A la Carte

Chapter 4

Crash! The sound of shattering glass sounded throughout the apartment, echoing off the bare walls.

"Ah shit!" Charlotte exclaimed as she stared at the face down picture frame on the floor. For the past week, in between work, she had been packing up her apartment and systematically taking her stuff to the storage complex. Well, whenever Matt let her borrow his car, that is. She gingerly picked it up, avoiding the shards of shattered glass. The photo was of her and her family, the one family holiday they had together where everyone was happy and smiling. She stared at it a bit longer before getting up to fetch a dustpan to clean up the mess. Her childhood was messy and not a place she liked to revisit often. Her eyes brimmed with tears and she quickly blinked them away. The opening notes of Tightrope by Walk The Moon burst through the eerie silence, she sighed, picked up her phone and without checking the caller ID answered.

"Hello?"

"Hey Char! You busy?" Betty asked excitedly.

"Not really, why?"

"I want to go check the apartment out, want to come with?" Betty asked.

"Yeah, where is it?" Charlotte asked.

"No worries, I'll just come pick you up, okay?"

"Cool! See you in a bit! "Charlotte said excitedly, before hanging up. She sighed as she taped the last box shut and pushed it against the bare white wall of her bedroom. The doorbell rang and Charlotte quickly straightened herself out before opening the door, revealing a beaming Betty and a man dressed in beige slacks and a white shirt. He had a mop of black hair and pointy nose and the similarity to Betty was unmistakable.

"Hi! This is my cousin Edward, but you can just call him Ed." Betty introduced. Charlotte smiled and shook his hand.

"It's nice to meet you."

"Likewise." Ed said his voice surprisingly deep. Ed was friendly, but also quite shy, he didn't speak much as they drove to his apartment .He lived in a really nice neighbourhood, in fact he owned one of the penthouse apartments in a building which had three. He was an IT technician and earned loads of money travelling and working for huge corporations around the world, apparently he was one of the best. The apartment was beautiful it was decorated in dark blues, greys and creams and was a bachelor pad in every sense. There were three rooms, all en-suites and a massive open plan kitchen which lead straight into the dining area and lounge. On almost every wall, was a piece of colourful abstract art, which brightened up the apartment considerably. The lounge had a dark grey L- shaped couch and flat screen TV and at the press of a button you could close the window with a dark blue curtain, obscuring your view of the city below. The apartment was amazing, Betty claimed the cream room and Charlotte was more than happy to take blue room, named purely on what colours they were decorated in.

"This is amazing don't you think?" Betty asked excitedly. Charlotte nodded in agreement as they made their way back to the car. Edward had explained exactly what he expected of them while he was away, basically he just didn't want them to break his apartment down, and it seemed that he trusted them both not to.

"I can't wait to actually move in!" Betty continued, "We're going to have so much fun!" She actually squealed after she said that, Charlotte just laughed.

The next week flew by and Charlotte didn't catch a glimpse of either Dimitri or Derek at the Bistro.

"Hey, is Charlotte here?" Charlotte stopped in her tracks when she saw Ed standing in the Bistro, talking to Amanda. He turned towards her and smiled wildly.

"Hi, Betty asked me to give you a lift home to get your stuff, so you can sleep in your 'new' home tonight." He explained.