot of time pursuing her while she freaked out and didn't want to accept that she wanted to be with me and finally, I wore her down and we've been together ever since!"
Charlie laughed.

"Okay, it didn't happen quite like that!" she protested.

"You really needed time to decide to be with Joey?" Lauren asked, surprised. "What was there to decide? She's lovely."

"Aw, thank you," Joey grinned, sipping her drink.

Charlie tried not to derive any extra meaning from the comment.

"I identified as straight before I met Joey," she said. "Hence, confusion."

"I bet you could turn most people," Lauren said to Joey, who blushed.

"Hardly! Anyway, nobody exists in my head except for Charlie."

She leant up and planted a small kiss on Charlie's lips. Lauren made a retching noise but smiled to show she was joking.

"And you guys have been together how long?"

"Four years," Charlie said, hugging Joey a little closer.

"Wow. And no lesbian bed death yet?"

Charlie looked confused and Joey laughed.

"Personal, much? No!"

At Charlie's bewildered expression, Joey whispered and explanation of the phrase meaning that apparently lesbians got to a stage where all they did in bed was have conversation. Charlie blushed and shook her head, sipping her drink and wishing that it was stronger than lemonade.

"Do you really think I could allow that to happen when I have a girlfriend as hot as Charlie?" Joey asked.

"Maybe we should talk about something other than our sex life?" Charlie suggested.