Chapter Four

Joey woke reluctantly and was instantly aware that her body was aching. Her shoulder protested as she moved her arm to hit the alarm clock a shade too aggressively. She noted it falling to the floor and was grateful that it had at least stopped beeping on its way. Sighing, she carefully attempted to slip out from under the duvet and from the tangle that hers and Charlie's legs had wound up in. Before she managed to lift her head from the pillow, however, she felt Charlie's arm pin her down.

"Don't even think about it," Charlie growled, without opening her eyes.

Her voice was thick with sleep but a smile played on her lips. Joey grinned and settled back against the pillow again.

"I do have to go to work," Joey pointed out gently, although she had no real desire to climb out from beneath the warm blankets, especially as she hadn't even managed to put on her pyjamas the night before.

Perplexed by the concept of Lesbian Bed Death, Charlie had insisted that they ensure right then and there that it never happened to them.

"It's Sunday," Charlie pointed out, still refusing to open her eyes but keeping her grip on Joey just as strong.

"Overtime," Joey said.

Finally Charlie blinked. She raised herself slightly and looked Joey directly in the face. Joey couldn't quite resist the temptation to peer at the gap between Charlie's body and the mattress to figure out if she could see anything that might wake her up a bit. Charlie noticed and smiled, amused that even though they had been officially together for years, Joey could still behave like she had a school girl crush.

"You are not going to work," Charlie said firmly, refusing to move her arm to let Joey free.

"Fine," Joey agreed, snuggling back down and reaching round to pull Charlie closer towards her.

Charlie relaxed in her embrace and shut her eyes again.

"Besides," she added. "There is no way you're leaving me to have breakfast with the girls by myself after what we did on the kitchen table last night."

Joey giggled and kissed the top of Charlie's head. Overtime was definitely a lousy idea. Spending the day with the woman she loved was far more attractive.

Later that morning Charlie, Joey and Leah were eating breakfast together. Charlie was trying not to blush at the memories of the night before and Joey's winks and grins were not helping the situation. Suddenly Ruby burst through the door.

"There is underwear on the ground outside next to the house! A thong! This is..." she ranted.

Charlie chewed her lip and flushed crimson.

"Oh, gross! You guys!" Ruby complained.

Leah shook her head. Charlie looked like she wanted the world to swallow her and Joey couldn't stop giggling into her toast.

"Sorry. I was going to go and find it later," Charlie apologised.

"I dread to think what you two get up to that we don't know about. And where!"

Charlie choked on her coffee. Joey laughed harder.

"I don't want to know," Ruby said.

The next day, Joey was up, bright and early to work and had been slaving away for hours. Now she was enjoying lunch at the Diner. She allowed herself to get lost in a daydream and then she jumped when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Looking up, hoping to see Charlie, she instead saw Lauren smiling at her.

"I just wanted to thank you for a great evening on Saturday," Lauren said warmly, sitting down opposite her employee. "You and Charlie both."

"Oh, no problem," Joey said. "It was fun!"

"I hope you don't think I'm pathetic or anything, needing friends. It's just, Maria and I had shared friends so it's hard to spend time with them right now without looking like I'm trying to get them to take sides."

"Oh, no, really, it's nice to hang out. I'm all for making new friends," Joey replied, smiling.

"Well, I really am grateful anyway," Lauren said, reaching out to touch Joey's hand.

Joey looked down at the contact for a moment and pulled away when it felt like Lauren was holding on for slightly too long. She stood up, her meal finished, attempting to signal that the conversation was over.

Charlie stopped smiling when she spotted Joey sitting at a table, quite obviously holding hands with Lauren. She felt her blood turn cold. She'd come for something to eat but having watched the interaction, she wasn't sure she was hungry anymore. She chewed her lip, a little glad that Joey had pulled away but still, she shouldn't have let her touch her in the first place. And their conversation had seemed so intimate. She fought against the voice in her head that was screaming the word 'affair'. There was no way that Joey would do that to her. No way. Was there? She couldn't help but fear that all the time Joey was spending away, wasn't as innocent as she was being led to believe. And even if Joey wasn't doing anything about it, it was almost worse to think that there was an 'it' to do something about. What if Joey had feelings for Lauren? Taking a breath, she headed back out the Diner, her mind an abyss of confusion.

"Hey," Joey called when she spotted Charlie sitting in the kitchen, nursing a coffee.

Charlie didn't even look up. She just continued stirring her cup despondently. Frowning, Joey pulled up a chair to sit beside her.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"Do you care?" Charlie snapped, still not looking at her.

Confused, Joey just stared and noticed tears dripping onto the table. She reached out to touch Charlie's arm but Charlie pulled away.

"Charlie, what's wrong?"

Joey checked the time. She hadn't done any more overtime than planned. She was home right on time. Her question was met with silence and a distinct lack of eye contact. Charlie's face was hidden by her hair and she didn't show any signs of surfacing.

"Charlie?" Joey urged.

Charlie finally snapped her head up and glared at Joey.

"I saw you today," she said.

"Saw me...?"

"With Lauren."

Joey continued to draw a blank. Charlie looked at her incredulously.

"Well, aren't you going to say anything?" Charlie demanded.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to say," Joey admitted. "I don't understand what you're talking about."

"You're having an affair and you don't know what to say?" Charlie yelled, standing up and spilling her coffee.

Joey jumped back and righted the cup.

"An affair? What? Charlie, can we just rewind to yesterday when everything felt so perfect?" Joey asked.

"What, so you can redo today and make sure I don't catch you?" Charlie asked, turning away.

"Catch me at what? I'm not doing anything!" Joey replied desperately.

She watched Charlie's shoulders tremble slightly and her hand flew to her face, presumably to wipe her eyes. Joey immediately rushed over and put her hands on Charlie's shoulders. She attempted to turn her round and forced her to make eye contact.

"How could you think I'd cheat on you?" she asked.

"You were holding her hand," Charlie said.

"She touched my hand," Joey replied, remembering. "That's it. She was emotional because she was talking about not having any friends left because of the break up. That's all, Charlie."

"Really?"

"Of course!"

Joey broke away and began mopping up the coffee. She felt wounded that Charlie could ever have suspected her of a betrayal like that. As if she would ever go behind Charlie's back. As if she would hurt her like that. As if it was even possible for her to so much as look at another woman.

"Joey," Charlie pleaded.

"How could you even accuse me of that, Charlie?" Joey asked, turning back around.

Charlie hated the look of hurt in her girlfriend's eyes and felt a sudden rush of guilt and regret at how badly she had handled things. All she had needed to do was talk to her, or to just forget about it and actually trust her.

"I'm sorry," she said weakly.

Joey fought tears.

"I would never do something like that to you," Joey said. "There isn't even a hint of anything between Lauren and I. How could there be? I've not so much as thought about anyone other than you since the first moment we met. All there is, is you, Charlie. You're all there's ever been. I can't believe you'd accuse me like this. I mean..."

Joey shook her head. Charlie reached out to her but found she was tense in her arms and unwilling to be comforted.

"I'm sorry," Charlie said again. "I jumped to the wrong conclusion. I don't know where my head's at. I just can't get the idea of some busty blonde taking you away, out of my head."

"Well get rid of it, Charlie. I'm not going to stand around and be yelled at for cheating when the idea never even entered my head."

"It's just with all this overtime..."

"I'm doing it for you!" Joey snapped. "If I'd have known that taking you on holiday was going to cause this much suspicion and under-appreciation, quite frankly I wouldn't have bothered."

Joey broke out of Charlie's grip and left the room, yelling behind her that she was going to bed.