When Good Friends Go Bad Read Online Free PDF Page B

novocaine for all her body responded. But when Ollie's hand covered hers on the gear shift, she felt parts of her anatomy fizzing that hadn't fizzed in ages.
    His childish antics – swinging from his feet on playground monkey bars, dangling Jen squealing over Hampstead Pond, pulling her under a gushing gutter in an unexpected downpour – made her feel like a teenager again, like the light-hearted girl who'd capered around Ashport with Starkey, riding the dodgems when the carnival was in town, spending hours playing shove ha'penny on the crappy slot machines on the decrepit pier.
    Better to feel a kid again than a moody cow approaching thirty, a hopeless underachiever who earned peanuts, littered her boyfriend-free bedroom with dirty coffee cups and discarded clothes, and spent her evenings drinking till dawn with her equally dissolute, irresponsible mates.
    Helen, Jen's infinitely more sophisticated friend, flatmate and landlady, was the eternal temp, thriving on an endless source of potential boyfriends and fresh scandal. In their shared two-bedroom, fifth-floor flat (the only good thing, Helen said, to come out of her divorce) it was Helen who led the dizzying social life, enjoying steamy sexcapades while Jen was just left with hangovers. That was the status quo, until Ollie disrupted it. However often Jen argued that he wasn't a date, Helen seemed to take his intrusion as a personal insult, until Jen found herself sneaking out to meet Ollie just to avoid Helen's blistering sarcasm.
    It was almost worse than her dad had been about Starkey, and at least that was justified, given Jen was still fifteen. From the moment she first met Starkey she imagined him to be the most romantic, tortured, passionate lover her soul could crave, a wounded wolf that only she could touch. And sex – was it ever on their minds, underlying the most innocuous exchange. 'Fancy an ice cream?' SEX. 'Wanna see a flick?' SEX. 'There's a smudge of ketchup on your chin.' SEX, SEX, SEX! If it wasn't for Jen wanting to wait till she'd turned sixteen, they'd have been at it like rabbits from day one.
    But sex wasn't part of the deal with Ollie. No messy awkward bedroom encounters to destroy their fun. Nor would this end, like Starkey, in her tears, too many pathetic lonely years of them. No, this – like his car – was destined to be written off the minute the race was over. She would never let him get too close, never risk rocking the equilibrium of her barren life.
    But Christ Almighty, how long would she have to sit here? Couldn't somebody win the bloody race by now? Her knee was throbbing and swelling, her eyes watering, her head ached from the noise and the stink of exhaust fumes.
    She found herself thinking of a recent pub visit, the jukebox playing 'When a Man Loves a Woman', a song Starkey had loved. Ollie had whirled her round in a jokey dance move and she'd been filled with such a weird mixture of jumbled-up emotions – how could she ever have liked anything so corny? – that she'd had to pull free and grab a cigarette from her packet of Silk Cut, puffing away furiously. If her fingers were trembling, it was probably from shame at being seen in public participating in an episode of such horrifying uncool.
    On their last encounter prior to today, they'd eaten greasy cheeseburgers at TGI Friday. At the railings by her street door Ollie had bent to kiss her mouth lightly and she'd felt a familiar jolt in the stomach, an unexpected yearning.
    Ollie smelled so masculine and yummy, better than any powdered baby, better even than freshly cut grass or autumn woodsmoke, that her traitorous nose wanted to stay glued to his shoulder or nestle into his soft leather jacket like a little fledgling bird.
    Anyway, nothing had come of it, whatever ancient instinct her nostrils had been obeying. Before she'd found herself trailing snot marks, she'd pulled her rebellious proboscis away, laughed, patted his cheek and said something like, 'Nice try, sunshine,