Free Chance by Christina Palmer Page A

doing to give her a friendly smile.
    “Good afternoon. What can
I get you?”
    “Oh, um…a glass of chardonnay,
please,” she smiled back, approaching the bar.
    Charlotte was quite early;
having arranged to meet her friends there at six, knowing it would take them
longer to travel there from their various workplaces. After getting her drink
and paying for it, she found a table in the corner, which wasn’t exactly
difficult in the empty bar. She sat down, took out her phone and sent a quick
text to Logan to let him know where she was and she'd arrived safely. She added
there was no one else there so he needn’t worry.
    Sarah was the first to
arrive, followed by Louise and then finally Bethany, who turned up three
quarters of an hour late at a quarter to seven. That was hardly surprising. She
was always late. Charlotte predicted she’d be late for her own wedding.
    “What was Australia
like?” Charlotte asked her excitedly, wanting to catch up and hear all about her
trip.
    “It was wonderful,” she
gushed. “It was so great to see my parents again, you know. Harry was also brilliant.
Mom and Dad loved him.”
    “That’s really great,”
Charlotte smiled. “Where's he tonight?”
    “Who, Harry? Oh, I don’t
know, to be honest. I'd guess he's out with some friends or something. It’s
Friday night, isn’t it?”
    “Logan doesn’t like when
we go out on our own,” explained Charlotte, finding it strange that Bethany and
Harry had such a different way of operating.
    Having never really been
involved in any serious or long-term relationships before Logan, she'd just assumed
most couples had relationships similar to her own. At least, that was what
Logan had led her to believe.
    “He likes us to always do
things together,” Charlotte said.
    “Oh God, I couldn’t
handle that,” Bethany groaned.
    “Me neither,” laughed
Louise. “Talk about suffocating.”
    “It’s not suffocating,”
Charlotte defended Logan. “It’s nice. It’s great to spend time together when
you're really into each other.”
    “Well yeah, it’s nice to
spend some time together,” said Sarah. “I mean, I love Kieron and I love
spending time with him, but if I had to spend all my time with him, I’d
go absolutely crazy. I’d probably end up killing him or something.”
    They all laughed and
Bethany went to the bar to get drinks. By around eight o’clock, there were a
handful of people in the bar along with them. Yet, it remained relatively calm
and quiet throughout the rest of the evening.
    “Why did you bring us to
such a dead place, Charlotte?” Louise finally complained. “There isn’t even any
music or anything.”
    “Yeah, Charlotte,” Sarah
poked her in the arm teasingly. “This place is crappy.”
    “Let’s go somewhere
else,” Bethany said boldly, jumping to her feet decisively.
    “What? No,” Charlotte
began to protest in a slight panic, not knowing what she’d say to Logan if they
went somewhere else. He’d freak out. “I’m sure they have a sound system or a
jukebox or something. I'll ask them to put some music on.”
    “There are like…five
people in here, Charlotte. On a Friday night. Come on; let’s go to a club or
something. We could go dancing,” Bethany insisted, grabbing her arm and tugging
her up to a standing position.
    Charlotte got to her feet
hesitantly and took out her phone. She'd muted her phone when she'd entered the
bar and was alarmed to see she had four messages and two missed calls from
Logan. He was wondering where she was and whether she was all right, she hadn’t
texted him in over an hour. She fired off a quick message telling him she was
fine and they were still in the same place. Then she pocketed her phone as the
three girls began to march towards the exit, laughing and joking, looking
forward to heading somewhere else that might be livelier and more fun.
    The decision to lie to
Logan about where she was didn’t come lightly to Charlotte. She’d never liked
lying and