“Guess Who I Pulled Last Night?”

By Nikki Ashton




Dedication




This is dedicated to ones I love and the people I’ve known; you’ve all helped me to write this book, so thank you





Prologue




“Okay, let me ask you this one; best boy band ever?” Charlotte Price leaned forward and grabbed the bottle of wine from the coffee table before pouring the last few drops into her glass. “Obviously I know the correct answer but do you two?” She pointed a finger at her two friends, Bets and Kerry who were equally as drunk as Charlotte and lay sprawled across her brown leather sofa.

“I’m first,” cried Kerry waving her glass around shakily. “That’s easy; Boyzone. Ah,” she sighed. “Ronan Keating.”

“Wrong!” Charlotte pointed to Bets. “Okay what’s your answer?”

“I hate boy bands why on earth would I have an opinion on it?” Bets shifted around on the sofa and put her feet up on Kerry’s lap.

“Because, everyone has a favourite boy band!” exclaimed Kerry pushing Bets’ feet down onto the floor with a loud sniff.

“Yeah, well I don’t, but if I had to say one it would probably be The Sex Pistols.” She put her feet back, giving Kerry a poke with her toe as she did so.

“Well for starters they are hardly a boy band; more a granddad band these days, and secondly you are totally wrong its Ta…”

“Take That,” chorused Kerry and Bets.

“We know, you tell us often enough doesn’t she, Bets?” Kerry nudged her friend’s legs. “I think you need to understand Charlotte there is no way Gary Barlow is ever going to leave his wife for you. Anyway, if I have to be honest I think that that John Etheridge in the upper sixth was better than any boy band member, he was absolutely gorgeous.”

“Nah, he had bad breath,” said Charlotte, shaking her head, “at least he did when I kissed him.”

“Did you kiss him? God so did I,” groaned Bets, as she took a gulp of wine.

“How come you two both kissed him? I fancied him like mad and never got a sideways glance,” moaned Kerry, turning her head in disgust.

So the evening carried on with the three of them arguing over music and discussing the merits of the instant Cappuccino and other such rubbish. A typical evening for the three women who had met on the first day of primary school and been friends ever since. Over the years there had been the odd fall out over clothes and homework (never boys) but generally they had stuck together through thick and thin and now in their late twenties were closer than ever.





Chapter 1




Charlotte was generally the leader of the group, not because she was bossy, but because she was organised and good with money. She was the one who always sorted out their holiday abroad; she would then religiously collect the money from the other two every month to pay for it. She also threw some brilliant parties, which were talked about for months afterwards. Charlotte’s family was a happy one, consisting of two parents, who were still married after 35 years, an older sister Amanda 32 and a younger brother Tom aged 25. A happy family meant that Charlotte grew up contented and balanced, with just one problem in life: her taste in men, which was not something that she would be given an A star for!

She was a dreamer when it came to romance. As a young teenager she would sit in her bedroom, dreaming about Ben Hathaway the school stud. She fantasied that he would tell her how beautiful she was, and that when he was rich and famous he was going to marry her. It never happened, and as he got older he became fatter and hairier and worked on the bus station, selling the Evening Post. Yes, her childhood had been very special, but the most fun she had was in her teenage years – the years she spent partying with Kerry and Bets.

Charlotte had been the one to invent the “Guess who I pulled last night” list; a piece of harmless fun to list any conquests that they’d had. It would be something to laugh about when they were old ladies doing their knitting.

There were certain rules that had to be followed and failure to do so resulted in the removal of points from each person’s tally. The rules were:

A relative doesn’t count