Chapter 40

‘Honestly,’ laughed Toby, ‘You might have knocked.’ Andrew and Emma grinned at him wickedly.

‘We did wonder if we might catch you in the middle of something to be honest,’ said Andrew, ‘That’s what usually happens of course.’ ‘Oh, don’t remind Tasha about that,’ hissed his best friend, ‘The stuff I had to do to gain her attention.’ ‘And the stuff that you pretended to do as well,’ giggled Emma, ‘My particular favourite was the apparently used condom in the car.’ ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ exclaimed Natasha, slapping Toby playfully on the arm, ‘That wasn’t for real?’ ‘No,’ admitted her new fiancé, somewhat shamefacedly, ‘Though to be fair I was getting a bit desperate by then.’ ‘So, Tasha,’ said her twin, suddenly serious, ‘What on earth has happened to make you not only end up in our bed, but even engaged to be married to this worthless miscreant too, from what you just said?’ ‘Make yourself comfortable,’ replied his sister, ‘I’ve been having quite a time of it.’ Andrew and Emma perched on either side of the bed and Natasha told them about everything that she had been going through since Christmas.

‘Oh, Tasha, why on earth didn’t you say something to me?’ asked Emma, part-way through the narrative.

‘Well, I didn’t know exactly what to say,’ answered her best friend, ‘And to be honest I knew that if I had said anything at any stage, you would just have told me to dump Bruce regardless.’ Emma did have the good grace to shrug her shoulders and agree that Natasha’s assertion was, indeed, absolutely right.

‘So now we get to the part where I borrowed Toby’s car. What I did was to drive to Northolt. I left it there and borrowed Mummy’s so that I could drive to Newcastle.’ Andrew gave a low whistle. ‘All on your own? Oh, Tasha, that’s incredible.’ ‘The drive was a bit further than I’d anticipated,’ admitted his sister, ‘But I’m still glad I did it.’ ‘So you saw Bruce?’ asked Toby, who was as much in the dark as the other two.

When Toby had learned from her mother that Natasha was no longer wearing Bruce’s friendship ring, he was as sure as he could be that the relationship was over. However, there hadn’t been time to get into the whys and wherefores of it when Natasha got back to the flat, Within moments he had asked her to marry him, she had agreed immediately, their passions had risen and without a further word they had headed to Andrew and Emma’s bed.

‘Oh yes, I saw him, and I saw the girl that he’s actually living with,’ replied Natasha. She then went on to tell them exactly what had transpired in Bruce’s flat, down to the moment when she took off his friendship ring and gave it back to him.

‘That was so classy,’ breathed Andrew, ‘I’m surprised you didn’t smack him one!’ ‘You know, that didn’t even occur to me for one moment. When I took his ring off I just felt this enormous sense of relief and freedom. At last I was free to follow my heart and admit to myself that I had wanted Toby for the longest time.’ She turned to look at her fiancé affectionately and watched in surprise as tears began to stream down his face and land on the sheet still covering his lower half. When Andrew and Emma noticed too it promptly did them in and within moments the three of them had turned into snivelling wrecks. Natasha, who had already done her crying, actually giggled then and slipping out of bed she went and fetched them the box of tissues from the bathroom.

‘Oh,’ gasped Toby, when he eventually managed to pull himself together, ‘I can’t believe that you had to go through that all on your own. I am so sorry, my darling, Tasha.’ Pulling her to him he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her so hard that eventually she had to protest that she couldn’t actually breathe properly.

‘So what happened then?’ asked Emma curiously.

‘I just left the flat and went and got into the car. I didn’t really know whether to laugh, cry or scream at that point, so in the end I did a mixture of all three. It was amazingly cathartic though, funnily enough. By the time I finished I felt so much better, I can’t begin to explain it really. After that I went back to the little hotel that I’d found, spent the night there and slept like a baby. This morning I got up early and drove back down to Northolt.

‘What an adventure,’ exclaimed her brother.

‘Happy ending though, huh?’ giggled Natasha and leaning over she gave Toby a kiss. A kiss that quickly became extremely passionate.

‘I think we’d better leave these two to it,’ hissed Emma at her boyfriend, ‘I have a feeling that they really want to start “round two”.’ ‘Hey, I’m sorry,’ laughed Toby, breaking the kiss when he heard what she said, ‘We’d better let you have your bed back now really.’ Andrew and Emma would have none of it and insisted that they were perfectly happy to share Natasha’s single for the night.

‘It’s not as if we’re going to be lying side by side sleeping quietly,’ laughed Andrew, ‘Watching you two has given us some serious ideas, right Em?

‘Absolutely,’ she laughed, ‘Come on Randy, we need to go to bed too, quite urgently as a matter of fact.’