Charlotte Delaney has sworn off men. After one relationship disaster after another- including turning a guy gay!- Charlotte is so over the male species.
Isaac Fletcher had his heart cruelly broken. Yes, it was years ago. No, he never got over it. I...
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There was sadness in her eyes, a look that was hard to ignore. I wasn't used to seeing her like this; usually, she's too happy and always on a high so when she's morose like this, I begin to worry.
"Martha, we can't help you unless you tell us what's wrong," Charlotte speaks softly as she reaches a hand across the table and places it gently on top of Martha's. "Is it something to do with work?"
As I said, it was weird to see Martha like this and I wasn't sure what to do about it. I'm pretty sure it has something to do with this new boyfriend of hers but I've never had to deal with any of that. Aly was the one who had had first-hand experience in that department. Martha would tell me that she was dating and sometimes, she'd go into more detail than that, but I've only ever met one of her ex-boyfriends. Ryan Loughlin was actually a half decent kid and he treated Martha well but my daughter's problem is that she likes the guys she can't have. In comparison to what she was looking for, Ryan was boring. It didn't surprise me when they broke up. I was disappointed they'd split but I saw it coming a long time before Ryan did. Thankfully, I wasn't around for the bitter aftermath. Now, however, I may have to deal with this latest heartbreak.
"It's not work," Martha shook her head in answer to Lottie's question. She sighs heavily and runs a hand through her blonde hair in an eerily familiar way. My daughter may not like her mother, but she certainly inherited some of Aly's ticks. "It's... really silly."
Lottie frowns. "Let me be the judge of that. Tell me what's going on and we can sort it out. Is it Will? Has something happened?"
"Yes," Martha nods. She turns her head away and looks out the window, her blue eyes surveying the river as she chews on her bottom lip. Finally, she sighs and says, "We had sex and it was not good. It lasted like three minutes and-"
That was my cue to leave. There was no way in hell that I was going to sit here and listen to Martha's boy trouble but I was certain that I would rather poke needles in my eyes than have to hear all about her sex life. There is a line that is not to be crossed when it comes to things I want to know about my daughter and right now, one of Martha's feet was on that line. Knowing that she wasn't going to shuffle back to her side, I decided for my own sanity, I needed to leave.
Fast.
Standing up from the table, I muttered something along the lines of, "Yeah, no, no way," and quickly grabbed my keys before legging it from the houseboat and heading to Mick's place. On the way, I sent Lottie a text to apologise for my hasty exit and asked that she make sure that Martha was ok, explaining that I was not at all comfortable with discussing the topic of sex with my seventeen-year-old. Within a few minutes, Lottie had replied with an eye roll emoji and a few seconds after that, Martha text me the poop emoji.
"You look like you've seen a ghost," Mick commented when he finally opened his front door to me. I'd been frantically knocking on the glass pane for God knows how long before he greeted me and once I'd been invited inside, I pushed past my best friend and went straight for his booze cabinet. Taking out the half empty whisky bottle, I pour myself a glass and down it in one. Mick laughed. "Ok, so maybe this has nothing to do with a ghost. A woman, perhaps. But which one? Let me guess. Martha?"
