When Good Friends Go Bad Read Online Free PDF

group of young men were finding their friend's defection equally hilarious. It appeared to Jen's jaundiced eye as if money was passing hands.
    'Nope,' she told the youthful stranger. 'Not interested. If it's all the same to you I'll stick to burning my own clutches.'
    'Nonsense,' Helen contradicted, sniggering. 'She's a born racer. A regular Damon Hill, aren't you, Jen?' She nudged her friend again, staring blatantly down at the young man's faded denim jeans, or rather, the bulge by his zipper, and added archly, 'She'd love to see your hot rod.'
    'And who are you? Her manager or her mother?' Ollie asked cheekily, earning Helen's undying enmity with one foul slur. Half a pint later, he'd revealed that he was an engineering student, working part-time in construction (which explained the rippling biceps and gym-worthy abs).
    'A builder,' Helen sneered, clearly smarting from their opening clash. 'So you're one of those vulgar louts that like to harass innocent pedestrians. And tell me, in your experience, has that immortal line "get yer tits out, love" ever, in the whole history of male–female relationships, worked on any woman, anywhere, under any conceivable circumstances?'
    Ollie winked at Jen. 'I wouldn't worry,' he said in his best builder's drawl, beer slurping down his chin, which for Helen's sake Jen really shouldn't have found funny. 'We only yell it at the old 'uns to cheer 'em up. I wouldn't take it seriously unless you're walking with a doll like Jen here.'
    Pissing off Helen was bad enough, but worse was to come. Not only was this kid at uni but he freely admitted to being a mere twenty years old. A child compared to Jen's mature twenty-eight.
    But he was determined. Ignoring Helen's open hostility and Jen's threat to charge him babysitting fees, he wouldn't leave until he had a reluctant 'I'll think about it' for an answer.
    An amateur stock-car racer, Ollie had entered his girlfriend, Lisa, in a ladies' race – entry fee non-refundable – but since then they'd broken up. Witnessing Mickey Finn do a ninety-degree turn and judder to a halt between two parked cars, he'd had the brilliant idea that Jen should take her place – as a driver, not his girlfriend. And the racetrack, the souped-up Fiat, the chance of accidentally bashing another car and not being arrested, all sounded temptingly dangerous to a confirmed tomboy, especially since her current incarnation as secretary for a shipping agency was sadly lacking in thrills.
    Which was why, regardless of all Helen's jibes, she'd found herself burning rubber in the big parade ground of the local military barracks, skidding round corners, under Ollie's tuition, until her head spun.
    Who knew how Ollie got permission to practise there, with all the security surrounding the Ulster peace talks. But in those three practice sessions – woefully inadequate, she now realised – she'd learned that few people refused Ollie anything.
    It only took a couple of debriefing drinks (not as racy as it sounded – despite Helen's slurs, Jen's briefs stayed up) for Jen to recognise that Ollie was another thing that was temptingly dangerous.
    To say she didn't go out with many guys was an understatement, like saying Don Juan was a bit of a lad. Logically she knew that not all men were bastards; Helen had been telling her so ever since they met after the nightmare events surrounding Starkey's abandonment when she'd felt like all the light had gone out of the world, her trust in the male sex irreparably damaged. She'd little interest in giving her phone number to strangers or having some revolting creep maul her in 'payment' for an overpriced dinner, setting them both up for an embarrassing rejection when he expected to come up to her flat afterwards.
    In several years only three men had lasted long enough to make it to her bedroom and even then she'd had to force herself to go through the motions, pretending to enjoy the lovemaking while they might as well have dosed her with