A Healing Love
Copyright© 2025 by Marc Nobbs
Chapter 27: Partnerships and Prospects
Coming of Age Sex Story: Chapter 27: Partnerships and Prospects - Paul Robertson's journey continues as his past and present collide at a star-studded movie premiere, where a connection that once terrified him reignites with passion that threatens to consume them both. Fighting to forge a new future for himself and stop drifting, Paul must finally become the man he’s always been afraid to be. A beautiful, bittersweet exploration of grief, social responsibility, the healing power of love, and learning that sometimes loving someone means letting them go.
Caution: This Coming of Age Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Consensual Romantic Heterosexual Fiction
I knew something was different when I returned home—there was a car I didn’t recognise parked by the kerb just behind Mark’s and blocking mine on the driveway. One of those new ‘mini’ Range Rovers that came out a couple of years ago and seemed to be popular among young women—well, those young women who could afford them.
After opening the front door and walking into the hallway, I heard Carly cry out, “Paul!”
I hardly had time to shut the door behind me before she came racing out of the kitchen and threw herself at me. In what now felt like a well-practised move, I caught her with my hands on her bum as she wrapped her arms around my neck, her legs around my waist, and planted a big sloppy kiss on my lips.
The only difference this time from the others was that I had to drop my gym bag on the floor first.
After kissing me as thoroughly as she felt was required, Carly pulled her head back from mine, stared into my eyes and said, giddily, “Hi.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Hi, yourself.”
She unwrapped her legs from around me, I set her back down on the floor, and then she took my hand and dragged me towards the kitchen.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. “I thought you were staying with Chloë tonight. And how did you get here? Please tell me that Range Rover out front isn’t yours.”
My second and third questions were answered when I entered the kitchen.
“Chloë?”
She was sitting at the kitchen table opposite Mark.
“No, it’s mine,” she said. “The Range Rover. It’s an Evoque. Isn’t it a beauty? Just picked her up today. Shame I won’t get to enjoy it for the next month or so, really.”
“Month? What? What are you doing here?”
“Nice to see you too, Paul,” she said, grinning. “I’ll explain, but you’ve only just got here. Go and sort yourself out—do whatever it is you do—then come back down here. We’ve got a lot to discuss and some decisions to make before I fly out tomorrow.”
“Fly out? Where?”
“I’ll explain. Now go. Shoo.”
“Shoo? You get this is my house, right?”
Carly was already dragging me out of the kitchen, having dragged me into it only moments earlier.
“Come on,” she said. “I’ll help you get ready.”
“Ready for what?” I said as we left the room.
“You haven’t got time for that,” Chloë called after us. “We need a yes or no before Imogen gets back!”
“Wait! Stop!” I said, holding my ground against Carly’s efforts to drag me away. “I don’t need to get ready or anything. I had a shower and changed clothes at the gym. So, is someone going to explain just what the hell is going on here?”
Mark stood up. “Here,” he said. “Have a seat. I’ll grab us some beers. You’re okay with a Bud, right, Chloë? Carly?”
“I love a cold Bud,” Carly said, now dragging me towards the table.
“Yes, but in a glass, please,” Chloë said. “I’m not drinking from the bottle like some lager lout.” She grinned then said in a comically fake posh accent, “I’m a sophisticated double Oscar nominee, don’t you know?”
“Is that what this is about?” I asked as I sat in the chair Mark had vacated. Carly sat next to me, holding on to my hand. “Is that where you’re flying off to?”
“That’s the catalyst, yes,” Chloë said. “I don’t expect to win in either category, but I need to play the game this time. I can’t get away with not doing it like I did the first time I got nominated.”
“What do you mean, ‘play the game?’”
“Exactly what it sounds like. It’s all a game, Paul. The Oscars, and all the other industry awards for that matter, aren’t about who gave the best performance. It’s about industry politics. It’s a game. A popularity contest. You don’t win by being the best actress. You win by playing the best game. Meeting the right people and shaking the right hands. Making the right deals.”
“And you didn’t do that the first time you were nominated?”
“No. I couldn’t. It was my first year at university. I couldn’t take a month off to go glad-handing in Hollywood.”
“So, how did you end up winning?”
“How do you think? I had a heavyweight supporter. Although I didn’t know that at the time.”
“You mean Sam?”
She nodded. “I mean Sam.” She smiled. “I’m so lucky to have him in my corner. I still have no idea why he is, but I’m so grateful for it. Anyway, mostly through Sam but not completely, my representatives made a lot of promises to a lot of people, and when I flew out a week before the ceremony, I was the busiest little bee in Los Angeles. Interview and meeting after interview after lunch with this person after dinner with this other person. It was mad the whole week. Non-stop. But I only got away with that because of being at university, which everyone understood, and because of Sam talking me up to everyone even before we’d met for the first time. And everyone listens to Sam.”
“But you’re not at university anymore, so you have to go to L.A. for a month and win the votes yourself rather than rely on Sam winning them for you?”
“Exactly. Although not the whole month. I’m flying out tomorrow for the Nominees Luncheon this weekend. Voting opens for a week the following weekend, so I’ve got to meet and greet as many voters as I can during those two weeks. As I said, I don’t expect to win, but I need to be seen as playing the game to increase my chances next time. Actually, to increase my chances of there even being a next time. Then I’ll come back home for the BAFTAs in London—Carly needs to ask you about that, by the way—”
“Ask me?”
“Later,” Carly said, squeezing my hand.
“After which, I’m going back to L.A. for another couple of weeks ahead of the ceremony on the ninth of April. Voting will have closed, but I’ll have made promises to have lunch or dinner or other meetings with more people than I can manage in the first two weeks, and I’ll need to make good on those promises.
“A girl can only have one lunch and one dinner a day, no matter how many people she needs to meet.”
I shook my head, then turned to Carly. “So, what are you doing? You’re still staying at Chloë’s on your own?” I looked at Chloë. “You okay with that?”
Chloë shrugged. Carly didn’t say anything.
“You don’t have to, you know,” I said. “I’m more than happy for you to move in here with me while Chloë’s away.”
Carly beamed, then leaned forward to plant a tender kiss on my lips. With her face right in front of mine, she said, “I was kinda hoping you’d say that.”
“Told ya,” Mark said. “I said he’d suggest it himself, didn’t I?” He stood at the end of the table holding three bottles of beer by their necks in one hand and a European-style beer goblet in the other. He placed the goblet on the table in front of Chloë, and sounding like a servant from some television period drama about the trials of the English Aristocracy, he said, “Your beer, M’lady.”
Chloë burst out laughing.
In his normal voice, Mark said, “I couldn’t actually get the whole bottle in that thing. They look nice and all, but they’re half-pint glasses. Actually, not even that. They’re from the continent, so two-fifty millilitres, which is a stupid measure if you ask me. What’s wrong with using pints and half-pints like a normal person? Anyway, point is, there’s still some in the bottle if you want more.”
I rolled my eyes and shook my head as Mark placed two of the bottles on the table in front of me and Carly, then went around the table to sit next to Chloë, sipping from his own bottle as he did.
“Right, so now that’s sorted, can we talk about the important stuff?” he said.
“What important stuff?” I asked.
“WSH,” Chloë said.
I raised an eyebrow.
“Wintersmith Student Homes,” Mark said with a sigh. “Only, Chloë and I both agree that we don’t think we can use that name.”
“Why not?”
“Because it would be confusing. The university obviously has a hall called Wintersmith, and if we use the same name, then people might think it’s related to the hall, and so to the university, and I don’t think they will be too happy with that.”
“But there’s no reason we can’t use the abbreviation as the name,” Chloë said. “People will probably just assume it stands for Westmouth and not Wintersmith, which is fine.”
“So, you’re both on board, then?”
“Absolutely,” Chloë said. “I love the idea and even though the profit isn’t going to be massive, I think you’re right, if we can help some people have a better experience of their time here in Westmouth, then we should.”
I looked at Mark.
“I’m all in, Mate. I told you that.” He looked at Chloë. “I know your definition of massive profit is probably a lot bigger than mine, but we’re still looking at rent of eighteen grand a year per house, which is about five grand or so more than someone working full time at minimum wage gets. And that’s per house, don’t forget. If we can put together a portfolio of five houses over the next couple of years, we’re looking at income of nearly a hundred grand a year.”
“Portfolio?” I said, my eyebrow raised.
He shrugged. “May as well use the proper lingo, right?”
“Quite right,” Chloë said. “Now, look, I’m happy to be a silent partner here. Leave everything to the both of you.” She looked at Mark. “Well, to you, really. You’re going to be the one running this, right?”
Mark shrugged again. “The way I figure it, him and me will find the houses together. Maybe get Immy’s input too. And we’ll have to do the checks on who we rent to as well, which we do together, although I’m hoping your ‘Executive Assistant’ can help with that.”
“I’m sure she will.”
“And with collecting the rent and the paperwork and all that shit.”
“We’ll probably need a formal lease agreement,” I said, “But I can speak to someone at Will’s firm about that.”
“Your firm, you mean,” Chloë said.
“Not yet,” I replied.
“Whatever. The way I see it, I leave all the legal and finance stuff to you and Marie to sort out, we split finding the houses and tenants, and I do all the maintenance work.”
“Which you will charge the company for,” Chloë said, sternly. “I won’t have you giving your time for free. That’s not how this is supposed to work. We can’t exactly employ you—that’s too expensive—so you will damn well charge by the hour, got it?”
“Yes, Ma’am. Although...”
“Although, what?” I said.
“I was thinking of asking my Old Man if we can charge the maintenance through his firm. He can pay me through his books, like he did in my gap year, and he’ll get trade rates for materials and shit. And if the other lads pitch in, he can put them through his books too.”
“Good. So, we need to talk start-up capital,” Chloë said.
“It’s in the business plan,” I said. “Mark puts up his twenty-five—”
“Which the company immediately loans back to him, yes.”
“And then seventy-five from you and me in whatever combination you prefer. Either fifty/twenty-five or thirty-seven and a half each.”
“Yeah, I know. But I’m not comfortable with that. I mean, he—” She jerked her thumb towards Mark. “Does most of the work but gets the smallest share of the business and the voting rights? That doesn’t seem fair.”
“But the company will pay him for his time. You said that yourself.”
“I am sitting right here, you know. You don’t need to talk about me like I’m not.”
I looked at Mark. “Sorry, mate.”
He nodded.
“Look,” Chloë said. “If the company is loaning his start-up money back to Mark, if no cash is actually changing hands at all and everything is on paper, then there’s no reason we can’t all put in the same amount and be truly equal partners. If we all put in thirty, then we’re golden. You and I don’t even need to stump up thirty in cash right away, either. There’s no need for sixty thousand to be sitting in the account of a business without any outgoings yet. Ten should suffice to open the account, and we can always pay back part of our own loan accounts when more is needed.”
I nodded. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“You’re still new to this,” Chloë said.
“I still like the idea of the start-up capital being an even one hundred, though. Keeps it neat. Thirty each is only ninety.”
Chloë smiled. “I’ve thought of that too. I’d like to gift ten percent of the business to the girls.”
“Girls?”
“She means the group chat, mate,” Mark said. “That’s why we need to talk about this before Immy gets back. She don’t know nothing about this.”
“Imogen, Vanessa, Lisa and Emily,” Chloë said. “Two and a half percent each. And, again, because the business immediately loans the money back to them on paper, they don’t even need to have the money available. In time, it can come out of their dividends, although in practice, it never will unless one of them decides to leave the business.”
Both of them looked at me expectantly. I could see on Mark’s face how much he liked this idea.
I glanced at Carly, sitting next to me, who’d silently held my hand throughout the meeting. She probably shouldn’t have really been there, but neither of the other two had complained. She smiled at me and nodded.
I looked back at Mark and Chloë. “So, how and when do we tell them?”
Chloë grinned. “When Imogen and Vanessa get back from the supermarket, I’ll set up a group call in the app, and we can tell them then.”
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