Surprise! I have so many chapters of this story written and ready to go, I thought I'd start posting it every day but you'll still get the other updates as well, as long as that isn't an overload for anyone. I hope you enjoy the chapter. Love, IJKS xxx
Chapter Three Hundred and Sixty One
"Okay, sweetheart," Joey said, opening the car door and leaning back to kiss her girlfriend goodbye. "I'll see you for lunch. Good luck with Wilson."
Constable Wilson would today be giving his decision regarding the investigation into the police station. Upon Angelo's confession and his choice to take all the blame for Hugo and Martha's escape, everyone was hoping that they would be left alone, with only him having to deal with the consequences.
"One o'clock on the dot," Charlie promised, kissing Joey one more time.
As usual, she watched her skip off down to the bait shop with their laptop in a bag over her shoulder. Now that the loan was at least on its way into Charlie's bank account, Joey had been eagerly scouring every paper and website she could find in a bid to acquire the perfect venue. Knowing that she was beginning to get frustrated, Charlie couldn't help but admire the gusto with which she seemed to pursue every day's challenges. She watched until Joey was safely unlocking the store she would soon be resigning from and then headed off to her own workplace, hoping that they would both have successful days.
"Ready?" Dex asked as he and Indi arrived at Summer Bay High for their first day back at school.
"As I'll ever be," his sister replied rather grimly. "You?"
"Let the joy begin," Dex said, taking a deep breath.
Bracing themselves, they walked through the gates together.
"You and Romeo are both nightmares," Joey declared. "Do you know that?"
Nicole smiled a little sheepishly. In her uniform, she had opted not to go to school. She knew that Dex and, more specifically, Indi Walker were starting back there today and she did not want to face them. The last time they had been in town, things hadn't exactly gone well. Nicole had developed an insane crush on their father, Doctor Sid Walker and systematically destroyed her friendship with his daughter.
"I couldn't possibly know what you mean," the blonde replied as innocently as possible.
"Do you guys ever go to school?"
"Sometimes!" Nicole chuckled. "Just not… today. You can't tell me that you never cut class when you were there."
"We weren't talking about me," Joey swerved.
Her teenage years hadn't exactly been the best years of her life. The less she had to think about them, the better. She was just glad that she was having the best years of her life now. Sometimes she couldn't actually believe that things had ended up turning out so well.
"What's up?" she asked. "Wait, let me guess. Could it be the Walker family?"
Nicole pulled a face.
"Indi and Dex are starting back today," she explained. "I couldn't face them."
"You do realise that you're going to have to at some point?" Joey said gently but purposefully.
"I know," Nicole sighed, sinking into a chair. "I just need some time."
Miles had only been in the Diner for a few minutes when he lost his temper. Colleen had been bitching to everyone that had no choice but to listen about Marilyn's new business venture.
"Would you just put a sock in it?" he demanded.
Colleen looked stricken. Leah tried not to smile and busied herself in the kitchen.
"I'm entitled to an opinion," the older woman said stiffly.
"And don't we all know it?" Miles snapped. "She's not hurting anyone, Colleen. You'd think that a dying woman would be given some peace in the last few months of her life!"
He froze the moment the words left his lips but he already knew it was too late.
Joey jumped when she felt warm arms wrap themselves around her waist but she smiled and relaxed when she realised it was Charlie.
"Sorry," the police officer whispered. "I didn't mean to scare you."
Joey leant back against her and held her hands.
"I was engrossed," she said, nodding towards the laptop.
She felt a little guilty to be spending so much time scanning for potential properties when she was working but she always made sure she got her day's tasks done first and always offered every customer her undivided attention. She doubted that Alf would mind. He had been very supportive of the restaurant idea from the start.
"Any luck?" Charlie asked, resting her chin on Joey's shoulder and peering at the computer screen.
"Nope," Joey sighed. "I'm starting to think maybe this whole venture is doomed."
Charlie hugged her a little closer.
"Don't say that," she said gently. "For starters, we never would have got the loan if it wasn't a good idea."
"We didn't," Joey reminded her. "You did."
"We did," Charlie insisted. "Please don't lose heart now."
Joey nodded and managed a smile. She turned around to face her girlfriend, kissing her gently on the mouth.
"Now," she said. "Did you hear anything about the investigation?"
Nicole had left Joey in order to go to the hospital and clear the air with Sid. Her next stop was school and, having spotted Indi and Dex chatting to Ruby on the school field, she braced herself to approach.
"Hi," she managed, her voice shrill and her body language awkward.
Indi surveyed her uncertainly.
"I wasn't sure if we'd be speaking to each other again," she admitted.
"Look, I am so sorry for everything that happened between us when you were last in the Bay," Nicole said earnestly. "I was in such a bad place and I didn't know what I was doing. It was one of the worst times in my life and my pain damaged you. I'm sorry."
Indi nodded thoughtfully but extended her hand.
"Friends again?" Nicole asked hopefully.
"Tentatively," Indi agreed as they shook hands.
"Great!" Dex said exuberantly. "Don't you just feel like we're living in paradise?"
Indi rolled her eyes in disdain. Ruby and Nicole both chuckled.
"We were thinking of having a get together tonight," Ruby put in. "Charlie sent me a text to say that she and Joey are out for the evening so I thought I'd invite some people over to the apartment to welcome Indi and Dex back. What do you think?"
"Could I bring Penn?" Nicole asked hopefully.
She had been waiting for a chance to show her new boyfriend, if she was allowed to call him that, off to everyone.
"Sure," Ruby said. "I thought I'd invite Romeo and… maybe Xavier and April. If I can stomach it."
She still wasn't thrilled by her ex-boyfriend being in a new relationship so quickly.
"It might be nice if you made the effort," Nicole encouraged.
"Hey, um… is Annie still living here?" Dex asked, uncharacteristically shy.
"She moved to Japan," Ruby told him.
"Hey, if she doesn't want to meet up then that's fine," Dex said. "You don't need to make up a story…"
"No, really," Ruby said. "She moved to Japan last year. She came back here briefly a few months back but she's pretty much settled over there now."
Dex nodded, silently grumbling that the only girl who had ever really shown an interest in him was gone.
Charlie reluctantly left Joey at the bait shop, promising to collect her after work so they could go out to dinner. She had happily informed her girlfriend that all accusations against the station had been dropped and it was only Angelo in the firing line. They both still felt sorry for him but everyone was more than a little relieved that the repercussions would not be too wide spread. The rest of their picnic on the beach had been spent trying to encourage Joey about the restaurant. Their dinner that night was intended to celebrate Charlie's news and make steps towards the future for Joey.
Still with his head full of his confrontation with Colleen, Miles trudged along the seafront and literally bumped into Sid, on his lunch break from the hospital. He began to apologise but stopped.
"What do you think you're doing back in the Bay?" he demanded.
"Working," Sid replied. "Trying to get my family back on track."
"Well I'm telling you now that if you so much as look at Nicole, I'll have you," Miles warned.
"Marilyn, are you okay?" Joey asked worriedly as she arrived back at work, only to see Colleen leaving the building.
The perfectly turned out blonde was sitting at her tarot table looking rather shaken. Joey hurried to sit opposite her and held her hands.
"Did Colleen have another go at you?" she asked.
"No," Marilyn said quietly. "She was really nice."
Joey looked confused.
"Now that she knows I'm dying, she has no problem with me at all," Marilyn explained.
Joey's confusion grew, aware that if you wanted to keep something a secret, the very last person to confide in was Colleen Smart.
"Miles told her," Marilyn revealed. "I can't believe he'd betray my trust like that."
That evening, Charlie drove Joey out of town to one of their favourite restaurants. Joey was hopeful that if she ever got her own restaurant off the ground then it would be as good and as successful. Charlie had every confidence that it would be.
"Not if I can't find a venue," Joey said, as they sat down to a candlelit table.
Charlie reached out and held her hand.
"Everything will get sorted in its own sweet time," she assured her. "It's going to be perfect."
"I just want it to happen now," Joey admitted impatiently, making Charlie chuckle.
"Patience is a virtue," she said.
"A virtue I clearly don't have!" Joey laughed.
Music played in the background as Ruby sat around her living room with Nicole, Penn, Xavier, April, Dex, Indi and Romeo. It felt a little bit strange to be chatting relatively merrily away with her ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend but she knew she had to make the effort. She could have kept Xavier as a loyal boyfriend if she had tried, even after everything that had happened with Hugo. But it was her own heart that had strayed and as much as she had tried to forget about it, she was still fixated on Liam. And although she knew the chances of him ever having the same kind of feelings for her, she couldn't help but hope.
"So, you live here with your mother and her lesbian lover?" Dex asked, snapping Ruby's attention away from her own thoughts.
"Generally I just refer to her as Joey," she replied, prompting Romeo and Nicole to laugh and Penn to roll his eyes.
It was against his better judgement to attend the 'party' but he knew that at least for now, he had to keep Nicole onside and pretending to want to get to know her friends seemed like the right way to do that.
"Is it strange for you?" April asked. "Or have you always known Charlie was gay?"
"Technically, I think she's bi but no, I didn't know," Ruby explained. "Hell, she didn't know but I guess love can sweep you off your feet that way sometimes."
She tried not to visibly cringe as Xavier and April exchanged soppy looks. She then smirked when she caught Indi looking rather longingly at Romeo, who appeared to remain oblivious.
Having finished dinner, Charlie and Joey had stopped off at the Surf Club, only to find Angelo drowning his sorrows at the bar. They considered ignoring him and walking right back out but their consciences tugged at them and they approached.
"Bad day?" Charlie asked, appearing on one side of him, with Joey taking the other.
"Bad life," he replied glumly.
Charlie and Joey both sighed. This was going to be a long night.
"It'll get better," Charlie tried.
"How will it?" he asked, genuinely longing for an answer. "Do you have any idea what I went through in prison the first time, Charlie? If I have to go back there, I'll die. I know I will."
Awkwardly making sure she didn't get too close, she patted him on the shoulder.
"Let's not think about that now, okay?" she said. "You might not go to prison. They might understand…"
"Understand why I let a man I'd been hunting for a year escape the country with his girlfriend?" Angelo interjected bitterly.
"What you did was really stupid but there were circumstances," Joey ventured.
"Oh yeah, I killed the girlfriend's husband," Angelo snapped.
Joey stepped back and held her hands up in defeat.
"I'm really not going to spend another night massaging your ego," she decided. "You fucked up. You have consequences to accept. Against my better judgement after everything you've tried to do to me and Charlie over the last year, I feel sorry for you. But you can't just sit around complaining about it. You have to face reality and deal with it as best you can. That's all any of us can do."
"What the hell do you know?" Angelo slurred drunkenly. "Like anything bad has happened to you!"
Charlie immediately clenched her jaw in irritation.
"Enough bad stuff has happened to me," Joey replied evenly. "And unlike you, none of them were actually my own fault. Now, for your own sake, stop drinking, go home and make yourself presentable for whenever they call you in to hear your fate. And take it like a grown up."
The gathering was winding down by the time Charlie and Joey arrived home. Penn had convinced Nicole to leave early and Xavier and April had departed after people complained about them smooching too much. Indi was still hanging on Romeo's every word and swooning.
"Hey, guys," Charlie greeted, walking through the door with her arm linked with Joey's. "Did you have fun?"
Dex's eyes widened a little and he couldn't help but wonder why he hadn't paid attention to the lesbians the first time he had lived in the Bay. Because you were so fixated on Annie, he reminded himself. And as it turned out, he wasn't the only one who had been. Tonight, he had discovered that Romeo had also had a whirlwind romance with her. And he had also readily agreed that Charlie and Joey were hot, although he had advised him not to make too much of it. Apparently, they were also amazing people who would go out of their way to help anyone and demanded that they be treated with full respect and admiration at all times. Clearly he was very protective.
"Yeah, it was nice," Ruby said. "Thanks for shouting us some pizza money."
"No problem," Joey said, interrupting herself with a yawn. "Apologies for being rude but I have to go to bed immediately."
"Me too," Charlie said, following her to the bedroom. "Goodnight! Lock up when everyone's gone, okay?"
"Will do!" Ruby called back.
Dex continued to stare after them in teenage boy wonder.
Next time… Marilyn is concerned after Penn's tarot reading, Charlie organises a night out with her friends and John is caught between Gina and Jill…
