Here’s a section from the middle of chapter one – I hope you enjoy it!:

Charlie’s rubber soled shoes made no noise as he wandered down to the last cubicle in the row. With a deep sigh he pulled back the curtain. His shoulders slumped even further.

“Please tell me this is a fake illness,” he told his sister’s best friend. “The last thing I want to do is give you a gyny exam.”

“The feeling is mutual,” Laura told him.

The ever present look of disgust, and disappointment, was firmly in place. Her hair was longer than the last time he’d seen her; apart from that she looked exactly the same – like an evil fairy. With her freckles, wide eyes and honey coloured hair she was innocence personified. He knew better. She sat on the edge of the bed, even though there was a chair in the cubicle. No doubt to give her a height advantage. At five two Laura was always thinking about height.

“What do you want?”

He crossed his arms over his worn blue scrubs and leaned against the wall. She pushed her oversized glasses up the bridge of her nose and straightened her shoulders.

“I want an interview.”

That was one thing he liked about Laura. You always knew where you stood with her.

“No.”

You could also be as blunt as you wanted and she never played the poor-delicate-girl card. Her eyes narrowed slightly.

“I need an interview.”

“I need sleep. Looks like we’re both disappointed.”

He watched her jaw for the tell-tale sign she was grinding her teeth. Sure enough there it was. Any minute now there would be violence – that was something she’d learnt from his sister. Hit first, ask questions later.

“I’ll get fired from my new job if you don’t give me an interview.”

“And I care, why?”

“You owe me.”

He reeled back as though she’d hit him.

“You’ve got to be kidding? After a dozen years you’re going to pull that one. I don’t owe you anything. You came to me.” He cocked an eyebrow and gave her his most lecherous leer. “You came for me.”

No blush. That was Laura. Proper girls blushed. Not the Iron Maiden.

“I didn’t come for you. You couldn’t make me come if you tried. You have to have actual skill to achieve that and believe me, you don’t have anywhere near the skill level. You owe me, moron, because you were an ass about the whole thing. I gave you my virginity and you never even said thanks. In fact you ran like the devil was on your heels.” She jumped off the bed and pulled herself up to her full miniature height. “Now I’m collecting.”

He was almost amused. Almost.

“So I’m supposed to lay my life at your feet for you to write about in some teen magazine because I didn’t thank you for opening your legs for me a dozen years ago?”

He stepped towards her, crowding her space. She didn’t back off, instead she put her hands on her denim clad hips and glared up at him.

“I don’t work for a teen mag.”

He had to shake his head to follow the conversation.

“Yeah, that was the most important part.” He pointed at her tiny button nose. “I’m not giving you an interview. And I don’t care if you’re holding a grudge about my lack of manners. You begged me for sex.”

“I didn’t beg.”

She poked him in the chest, making him growl.

“I remember exactly what happened,” he said. “You followed me to the summer house. I told you to go away. You wouldn’t. I said what the hell do you want? You said – sex. I gave you what you wanted. It’s you who should have said thank you. Instead you had a hissy fit. So no, I don’t owe you.”

For a second he thought her green eyes flashed Satan red.

“We’ll see about that,” she warned. “This isn’t over. I want an interview. I need an interview and I’m going to get an interview. Got it, Neanderthal?”

She poked him in the chest again before storming out of the cubicle. Charlie resisted the urge to shout something childish behind her, something like – yeah, right, you and whose army? Mature. She always did bring out the mature in him.

“Thanks for the show, Charlie boy,” Frank said beside him.

Charlie looked around him as the emergency room came back into focus. He had a rapt audience. Just what he needed – more gossip fodder. People were staring at him open mouthed. The women were frowning. Laura brought out the worst in him; he said things to her, deliberately crude things, that he would never say to another woman. And now they had all heard. His last three hours were going to feel like three hundred. There wasn’t a woman in the place who didn’t look like she would eat him alive.

“Find a paddle, it’s creek time,” Frank said, confirming his thoughts. “You can’t be a woman’s first time then bolt for the exit. They don’t like that.”

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If you enjoyed reading about Laura and Charlie, and would like to buy Laura’s Big Break – you can find it here.