Sugar Secrets…& Guilt Read online

  When Matt started in with another question, she was relieved she didn’t have to explain herself further. One way or another, it had been a long, emotional week, and she found that she’d suddenly run completely out of energy.

  “So, why all the secrecy, Dad?” Matt asked. “Why haven’t you told me about this before?”

  “Do you rush and tell us about your girlfriends and boyfriends?” snapped Sylvia Osgood defensively, addressing her comment to both Matt and her daughter.

  “What Sylvia means is,” Matt Snr butted in, more gently, “we wanted to keep it quiet for a while. Till we were more sure of each other.”

  “Uh, OK, Dad, fair enough,” shrugged Matt. “But how come you turned up here tonight? you weren’t due back yet…”

  “Well, I, um, we thought you were going to be at your mother’s!” his father replied, looking like an embarrassed school boy.

  “I tried phoning Mum but she was on holiday,” his son explained. “Not that I was expecting you to be bringing a girlfriend back to stay the night…”

  A grin seemed to be threatening at the corners of his dad’s mouth. Matt was confused for a moment, and then suddenly saw how ridiculous the whole conversation must sound; it was a total role reversal of the angry parent giving his son a stern lecture over his choice of girlfriend. He felt an irresistible wave of giggles rise in his chest, and seconds later, the two Matts - elder and younger-were convulsed with laughter.

  Cat and her mum exchanged puzzled glances over the table.

  “Are you both hysterical or something? What’s the joke?” asked Sylvia Osgood, furrowing her brow in confusion.

  At that point, Cat suddenly got the giggles too; it was typical of her mother to have zero sense of humour. For Cat, the pointless laughter was a relief after everything that had happened. To her mother, it was inappropriate.

  “Matthew! Matthew!” Sylvia chastised Mr Ryan, finally causing him to control his guffaws, wipe his eyes and catch his breath.

  “I’m sorry, Sylvia! I don’t know where that came from,” said Matt’s dad, his voice still wobbly. “God, what a strange night!”

  “Um, hi…” a faltering voice came from the doorway.

  Only Cat noticed it at first; the men were too busy with their bad taste jokes and her mother was too busy glowering at them. She looked in puzzlement at the stocky lad who was hovering just outside the kitchen, with a full black bin-liner in his hands.

  “I finished clearing up the beer cans and stuff in the living room…” he shrugged.

  Cat still stared at him, wondering why this stranger had stuck around after everyone-even her other friends-had gone home, and why he felt the need to be such a Boy Scout that he was tidying the place up too.

  It was only when she spotted his specs, tucked into the neck of his T-shirt, that she recognised her rescuer once again.

  “Omigod! Come in!” she exclaimed, jumping to her feet and ushering him over to the table. Some automatic reflex that had been dormant for the last week sprang back into action, and she found herself smoothing her messed-up hair and giving him her best girlish smile.

  “Mum, this is-Who are you?” Cat interrupted herself, as the boy dumped the black bag by the bin and sat down on a spare chair next to her.

  “I’m, um, Zac,” he said, pulling his dark-rimmed glasses from their resting place and slipping them on.

  “Zac?” Cat repeated, a little dubiously.

  He doesn’t seem… she struggled to work out why such the name didn’t really suit such an unassuming-looking boy, then gave up as a wave of gratitude took hold.

  “Mum, Zac was my hero. He pulled me out of the den.”

  “I know,” her mum nodded. “We had a chat with him while the ambulance man was taking care of you. You’re a very lucky girl that Zac was around.”

  Cat looked into her rescuer’s face. He shuffled in his chair and looked embarrassed.

  “Oh, look at your specs!” she exclaimed, running her index finger down the crack in one lens. “Did that happen when you were trying to get me out?”

  “Yes, I think I battered them on the door at the top of the basement stairs,” he smiled at her, whipping his broken glasses off again.

  It was then that Cat saw the cute little gap between his front teeth. The boy in front of her wasn’t particularly handsome. From his clothes, she could see he wasn’t particularly trendy. At any other time, and at her sharp-tongued worst, Cat might have described him as a total wimp.

  But that wasn’t what she saw today. Leaping from one extreme of view to another, in typical Cat manner, this boy was suddenly transformed into the kindest, strongest sweetest knight in shining armour a girl could wish for…

  “Thank you,” Cat purred at Zac, not even aware that she was suddenly and comfortably back in flirt-mode.

  CHAPTER 21

  FAMILY TIES

  “So who was that boy who saved you?” asked Sonja as the crowd all huddled round the booth in the window of the End. It was late Monday afternoon and the post-mortem of the weekend was well under way.

  “You know that guy that Matt knows from Central Sounds?” Cat replied, her bright blonde hair bundled into short, spiky bunches.

  “No,” replied Sonja unhelpfully.

  “You do!” interrupted Matt. “Dylan, the tall one!”

  “Mmm, nah,” Sonja shook her head without bothering to check her memory banks. “Anyway, what’s this… Dylan got to do with it?”

  “Well, it was his younger brother.”

  Cat’s eyes were huge. The sparkly blue eyeshadow ringed round them made them look even bigger.

  Maya, sitting directly opposite her, was relieved to see that their friend seemed to be getting back to normal after her rough ride of the last week or so. Even if Cat’s ‘normal’ wasn’t anyone else’s.

  “And what did you say his name was?” Sonja continued with her questioning.

  “Zac…” Cat answered dreamily.

  “Zac?” Sonja pulled a face at Kerry and Sonja.

  Maya felt a movement beside her and knew from that-as well as Sonja’s resulting silently mouthed ‘ow!’-that Kerry had kicked her best friend under the table.

  Cat hadn’t noticed; she was too busy rummaging for her lipstick after devouring a slab of chocolate cake that Anna had brought over.

  “I didn’t see you when he brought you out of the house,” said Ollie, perched on a chair at the end of the booth. “I’d left to get Kerry home, she was feeling so bad. What does this bloke look like? Maybe I’d remember him from the party…”

  “Oh, he’s adorable!” Cat gushed. “He’s cute and cuddly and sweet!”

  “Sounds like a guinea pig…” muttered Sonja.

  Maya felt the movement beside her again and knew that Kerry had landed Sonja another shut-up-and-be-nice kick to the shin.

  “Ow!” said Sonja out loud this time. “I didn’t mean anything by that! Cat knows that! Don’t you, Cat?”

  “Course!” shrugged Cat good-naturedly. She was in too brilliant a mood to take offence at her cousin’s digs. She was lost in love-land.

  “Uh, Matt-can’t believe you lost so many CDs, mate. Lucky your decks weren’t too badly damaged. And good news about your dad not blowing up at you too much, after the fire and everything,” said Joe, trying to steer the conversation away from dangerous ground. When Sonja and Cat got going, he never knew where to look.

  “Well, yeah, I guess. But there’s one problem…”

  “What’s that?” asked Maya.

  Having gone through a few parent-related worries and surprises recently, she was intrigued to know what had happened with Matt.

  “You know all those stage lights I borrowed from Central Sounds? Well,” he winced, “the ones in the den were really expensive and they’re kind of… OK, totally wrecked now, so I’m going to have to pay for them. And dad won’t lend me the money. He says it’s going to cost enough to get the den sorted out. And it’s not just the cash-he’s got to put up with me sha
ring the same part of the house as him. To be honest, I think that’s doing his head in more!”

  “Can’t Central Sounds claim on their insurance? Or you claim on yours?” Ollie suggested.

  “Nope,” Matt shook his head. “I borrowed them unofficially as a favour from the shop, so they weren’t covered. And our household insurance doesn’t cover expensive technical equipment like that unless you itemise it first.”

  “Wow,” muttered Joe. “So what are you going to do?”

  “I’m…” Matt took a deep breath, “I’m going to sell my car. By the time I pay Central Sounds, I should have enough left to buy some clapped-out old banger to get me around.”

  “Matt and his precious Golf parting company?” Sonja gasped as the others sat aghast at the news. “That’s like the end of an era!”

  “Still,” smiled Maya. “At least it’s also maybe the start of a whole new era…”

  “How do you figure that one out?” asked Matt.

  “Well, you might have a new sister.”

  “Eh?”

  Matt was confused. Was his mother having another baby? And how would Maya know?

  “You said your dad was pretty serious about Cat’s mother,” Maya shrugged. “So maybe one of these days they’ll make it official and you and Cat will be brother and sister!”

  Matt looked momentarily shell-shocked, but not as shell-shocked as Cat, whose lipstick slid sideways off her mouth, leaving a streak of blood red on her cheek.

  “That,” proclaimed Cat, remembering her and Matt’s past status as boyfriend and girlfriend, “is too weird to think about.”

  Matt suddenly laughed at the sight of Cat’s comical expression.

  “No, it’s not. It would be fantastic!” he teased her, stretching over and wiping the smeared lipstick off her face with his finger. “Don’t you think so, sis?”

  Quick as a flash, Cat regained her composure and dotted a red blob of lipstick on the end of Matt’s nose. “If you say so-bro’!” she grinned back.

  Kerry stared off down the track, willing the train to come into view.

  “Come on…” she muttered, staring up at the station clock.

  The 7.20 from the city should have been in by now, but it was a Sunday evening, so there might, Kerry reasoned, be hold-ups due to engineering works or wrongly-shaped leaves or whatever else seemed to make trains run like tortoises these days.

  The plan had been that Sonja would phone Kerry the minute she got home, but Kerry had found herself increasingly fidgety and restless as the afternoon dragged by. She couldn’t wait to hear what had gone on in Sonja’s life over the last three days and so, after tea, she’d decided to surprise her best friend by meeting her at the railway station.

  Sonja had had an interview on Friday at her first-choice university for a place on their Public Relations course and Kerry was desperate to hear how she’d got on. But, more importantly, Kerry wanted to know how things had gone with Owen…

  “It’s so romantic!” Kerry had sighed over her beans on toast at the End-of-the-Line café that morning. “To think Sonja might get a place at uni so near Owen!”

  She’d noticed Ollie frown slightly when she’d said that, but before she could ask him why, Catrina began to talk.

  “Stuff the uni place-I just want to hear the gossip. I mean, staying over with Owen for the whole weekend!” Cat arched one perfectly plucked eyebrow suggestively.

  “I have to say I’m jealous.” commented Maya, ignoring Cat’s remark. She found that it was often the best way to deal with their mouthy friend.

  “Jealous? Of Owen?” asked Joe, confused.

  “No!” laughed Maya. “I’m not jealous of her choice of boyfriend-I’m jealous of her having such laid-back parents, who don’t give her a hard time about going to stay over with her boyfriend. If I ever suggested that to my mum and dad, I’d be grounded till I was at least thirty-five!”

  “Still, it’ll be weird if she moves so far away…” said Kerry thoughtfully.

  “Well, good luck to her,” muttered Matt through a mouthful of scrambled egg. “I mean, everything changes, doesn’t it?”

  “Not for some of us!” Ollie laughed as his break finished and he got up to get back to work in the kitchen. “I’m stuck here at the End; Matt, you’re still DJing locally; Cat’s at college five minutes away—”

  “Until I get my big break and move to London!” she interrupted brightly. Once her Beauty Therapy course was finished, Cat planned to head for the bright lights of the first TV company she could interest, starting out as a make-up artist and then wheedling her way in front of the cameras.

  “yeah, yeah, Cat,” said Ollie with a wry laugh, retying his short white apron around his waist. “And Kerry’s still going to be around, with her place at teacher training college.”

  “What about you, Joe? Where’re you going to end up?” asked Matt.

  Joe watched in fascination as his friend splodged a gallon of tomato sauce over what remained of his Sunday breakfast.

  “Dunno,” he replied, wincing at the sight of Matt shovelling the forkful of red goo into his mouth. “Nobody’s got back to me yet so I’ll just have to wait and see how it goes.”

  “As long as it’s not too far away,” said Ollie, walking backwards towards the counter. “We’ve got the band, remember!”

  Ollie gave Kerry a quick wink and then disappeared through the opening into the kitchen.

  But the wink aside, Kerry was still puzzled by her boyfriend’s earlier reaction to the mention of Sonja’s weekend. Later, at teatime, she’d got the chance to ask him about it when he’d phoned her.

  “Listen, Ol, I’ve decided to go and meet Sonja’s train,” she told him.

  “Cool! She’ll be well pleased,” he’d responded enthusiastically.

  “Yeah?” said Kerry, glad to hear him sound so positive. “Do you want to come?”

  “Nah-you go. I’m sure you two’ll want to have a girly chat,” he teased.

  “Ollie! That sounds so sexist and patronising!” she laughed.

  “And you know I don’t mean it that way. But you know what I do mean, don’t you? Son’ll want to tell you everything—”

  “So?” Kerry stepped in. “Don’t tell me you’re not curious.”

  “Well, yeah, of course I am, but I don’t think I want to hear all the gory details, thanks very much!”

  “Ollie!” gasped Kerry, feeling herself flush at his insinuation.

  “Aw, come on, Kez-I’m kidding!” he chuckled. “But I still think it’d be better if you went on your own.”

  Sitting on the floor in her hallway at home, Kerry twizzled a long, reddy-brown curl round her finger. It seemed the perfect point to jump in with her question.

  “Ol, you seemed a bit odd today, when I was talking about Sonja and Owen. How come?”

  “Well… I guess I’m just kind of worried about Sonny getting disappointed.”

  “Disappointed?”

  “Yeah… if it doesn’t work out the way she wants it to.”

  “What, you mean if she doesn’t get offered the place at uni? But she seems to think it went really well and—”

  “No, Kez,” Ollie interrupted, “I didn’t mean that. It’s more that I can’t help wondering if Owen might let her down.”

  “But why would he do that?” protested Kerry, her curl-entangled finger hovering in mid-air at Ollie’s surprising suggestion.

  “Well, I know they’re all lovey-dovey when they’re together—”

  “Oh, Ol-they’re more than lovey-dovey!” Kerry broke in. “They’re both crazy about each other; it’s totally obvious!”

  “I know, I know…” Ollie agreed. “All I’m saying is that, from Owen’s point of view, there’s a big difference between having a long-distance fling, and having the girl suddenly announce she’s trying to move to be closer to you. It’s like a really big responsibility, isn’t it?”

  Kerry didn’t say anything for a moment. That stuff hadn’t occurred to her b
efore; she’d just been caught up in the grand romance of the idea. But Ollie had a point. What if Sonja’s plans scared Owen off?

  “He’s such a nice guy, Ol. Do you honestly think he could be that mean?”

  “There’s nothing mean about it, Kez. But they’ve never spent long stretches of time together, have they? And to go from that to Sonja giving up her friends and family, and any other uni places she might have been considering, all for him… well, it’s a pretty huge commitment.”

  “I s’pose…” Kerry agreed reluctantly.

  “Listen, I could be totally wrong. In fact, I probably am,” Ollie tried to backtrack, hearing the disappointment and concern in his girlfriend’s voice. “All I’m saying is, if you go along and meet her, just be prepared to be a shoulder to cry on. It’s just that after spending the weekend together and talking about everything properly for the first time face to face, I wouldn’t be surprised if Owen ended up having second thoughts.”

  Oh, Sonja, what if Ollie’s right? fretted Kerry, finally spotting the lights of the approaching train.

  YOU SHOULD BE SO LUCKY!

  Sonja thinks she’s lucky in love, while Cat thinks her whole life has taken a turn for the better. Meanwhile, poor Matt’s completely muddled and thinks his luck’s nothing but bad.

  Do you think the only way luck happens is when the Luck Fairy’s in town? Or do you reckon you can sometimes make it happen yourself?

  Follow our lines of destiny to find out!

  1

  Do all your friends think you're the strong, together type, when really you're a bit of a wobbly jelly inside?

  YES Go to 2

  NO Go to 3

  2

  If you got dumped a couple of times in a row, would it make you feel like you're not destined to find true lurve?

  YES Go to 3

  NO Go to 4

  3

  There's a boy you fancy, and you think that he might like you, but you're not 100% sure. Do you hang back from making any kind of move in case you make a fool of yourself?