Chapter Two Hundred and Sixty Eight

It was late afternoon on Friday, the day that Charlie, Joey and Ruby were moving house. The previous evening, they had had a special goodbye meal with Leah and VJ and stayed up well into the night, laughing and talking and admitting how much they would miss living together. This morning, Charlie and Joey had headed over to the letting agent in order to collect the keys. Then they'd parted to go to work and now, Charlie was counting the minutes until the end of her shift so that she could collect Joey and Ruby and start moving properly into their new home.

"Can I come in?" said a voice.

Charlie frowned as Angelo poked his head around the door.

"What do you want?" she asked, having neither forgiven him nor got her head around his strange stalking tendencies.

He shuffled into her office with his hands in his pockets, looking anxious.

"I'm so sorry for what happened the other week," he said.

"For mistaking Joey for a guy, accusing me of having an affair or stalking me?" Charlie snapped. "Or whatever else you might have got up to over the last few weeks that I don't know about?"

"For all of it," Angelo said.

He sank into a chair and rested his hands, clasped together on the desk.

"I was out of my head," he said. "I got obsessed with one thing. I don't even know why. But I know that I overstepped a line that I should never have even thought about crossing. And I am so, so sorry. Please forgive me, Charlie."

The Sergeant sighed, chewing her lip and wondering what to do. Elijah had preached a sermon only a couple of weeks ago about it being a person's duty to forgive if someone was truly sorry for their behaviour. Since starting to go to church with Joey on a Sunday, Charlie was finding that she was taking things to heart and developing a genuine interest in spirituality.

"Why did you do it?" she asked more kindly.

Angelo sighed and ran through his too short hair. Charlie had always thought he looked better when it was longer, not that she spent all that much time looking at him.

"I don't know," he said. "I guess... I guess I still have feelings for you."

"Then why would you try to hurt me?" Charlie wondered.

"I wasn't trying to hurt you," Angelo insisted weakly.

"You tried to break Joey and I up," Charlie said. "How is that not hurting me?"

"I think I had this stupid romantic ideal that if you and Joey were apart, you might learn to love me."

"I won't," Charlie said.

He looked wounded.

"I care about you as a friend," Charlie told him. "We were great mates before everything happened last year."

"We were more than friends then," Angelo pointed out.

"Yeah," Charlie agreed. "We were. But a lot of things have changed since then, Angelo. You went to jail for killing a colleague. And even though I know it was an accident, I wasn't about to wait for you. I didn't wait for you. I met Joey and I fell in love with her. And although the relationship wasn't something I was ever looking for, although it scared me for a while there, I'm happier now than I've ever been. And if you truly are my friend, you'll accept that. You'll be happy for me. And you'll stop trying to interfere in my life. I need you to accept where you stand in my life."

"I know," Angelo said. "It's just frustrating. Even if I could never be your boyfriend, I do want to be your friend but I know we'll never be that close. Because of Joey."

"Maybe if you behaved better towards the both of us, Joey would be willing to spend time with you socially," Charlie suggested. "I mean, we had a lovely evening together the night my Dad was taken ill, didn't we? Maybe if you tried, if you attempted to build bridges, we could have that again."

Angelo nodded and thanked her, standing up. At the door, he apologised again and then continued with his day. Charlie watched him go, jolting back to reality when her phone rang. She answered warmly, reading Joey's name on the screen.

"I'm all locked up and ready to move house!" Joey squeaked excitedly.

Charlie laughed.

"I'll be right there," she promised.


Charlie and Joey, with the help of Aden and Miles were loading boxes into three cars, hoping to get everything done in one go. Ruby arrived at the house from school, looking chirpy. She had also brought Xavier with her in order to help with the move.

"You will never guess what happened today!" she said jubilantly as Charlie struggled with two suitcases of clothes.

"You realised that we're busy and you're going to actually help us pack up?" her mother asked.

Ruby frowned and then followed Charlie out to the car.

"Romeo wore a dress to school," she announced.

Charlie yelped as she dropped one of the suitcases on her foot.

"He did what?" she asked, standing on one leg and rubbing her toe unhappily.

"He wore a dress to school," Ruby explained. "You know, like you suggested."

"Wait, that was you?" Miles asked, appearing behind her and putting each suitcase in turn into the car.

"I didn't say that..." Charlie faltered.

"You told him to normalise it!" Ruby reminded her. "What else did you expect him to do?"

"Not wear a dress to school," Miles said, heading back into the house.

Charlie shook her head.

"Did it work?" she asked.

Ruby grinned.

"Romeo is our very own Juliet," she said.


Arriving at their new beach front apartment, Joey bounded ahead with the keys and a few bags in order to open up so that they could all load things into the building. Carrying a box and limping a little with her now poorly toe, Charlie followed her. They grinned as they stood in the wide, open space that they would now call home. The front door opened out onto the lounge, which linked into an open plan kitchen. The rooms were separated by a breakfast bar. Towards the back of the large apartment were three bedrooms and a bathroom.

"Home sweet home," Charlie commented, pulling Joey into her arms.

"Yep," Joey agreed, leaning in for a kiss.

Miles appeared behind them.

"Less making out and more moving in please, people!" he remarked.

Giggling, Charlie and Joey followed him back out of the apartment.


It was fairly late by the time the last box had been deposited in the correct room.

"You realise none of us actually have anywhere to sleep?" Joey remarked.

"We have sleeping bags," Charlie said. "And a furniture delivery in the morning."

"Ooh, camping!" Joey smirked.

She shared a curious glance with Aden.

"What was that?" Charlie wondered.

"What was what?" Joey asked, feigning innocence.

"You two shared a knowing look," Charlie said.

"Did we?" Joey replied, her voice rather too high pitched.

"I'm sure we didn't," Aden agreed.

Charlie eyed them both with some suspicion before proposing that they all have dinner together. She picked her way through to the kitchen and rummaged in some boxes.

"And I think we'll have to go to the Diner," she said. "For a lot of packing, we didn't actually have all that much stuff. No plates, no cutlery..."

She shook her head.

"Shopping tomorrow then?" Joey said.

"Yep," Charlie said, moving back into the lounge and taking her girlfriend's hand. "And Diner today."

Together, Charlie, Joey, Ruby, Aden and Miles all headed out of the flat.


Next time... Charlie and Joey celebrate their one year anniversary...