CHARLIE DAVIES DATE NIGHT: Chapter 1

It’s here! FINALLY!

It’s Sunday night here in Sydney, also known as DATE NIGHT! Woooooooo!

Pour yourself a glass of wine, settle in and enjoy a romantic evening. (Well… Charlie’s version of one.)

A few notes:

If you aren’t caught up on the Charlie Davies series (we’re up to book 11, Breaking News, at this point), Date Night will contain spoilers.
- If that worries you, you should nip off and read the main series first. Don’t worry. We’ll be here waiting. 🦖
This story takes place the weekend after Not A Clue, Charlie Davies Mystery #12… which is not yet out.
- Obviously you don’t need to have read that book first or it would be very strange of me to post this.
Thirdly, I know I used those dot points weirdly above.
- I don’t care.

Reminder: you shouldn’t read Date Night unless you’ve finished Breaking News or you’re going to get smacked in the face with spoilers.

Table of Contents:

CHAPTER ONE: Frustrated

Weirdly nervous, I raised my hand and knocked on Adam’s office door to the rhythm of Sex on the Operating Table by Doctor Bulge, figuring he’d know immediately it was me.

“Come in, Charlie.”

See? Nailed it.

“Hey, boss man.” Why had I called him that? I never called him that. The look on his face told me he found it just as weird and uncomfortable as I did.

“Are you alright?”

“Fine,” I replied quickly. “Dandy. Both. Fine and dandy.”

He studied me for a moment. “What did you do?”

I glared at him, nerves replaced by growing anger. “Nothing! Why would you assume I’d done something?”

“Because you’re acting weird, you look nervous, and you’re you.”

I narrowed my eyes at him even though it was a pretty fair assumption. “I haven’t done anything naughty. At least not yet. I just had an idea for something fun we can do together tonight.”

He nodded at the computer. “I’m talking to Eli, if this is a conversation you’d rather have in private.”

“Oh, it’s not a sex thing.”

“Ouch,” said Eli. “She really shot you down there, buddy. Sorry. That hurt to watch.”

The tiny Eli trapped in the computer (which is definitely how the internet works) wasn’t exactly correct about that. I wasn’t the one shutting the sex thing down. Although I currently had stitches in my upper leg and stomach as well as extensive bruising all over my body, I was totally up for trying anyway, but Adam thought it was better if we waited until I didn’t look so much like a corpse who’d forgotten to lay down and stop moving. That wasn’t exactly what he’d said – he’d phrased it something more along the lines of ‘I don’t want to hurt you’ – but whatever. My story’s better.

“I’ll live,” said Adam, responding to his brother.

“Are you guys fighting again? What happened?” Eli sounded concerned.

I walked behind Adam’s desk dragging the spare wheelie chair and plonked down beside him.

“Not fighting,” Adam said.

“Just frustrated,” I said, regretting the words the second they left my mouth. I mean, they were true, but I so didn’t want to encourage Eli to pry further. Too late.

His eyes lit up. “Sorry, what?”

“Shut up. Nothing. Go away.”

“Seriously?” said Adam, looking at me. “And to think you had the audacity to suggest that I’d be the one to leak details about our relationship to my brother.”

“Why are you frustrated? Just have sex. Make out now. Right now. I’ll wait.”

We both stared at the screen with what I imagine were identical unimpressed looks.

“Fine, I guess you don’t have to do it in front of me, but why not when I’m not around?” He glanced at me. “Did you get injured in an inopportune way?”

I nodded. “Several inopportune ways.”

“Hmm.” He nodded thoughtfully. “Your clumsiness could be a problem in your quest to achieve bang.”

“We don’t need to discuss this as a group,” said Adam. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“I agree. Bye, Eli.”

“Aw, it’s so cute when you guys gang up on me. There are things you can do to work around your injuries, that’s all I’m –”

Adam hung up on him. “Frustrated?”

“You seem even more frustrated with me now.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think that’s possible.” That was true. He had seemed a little cranky with me recently, which was the main reason I wanted to do something together. Cheer him up, you know. Although whether spending more time with me would actually achieve that remained to be seen. “What did you want to do tonight, anyway? You said you had an idea.”

I nodded, pulling the slightly crumpled tickets to what was sure to be the world’s worst relationship seminar out of my pocket and handing them to him. My heart was beating kind of fast, nervous that he’d think my idea was terrible. “I thought since we can’t really go on a regular date in case someone catches us, we could go to a thing where there won’t be anyone else we know and hang out there.”

He stared at the tickets for a moment. “Marriage counselling?” he said. “You just about fell over yesterday when I used the word ‘girlfriend’ and now you’re suggesting this?”

“OK, firstly, I was falling over independently to what you were saying. Secondly, I just thought we should wait until the body of my last relationship was cold before bringing out the official terminology, that’s all. And wait, is that the real reason you’ve been so cranky with me lately?”

“No.”

“Methinks you responded a bit too quickly.”

“You really think out of all the things you’ve done lately, that’s the one I’m going to get annoyed over?”

“I allegedly bleached one hypothetical murder scene. That’s no reason to be this snippy.” I frowned. “You’re really mad about the other thing.”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine. You’re upset with me.” My eyes widened. “My god, maybe we actually do need this counselling.”

He raised an eyebrow. “If you didn’t already think that, why did you suggest going along?”

“Some of my friends bought me tickets so I could fix my relationship with James because apparently I’ve made the biggest mistake of my life and no one else could possibly love me unless they were so fundamentally flawed they could no longer be considered human – and yes I am quoting directly.”

“I’m flattered.”

“To be fair, other than you, who the hell would put up with this?” I gestured up and down myself.

He nodded. “You make a good point.”

“So anyway, I have two tickets to this seminar this weekend which I was intending to throw away, but then I decided to look up the people who run it and wow. We absolutely have to go.”

His brow wrinkled. He didn’t look convinced. “Why?”

“Because they’re total scam artists.”

“And that’s a reason we should go? I don’t know if I get your logic.”

“I watched two minutes of a video from them and I already know they hate each other. It’s going to be hilarious. You’ll love it. I also read an excerpt from their book and the advice they give… Look. Trust me. Comedy gold.”

“You realise this is the worst first date idea in history, right?”

My reply came out defensive. “I just thought it might be fun to tease them together. As a couple. But I guess you don’t want to be my pre-boyfriend after all. Fine. Who cares? Not me. So there.”

Yeah, I said ‘so there’ aloud. Definitely won that argument.

His brow wrinkled. “Why are you so cranky?”

“Because I just asked you on a date and you said it was the worst idea in history.”

“I didn’t say no.”

My eyebrows arched. “If that was your version of agreeing, we may need to work on our communication skills at marriage camp.”

He smirked. “I like the concept. A date somewhere so terrible that there’s no chance we’ll run into anyone we know.”

“Exactly. Plus, you know, we can’t do the couples activity we actually want to be doing and maybe this will distract us for a night.”

He smiled in what can only be described as a wicked way, which was really unfair since I’d literally just mentioned that we couldn’t do anything wicked to each other at all, no matter how much we wanted to.

“It’s tonight?”

“The orientation is tonight. The actual scam begins tomorrow.”

His smile grew wider. “Does it take place at a hotel?”

I nodded.

“And do we have a room booked?” His voice came out low and kind of gravelly.

“Adam, you are not allowed to talk to me in that tone when you refuse to so much as get shirtless in front of me. It’s very unfair.”

“You were the one who said you couldn’t control yourself if I bared my torso.”

I bit my lip. “I could try.”

“Maybe. If you behave.” He stood. “We should pack our bags and head to the hotel, then. I can’t wait to see this room.”

CHAPTER ONE: Frustrated

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