Page 32 of The Island in Bramble Bay
Jared looked much the same as he had the last time Charlie had seen him. Maybe a little more relaxed in the way he was dressed and carrying a little more weight.
‘I’m still a member,’ he said shrugging. ‘You’re staying here?’
‘Yeah, still a member too.’
A brief silence descended between them. It was always going to be awkward.
‘Do you want to join me?’ Jared asked, gesturing to a table next to the window which had what also looked like a Jack Daniels sitting on it.
‘Sure. Another drink?’
Jared nodded.
‘Still a JD man?’
Another nod and a half-smile. It was hard to entirely forget the years of friendship that had gone before. Charlie ordered two more doubles from the bar and followed Jared over to the table.
‘How’ve you been?’ Jared asked warily. His eyes kept flicking to look at Charlie but he seemed unable to make normal eye contact. He was just as nervous, Charlie realised, and he briefly felt a pang of sympathy for Jared having made the first move.
‘Well, you know, not great for a while. But lately, really good. I’ve met someone…’
‘That’s great, Charlie, great man.’ Jared looked visibly relieved as if what he’d done was less of an issue if Charlie was no longer pining for Jessica.
‘How about you?’ Charlie braced himself to hear not only about Jared but Jessica too. To know what had happened after all this time. Jared’s eyes were looking elsewhere, at Maggie, Charlie saw as he turned to see, who was walking towards them, smiling, with her coat over her arm.
‘Hey, honey,’ said Charlie standing up and pecking her on the cheek. ‘This is Jared. He came here for a pre-drink drink too. Jared, Maggie Cassidy.’
Jared stood up and offered his hand to Maggie which she took with a broad smile.
‘Great to meet you, Maggie,’ he said, shaking her hand and nodding his head politely before sitting down again.
‘Nice to meet you, Jared.’
‘Let me get you a drink,’ said Charlie about to gesture for the barman.
‘No, I won’t stop. I just wanted to let you know that I’m nipping out to that bookshop we saw today. I’ll see you later.’ She reached up and kissed him on the cheek and gave his hand a squeeze of encouragement at the same time.
He and Jared watched her walk away before Jared said, ‘She seems great, Charlie.’ He looked sincere and sounded a little sad. ‘You know it never came to anything… with Jess.’
Charlie sighed. ‘I don’t know if that’s worse than if you were still with her. At least it would have been something if you’d loved each other.’
‘After you left, I was working real hard, man, I’m not surprised you… y’know. There was a lot to pick up and she wasn’t interested in being with anyone who didn’t want to party all the time. And that’s all we’d done. I’m so sorry for what happened. Really.’
So this was why he’d come. He needed forgiveness, thought Charlie. At least he knew what he’d done. The first email he’d had from Jared was almost flippant about what had gone on but now Charlie could see his old friend sat opposite him. The Jared who wouldn’t have dreamed of taking the girl Charlie loved. The guy who wanted nothing more than to write code twenty-four-seven.
‘I’m sorry I never got in touch after. It took me a long time to get myself together,’ said Charlie. Every word was like a little piece of weight drifting off his shoulders and he realised how much sadness and regret he’d still been carrying with him.
‘It wasn’t your fault at all, any of it. I left you to it, at work, you were carrying the place alone. I want to make amends and I thought that selling the company would kind of draw a line under it. For you.’
‘Is that what you want too?’ Having just felt a sense of relief, Charlie didn’t need to replace that with guilt over Jared going along with the deal for Charlie’s benefit. ‘’Cause I don’t mind either way, Jared. If you want to carry on without me, buy me out. We don’t have to exit.’
‘I think it’s the right time. The market’s right and it’s a good offer. I’ve taken a step back from the day-to-day stuff anyway so I know it’ll be fine without us. Neither of us will need to work again.’ He sounded like he was joking but he didn’t smile. Charlie knew it was because neither of them could live with doing nothing.
‘I’ve been doing a bit of open-source development lately. I had a couple of weeks off work and was bored. I’d forgotten how much I love coding and there wasn’t enough of that once the business grew.’
‘Yeah, I miss that too. Remember back at the start we’d wake up and code ‘til we dropped in the middle of the night?’
‘Those were the days, huh?’ said Charlie managing a smile. ‘What are you going to do?’
