Sugar Secrets…& Love Read online

  Sugar

  SECRETS…

  …& Love

  Mel Sparke

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  CHAPTER 1 NOT SO WELL SUITED

  CHAPTER 2 BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

  CHAPTER 3 ACTING UP

  CHAPTER 4 RINGING THE CHANGES

  CHAPTER 5 TROUBLE ALL ROUND

  CHAPTER 6 NOT MATT AND ANNA?

  CHAPTER 7 HIGHS AND LOWS

  CHAPTER 8 ALEX EXPLAINS

  CHAPTER 9 SECRETS AND LIES

  CHAPTER 10 DUMPED

  CHAPTER 11 HIGH DRAMAS

  CHAPTER 12 THE BIG DAY

  CHAPTER 13 CAUGHT IN THE ACT

  CHAPTER 14 BRIEF ENCOUNTERS

  CHAPTER 15 REVELATIONS

  CHAPTER 16 PROBLEMS, PROBLEMS

  CHAPTER 17 A TIME TO FUME

  CHAPTER 18 HAPPY BIRTHDAY OLLIE!

  CHAPTER 19 WILL SHE, WONT SHE?

  CHAPTER 20 HAPPY ENDINGS

  SOME SECRETS ARE JUST TOO GOOD TO KEEP TO YOURSELF!

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  CHAPTER 1

  NOT SO WELL SUITED

  “What’s with the disgusting, flowery, waistcoat thing?”

  Matt Ryan cocked his head to one side and grimaced at Joe Gladwin, who had slipped sheepishly out of the hire shop fitting room and was now standing in front of Matt and Ollie, blushing furiously.

  Joe hadn’t been looking forward to trying on the smart hire suit his father was insisting he wear for his forthcoming wedding, and having his two mates take the mickey was doing his head in. For someone as sloppily turned out as Joe usually was, the floral waistcoat, crisp white cotton shirt and navy tie, jacket and trousers felt about as comfortable as a suit of medieval armour.

  “Pink roses are Gillian’s favourite flowers,” Joe explained wearily, opening his jacket to reveal the full extent of the nightmare underneath. “Her mother found the material and made waistcoats for me, Dad and the ushers. Look, we’ve even got matching handkerchiefs.” Joe delved into his Nike sports bag and pulled out a crumpled square of material, also patterned in the same clashing colours of pink, green and lilac on a navy background.

  “Oh…” said Ollie Stanton, raising his eyebrows.

  “Very nice,” added Matt, scratching his chin while trying to hide the smile that was breaking out at the corners of his mouth.

  “Horrible, aren’t they?” said Joe miserably.

  “Mmmm.” The boys nodded in unison.

  “So, are you going to look in the mirror then?” Matt asked. “See what you look like?”

  Joe grimaced, then reluctantly turned to study his reflection in the full-length mirror for the first time.

  “Arrgh! I look ridiculous!” he wailed, his eyes bulging and his face contorted in horror. The suit was very conservative, very uncool, very not Joe. He scanned the alien image. OK. so he liked baggy clothes, but this generously proportioned suit didn’t quite fit properly. He laughed bitterly. “Talk about ‘Honey I Shrunk the Best Man’!”

  “Oh, I dunno, it’s not so awful,” said Ollie measuredly. “I’d say you look sort of… like, um… what do you think, Matt?”

  Tact never being one of his strong points. Matt grinned and said, “Like a prat!”

  “Cheers, mate,” Joe replied. “Thanks for the morale boost!”

  “Could be worse…” said Matt then paused, his grin widening even more, “I dunno how though!”

  Ollie began to snigger and soon Joe saw the funny side and began to chuckle away at his own expense.

  “So how come they’re going for a church do?” Ollie finally asked, trying to be sensible again. “It’s not as though it’s the first time round for your dad, is it? And you’d have thought that at their age they’d have got over the childhood fantasy thing of a wedding in a cutesy church with meringue frocks and bogey-nosed page boys. Why all the fuss?”

  “I don’t think it’s going to be that fancy,” answered Joe. “I don’t know what Gillian’s wearing, though it’ll probably be a bit frilly. Don’t think the whole do’s going to be too over the top. At least, I hope not…”

  “Unlike the waistcoats.” Matt chipped in cheerfully.

  “Hmm, I know what you mean,” pondered Joe. “But I get the feeling they just wanted to make the effort to do things properly. You know, make a statement and all that.”

  “Well, they’ll certainly be doing that when you guys take your jackets off,” Matt muttered. “And having The Loud play is a bit of a statement too. I hope your dad’s not expecting you to play covers all night like most wedding bands. Much as I’d pay thousands to see it happen, I can’t imagine Ollie singing The Power Of Love somehow.”

  “Like you’ll be paying any attention, Matt,” came Ollie’s sardonic reply. “You’ll be far too busy snogging one of the bridesmaids. Or chasing a waitress, pleading for her phone number. You’ve told us before that weddings are the best place for getting off with someone. Saturday’ll be your chance to prove it.”

  Matt was about to contradict his friend, then thought better of it. If only you knew, Ol, he mused, how far off the mark you are.

  “Er, have you got your best man speech sorted yet?” he said, turning to Joe.

  Joe turned pale. The mere mention of the fact that he was going to have to stand up and speak in front of eighty people made him want to throw up. The wedding was only five days away and although he’d been agonising over the speech ever since his dad had asked him to be best man, he still only had a few rambling thoughts and a blank piece of paper to show for all his hours of effort.

  “It’s getting there,” he hedged. “If I’m lucky, it might be ready by the year 3000.” Joe smiled wryly then did an awkward twirl in front of his friends. “What with that to worry about and looking like this, I’d quite cheerfully cut my head off. Then I wouldn’t have to go through with this wedding.”

  “You think that’s bad,” Matt countered. “Imagine what it’ll be like on your own wedding day. Nerves times ten thousand, I’ll bet.”

  Joe liked hearing Matt talk about him as though it was a foregone conclusion that he would get married. The way his romantic life had gone so far (ie nowhere), the idea of him spending his life with a woman other than his mother seemed ludicrous. Apart from the occasional peck on the cheek, he’d never really kissed a girl - not intimately, in the full-on, exchanging saliva sense of the word - let alone been part of a couple. Of course, there had been that disastrous night out with Naomi… but that was something he preferred to forget.

  For a while now, most of his crowd of friends had been involved with someone. There was Ollie and Kerry, Sonja and Owen, Cat and Zac, Maya and Alex. And he’d noticed that even Matt and Anna had seemed quite close recently - he’d seen them exchange significant glances, although no one else seemed to have picked up on it.

  And then there’s me, he thought. The saddo no one’s interested in.

  “I think the chances of me getting married are about on a par with Liam Gallagher becoming a vicar,” Joe tried to joke.

  “Come on, Joe,” rallied Ollie, “it’s not your fault that the female population hasn’t cottoned on to what a great guy Joe Gladwin is yet. Hey, for all you know, the perfect person for you might be at this wedding on Saturday!”

  “Yeah - and she’ll take one look at my clothes and run a mile,” grinned Joe.

  “Don’t be so negative,” scolded Ollie. “Love always happens when you least expect it.”

  “I’ll tell you something,” Joe carried on. “If - when - it happens, I’ll have it printed on the invitation that suits are banned.”

  Matt grabbed one of the many grey felt top hats from the shelf to his left and pla
ced it at a rakish angle on his head. He grinned inanely into the mirror. “I wonder who’ll be the first out of us to tie the knot…” he pondered.

  i“Come on. Matt.” Joe laughed. “You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to work that one out…” He raised his eyebrows meaningly at Matt, then the two of them turned to Ollie and looked very pointedly at him.

  “What?” Ollie was confused.

  “You and Kerry, silly,” said Joe. “You guys are bound to be the first to go waltzing up the aisle. It’s obvious. Maybe I ought to get out of these clothes and let you try them on, so you can see what you’ll look like on your Big Day.”

  Ollie’s mouth opened and closed several times but no words came out. He looked wildly from Joe to Matt and back again, his cheeks pink with embarrassment.

  “It’s not often you’re lost for words.” commented Matt. Then added mischievously, “We haven’t hit on something you want to enlarge on, have we, mate?”

  “Er, n-n-no,” Ollie spluttered, obviously taken off guard. “Not at all. I was just, um… thinking what a prat you looked like in that top hat. Matt. It kind of threw me for a minute.”

  Matt pulled a face then flicked the hat off with his fingers and placed it on Ollie’s head instead.

  “Suits you, Sir! So, haven’t you even thought about getting married to Kerry?” he pressed, his eyes twinkling at the sight of his friend’s discomfort. “Surely you must have? You two are made for life…”

  “Leave it out, mate!” Ollie yelped a little too forcefully. “I’m still only seventeen!”

  He thumped Matt playfully on the arm and pulled a face, but inside, his heart was pumping hard. Because the truth was, over the last few days, Ollie had thought of very little else…

  CHAPTER 2

  BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

  Anna Michaels opened the door of her flat and threw her arms around the boy standing at the top of the stairway. They hugged and kissed then retreated back inside and continued kissing and giggling together on the sofa.

  “I’m so glad you could come over,” Anna said as she finally broke away. “I’d been studying the telly page forever trying to find something interesting to watch, but Monday nights are useless. So I called you on the off chance…”

  “Gee, thanks!” laughed Matt. “You mean it was a toss up between me and Panorama—”

  “And you won the vote,” Anna finished for him, “though only just.”

  “Charming. And there was me thinking you wanted to see me because you’d missed me.”

  “Aw, only joking,” said Anna and playfully tapped him on the nose. “I have missed you. I’ve been thinking about you a lot…”

  “Oh yeah? Anything nice?” Matt gave Anna a hopeful look.

  “I’ve just been thinking how much I like spending time with you. You make me laugh.”

  “Well, just so long as you’re not laughing at me, I don’t mind. Actually,” he added, “I was thinking about you earlier today too…”

  “Really? Why?”

  “Well, me, Ol and Joe were in the hire shop in the city. Joe was getting kitted out for this wedding on Saturday and Ol was saying how he was expecting me to be chasing after girls all night. I was just dying to tell them that I wasn’t interested, y’know? That I was seeing someone and that it was you. But I couldn’t. Could I?”

  He looked earnestly at Anna who by now was staring at the carpet and twirling a few strands of hair nervously around her index finger. She looked shyly up at him and said nothing.

  “I mean, I still don’t know what the big secret is,” Matt carried on. “We’ve been seeing each other for a while now, but all this meeting in secret is doing my head in. I’m terrified I’m gonna let something slip. I just want to get it out in the open and tell everyone what’s going on.”

  “Poor Matt. I’m sorry. It’s not fair to put you through this.” Anna took hold of his hand and struggled for the right words to say. “It’s just that I… I don’t much like other people knowing all my business.”

  “But why?” Matt implored her. “What’s the big deal?”

  “Oh, I dunno,” Anna replied, vaguely. “I guess it’s because I’ve always been very private. I’m not into being the subject of gossip for just anyone who walks into the caff.”

  “Yeah, but we’re not talking about anyone, are we?” Matt cut in. “We’re talking about telling our friends. Actually, no, not even that, ‘cause telling them sounds like we’re making a big thing of it, which we’re not. I just think we should let them see us together and draw their own conclusions. What’s so bad about that?”

  Anna didn’t have anything else to add, at least, not to Matt’s face. She knew she was making excuses. The real reason for her reticence was because she was still so wary of getting into a relationship again. There hadn’t been anyone since David and that was over two years ago.

  And look how that ended, she thought bitterly. An abortion and forced to leave home. Anna was terrified of the strong feelings she was developing for Matt, and a part of her believed that if she could pretend that they were still “just good friends.” maybe she could avoid getting hurt again.

  She had a constant, nagging doubt that getting involved with Matt wasn’t the right thing to do. The timing was wrong. He wasn’t the right person for her. What did she need a boyfriend for when she was perfectly happy on her own? Wasn’t she?

  She sighed again.

  “What?” Matt cupped her chin in his hand and frowned. “What is it you’re not telling me?”

  “Nothing, Matt.” She forced a smile. “Really, it’s nothing. Just give me a little bit more time to get used to this, OK? Then we can come clean. I promise.”

  CHAPTER 3

  ACTING UP

  Maya Joshi punched the number she knew’off by heart into the keypad and listened to the dialling tone as it rang at the other end. She cursed silently as it trilled on and on with no reply.

  Come on, Alex! she thought agitatedly. Hurry up if you’re there. She looked at her watch. Sunny was due back from her friend’s house about now and Maya had wanted to speak to Alex McKay before she arrived. She hated the thought of her devious little sister listening in to their conversation, doing her best to pick up on anything that was said to use as future ammunition against her.

  As much as possible, Maya tried to avoid calling Alex from home for that very reason, but she needed to know if he was coming to the revue Cat was involved with on Friday night. Cat had been on at her to find out numbers as she wanted to know how many tickets to get for the gang.

  “Hello…”

  “Alex, at last.” breathed Maya. “I thought you weren’t there.”

  “Hi, Maya. I was in the shower. Everything OK?”

  “Yeah, great. I just needed to speak to you before I saw you at photography club tomorrow. I was wondering whether you’d decided about Friday yet?”

  “Huh?” Alex replied vaguely. “What about Friday?”

  “You know, the revue at the community centre. The one Cat’s been going on about for ages…”

  Silence.

  “The college production,” Maya added helpfully, sensing that Alex wasn’t quite up to speed on the conversation yet. “I mentioned it to you ages ago…”

  “Ah, yes! Of course. Sorry, I’m with you now. That’s this week, is it?”

  “Uh-huh. Cat’s sorting out the tickets tomorrow and needs to know numbers.”

  “Oh. Right. So who’s going?”

  Maya couldn’t help noticing the hesitation in Alex’s voice. She felt herself begin to get anxious. She had assumed Alex would be coming. Maybe she’d been wrong.

  “Uh, the usual people,” she said lightly. “Sonja, Kerry, Ollie, Matt… you know.”

  “Oh.”

  Maya suddenly had a feeling of déjà vu as a scene flashed through her mind which was strikingly similar to the one she was having now. It had happened a week or so ago.

  “D’you fancy a night out at the Kamil Tandoori?” she had said o
ne evening.

  “Sure, I’d love to. What night are’ you thinking of?”

  “Friday. It’s the best night for everyone to make it.”

  Alex had paused for a few moments. “Oh. Right. So are all of your crowd going?”

  “I think so. Unless anyone gets a better offer which, let’s face it, is unlikely,” Maya laughed.

  “Oh. Uh… OK, whatever. Count me in.”

  Maya hadn’t thought anything of it at the time, but looking back she realised it was the same line of questioning, the same tone of voice, that she could hear now. And she wasn’t sure why, but it niggled her.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked flatly. “Can’t you come?”

  “Uh, I’m not sure.” His tone was deliberate, as if he was choosing his words very carefully. “To be honest, Maya, I’d forgotten it was this week and I’ve promised to help a friend set up a photography exhibition on Friday after work ready for the weekend. I’d feel rotten if I let her down and I don’t know what time I’ll be able to get away. I’m really sorry.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  The disappointment in Maya’s voice was plain to hear. She had so wanted Alex to come to this; although he’d been invited to various get-togethers recently, he’d often had something else on.

  She fleetingly wondered if it was her friends he was having a problem with.

  Is that what’s going on here? she thought. It sounds to me like he’s trying to avoid them. Or is it me? Is he getting fed up with me being so young and my restrictive parents making things ten times worse than they need be?

  “Look,” said Alex, sensing Maya’s disappointment, “why don’t you get me a ticket and I’ll see what I can do? If I pull my finger out I might get it done in time.”

  “Only if you’re sure,” said Maya hesitantly, getting the feeling that he was only backtracking to keep her happy.

  “Course I am. I’ll do my best, I promise.”

  Despite his reassurances, Maya didn’t feel any better at all.

  “…So then we went back to Miss Self ridge to try on the little blue Lycra dress again, only this time I decided I liked it. In fact, when I came out of the changing room for a better look, one of the sales assistants said it looked better on me than it did on the dummy in the window. After that, how could I refuse?”