All For You: A steamy second chance romance. Kristina O'Grady

from her lashes. “Charmaine,” she whispered, “I missed you.”

      Charmaine threw her head back and laughed. “Ah, Lily I missed you too, but that doesn’t mean you couldn’t call.”

      Lily didn’t dare look away from Charmaine, she was a master at reading body language, but Lily knew Charmaine could read the thoughts swirling around behind her eyes.

      Charmaine raised an eyebrow. “Umhmm.” she said, clearly knowing something was up, but to Lily’s astonishment, she didn’t ask questions. “Come on inside and I’ll make you a cup of tea.” She linked her arm through Lily’s and led her up the steps to the house. “Do your parents know you’re home?” she asked as she opened the front door.

      Lily stumbled slightly. Her parents.

      “No,” she murmured. Her parents were going to kill her.

      Lily reminded herself that she was too old to worry about what her parents thought.

      But she was still their daughter and she hated it when she disappointed them. She hated when they disappointed her too. Not visiting very often had its advantages. She chuckled slightly under her breath. Thank God they didn’t know everything she’d been up to – or rather, what she hadn’t been up to for the last eight years. Otherwise they’d have discovered she was just one great big disappointment.

      She’d left town, well fled really, straight out of high school to make it big in Toronto. Her eyes had been filled with stars and she was determined to become one of them. Ha! It didn’t take long for those stars to fade as she was acquainted with reality. A string of dead-end jobs and equally dead-end boyfriends only proved to her that she was nothing better than the small town girl she was desperate to escape becoming when she had left Bassville to begin with.

      “I couldn’t believe it when you called, you must have been just down the road,” Charmaine interrupted her not-so-joyful reminiscing. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner you were coming home? Not that I mind, of course I don’t. But Georgie’s room is a disaster, and that’s the only spare space I’ve got. You don’t mind do you?”

      “She doesn’t mind?” Lily asked, following Charmaine down the stairs into the basement.

      “Oh she’s fine in with Rebecca. They actually get along really well, at least most of the time. Not sure why we gave them their own rooms in the first place. Twins like to be together, you know?”

      The basement had changed from the last time Lily had been in there. The walls were no longer the God-awful dark wood paneling of Charmaine’s youth, but a soft cream paint showcasing her children’s framed artwork. Lily stopped to admire the bright orange and yellow suns and purple trees hanging on the walls. They brought a smile to her face and made her stomach clench in fear. Would she even have a house to hang her baby’s artwork in?

      She gave herself a shake and followed after Charmaine. It wasn’t just the basement’s color scheme that had changed in her absence. Walls had been knocked down and it was now a large open space. The orange shag carpet was gone as well, her feet sank into the new red wool carpet and she longed to kick off her shoes and dig her bare toes into the plush pile. The light was coming from recessed lights set into the low ceiling; no more dodging hanging light fixtures.

      “In here,” Charmaine opened a door at the far end of the room and held it for Lily, patiently waiting for her to catch up.

      “You’ve done renovations. They’re nice.” Lily took one last look around the large room before following Charmaine into the bedroom.

      Lily peered around Charmaine’s shoulder. She hadn’t been kidding when she said it was a mess. Clothes were strewn from one end to the other, absolutely covering every surface. What was lurking underneath the clothes remained to be seen.

      “Oh God,” Charmaine groaned, “I didn’t realize it was this bad. I try not to come in here very often. It raises my blood pressure.” She stood in the doorway for a moment, took a deep breath and started picking up clothes and tossing them in a pile in the middle of the room. “I’m so sorry, but if you help me it’ll be faster.” She sent a guilty look over her shoulder at Lily.

      Lily just laughed and started picking clothes up off the bed, adding them to the pile. “I remember what our rooms looked like as teenagers. This isn’t any worse. Besides you know she’ll have a conniption when she gets home from school and finds out you’ve been through her stuff… just like we used to do.” The memories of their childhood together made Lily laugh. It was good to be back. “I can’t believe Georgie and Becs are ten already. Where did the time go? How did we become so old?”

      “Jesus, I don’t know. It seems like yesterday I found out I was pregnant with the girls. I was in such a panic.” Charmaine looked up at Lily. “I don’t know how I would have survived without you, you know that don’t you?”

      Lily averted her eyes, hoping Charmaine didn’t notice the color draining from her face. Stars popped in front of her vision. She sat down on the bed and folded one of Georgie’s shirts with her head as close to her knees as possible and tried to blink the stars away.

      “Lily?”

      Charmaine’s voice sounded far away. Lily took a deep breath and a long blink before looking up at her friend’s worried face. Blackness closed in on the edges for her vision. She blinked again and shook her head, trying desperately to clear it. She was not going to faint. Nausea rose up and she gave up the fight of trying to fool her friend and lay down on the bed, pulling her knees up to her chest.

      “Lily! Are you all right?” Charmaine dropped the clothes in her hands and rushed over to Lily. She sat down gingerly next to her.

      Her hand was cool on Lily’s hot skin.

      “What’s happened? Are you sick?”

      Lily managed a small groan before closing her eyes. She didn’t have the strength to go into details. Soon, she told herself, but first she needed to sleep.

      *

      Charmaine was still sitting next to her when she opened her eyes. She slowly sat up and looked at her friend. There was no more delaying. She had hoped she wouldn’t need to have this conversation for a few months yet, but from the look on her friend’s face, there was no use trying to get out of it.

      “Are you all right?” Charmaine asked quietly.

      She seemed nervous. A stab of remorse pierced Lily. She shouldn’t have made Charmaine worry. She should have told her when she called to tell her she was on her way.

      “I’m…” The words stuck as a lump in her throat. What was she going to do? Panic threatened to overwhelm her again and when she tried telling her friend she was fine all that came out was a huge racking sob.

      Charmaine wrapped her in her arms and rocked her like a baby. “It’s all right, it’s all right.” she murmured softly. She let her cry for a while, then, when Lily had finally got her sobs under control, Charmaine grabbed her hand and held it. “It’s okay, you can tell me anything,” she said, looking her in the eye.

      Another deep breath. She could do this. She had to. She had to tell someone, and she knew she couldn’t tell her parents.

      Not right now.

      Not yet. Not after all these years.

      Not after the lies she’d spun.

      Not after the lies they told her.

      Lily hung her head and shame washed over her. How could she have made such a mess out of her life? She was the top of her class in high school and had held the belief she could do anything she set her mind to. Her life in Toronto taught her differently. But she was unable to let go of her pride along the way and she had let her parents believe she was doing well. There was no way she could go home to them like this. Not when she came with absolutely nothing to show for all the years she’d been away. Well, nothing except for the little being she carried inside her.

      “I’m