The Fortune Teller

“Don’t bother talking to me until I have had my caffeine shot.” Rosie growled as she trudged into the kitchen.

Charlotte turned to face her friend with a gratifying smirk. Charlotte was sat down at the kitchen table, with a bowl of Shreddies whilst reading yesterdays newspaper, catching up on the current affairs that she failed to keep an eye on. Thor was sitting in her lap, still asleep. Like Oliver. Charlotte blushed when thinking of him. She hardly had a firm recollection of last night, all she remembered was getting kicked out of her bed and sleeping in Oliver’s. Then waking up was a whole new experience. She somehow ended up intertwined with Oliver, their legs were tangled together. Oliver’s arm was securely locked around her. She had no recollection of how that happened either. She just remembered opening her eyes to seeing Oliver’s peaceful sleeping face only millisecond away from hers. And Charlotte did the only logical thing she could do at eight am in the morning, run out of bed and try to forget it.

Now Rosie joined her, Charlotte felt happier, she needed company, preferably not Rissa’s or Tom’s at least for a day or two. Rosie gurgled her coffee down as quickly as she could, she planted herself opposite Charlotte. Her eyes gradually getting livelier by the second, which was a clear improvement on both their behalves, Rosie smiled widely, a good sign.

“Good morning. Why are you up so early?” Charlotte asked accusingly, raising her eyebrow.

“Hun, the two bunny rabbits have kept everyone up all night, surprised I am not fuckin’ killing them right now.” Rosie sent a glare towards the stairs, she turned back to face her friend and smiled widely. “But if those two were in Tom’s and yours bedroom, where did you sleep last night missy?”

Charlotte’s eyes widened, doe eyed. “Er-”

“Caught red handed I see, with Oliver. I already know.” Rosie smirked with victory lit in her eyes.

“But-” Charlotte interjected.

“No, buts, you could’ve happily come into my room and I could’ve kicked out Lee for you. But you chose Oliver, now babe. You can’t lie to me now.” Rosie’s smirk grew bigger the more she talked.

“Whatever, no matter what I say, you will ignore me and carry on with this fantasy you’ve got goi-” Charlotte trailed off when Oliver walked into the kitchen. Her cheeks flew into another one of her infamous furious blushes.

Rosie grinned widely, her eyes twinkling with a mischievous glint. “Oliver, good mornin’ did you sleep well?” Rosie asked, far too innocently.

Charlotte concentrated on the newspaper before her. She sneaked a look at Oliver, whose eyes met with hers. He shot Charlotte a cheeky smile before smothering it with a composed neutral stare as he met Rosie’s eyes.

“Lovely, best sleep I’ve had.” Oliver smirked.

Charlotte could tell both of them were waiting for her input, but she stayed mute and read remaining of what was left of the cheap gossip article, Cheryl Cole’s life was seemingly more interesting than her silly school girl infatuation with Oliver.

“That’s great. Don’t know how you two slept without keeping unfortunately awake by the bunnies.” Rosie groaned, banging her head on the table with frustration.

Charlotte raised her eyes off the gossip article and rolled her eyes with utter annoyance. “Please don’t remind me. I think I am going to avoid that room at all costs.”

“Yeh can stay in mine, sure Riss won’t mind.” Oliver offered.

Rosie’s eyebrows rose. But Charlotte avoided staring at Rosie for too long, instead she took a deep breath with a small smile upon her lips. “I will take you up on that offer.”

***

As soon as everyone was downstairs, changed and ready, Rissa was going through ideas of the agenda for today. Charlotte was sat on the floor, unfortunately in the living room it didn’t hold as much room as they thought it would. The dark leather couches were full to the brim, everyone squeezing as much as they could. Rissa was standing in front of the television, reading off her list.

“They’ve got this cute like miniature Scandinavian market a couple of streets away, we will go there tonight. Then all today, we can go outside in the snow!” Rissa said. “Then tomorrow we can draw out our secret santa-”

“Babe, calm yeh self down.” Vegan shouted from his corner of the room.

“Shut it Vegan.” Rissa shouted back.

“Okay, that sounds great Riss, try not to force anythin’ on anyone.” Tom said with a smile.

“He’s fuckin’ whipped.” Matt smirked.

“Yeh just jealous, since yeh haven’t had any since Odina the Swedish bitch.” Oliver chuckled. He nudged Charlotte, who grinned back, rolling her eyes at their silly banter.

“Don’t yeh start, Oli, otherwise cat will be out of the bag!” Matt retorted. His smirk was becoming more mischievous, and it scared Charlotte slightly.

“I’d advise yeh to shut it if yeh knew what was best for yeh mate.” Oliver snapped.

Charlotte winced at the tone of his voice, she understood and heard stories that Oliver was rather rash and could be temperamental. She knew of his broody side and sympathises with it. But hearing that tone of voice from him, made her shiver, she just hoped she would never be the one who it was directed at. She noticed Matt shut up immediately, his mouth tightened in a thin line. Charlotte glanced at Oliver, beside her, who was almost sulking. She leaned her head on his shoulder, in a way of comfort or support. Oliver seemed to detect this and let his body relax from the tenseness. All Charlotte could see now was the look Rosie was giving her, her face beaming with pride. Charlotte gnawed on her lip, preventing herself from pulling a childish face at her annoying best friend.

It was only a few hours later, when everyone had the sudden motivation to go and venture. Charlotte noted that Robyn was holed upstairs in her room, apparently un-amused by anything that was occurring. Oliver mentioned that she only came for the night life, nothing more or less, and basically couldn’t care less which Charlotte found surprising happiness at this.

Rissa gave everyone their designated Christmas jumper, certain people had matching jumpers on. Charlotte had a cute little robin on the front of hers surrounded by snow, it was a navy, a cashmere feel to it, felt expensive. She realised Oliver had the same one as her, along with Lee. They looked out of place in their jumpers, almost humorous. But it was not as worse as Tom who was in a bright green jumper with Santa on the front, with Rissa matching. Tom was not pleased. He voiced his opinion of his jumper in every conversation.

Charlotte was wrapped up, at least two pairs of thick leggings on, along with her wellingtons. She had her trench coat on, with her scarf. She felt as if she was in her own warm bubble. She lost her beanie in Tom’s room and couldn’t find it.

“I think we are heading down to the Scandinavian market now.” Rosie shouted as we started walking down the street.

Charlotte was in between Oliver and Matt, who were back to being good friends again. Charlotte threaded her arms through both Matt’s and Oliver’s so that if she fell, she could hopefully rely on them both. Rissa was directing them in a maze of winding streets towards the market. It was relatively small but ideal size for minor Christmas shopping. Charlotte was mesmerized by the little mini cottage like stalls they had, each stall was selling something different, there was one selling antiques, another was selling vintage sweets, Charlotte’s personal favourite was the crêpe stall, then another little kooky clothing stall. Charlotte’s eyes lit up as she looked at each one. She could smell a wave of nose tingling spices mixed with a warm smell of chocolate, it matched up with the sight of the place. Matt wandered off to the sweet stall, where as Charlotte kept her hold on Oliver somehow their hands grasped hold of each other. Charlotte was oblivious. She was enticed by the stalls, walking towards the kooky clothing stall.

“You are so buying me a crêpe later.” Charlotte grinned jokingly.

She didn’t bother looking at Oliver’s disbelieving reaction. She was entirely focused on the weird and bizarre items of clothing. There was knitted hats made in weird wool or rather ugly colours, but it was something different, a breath of fresh air. Oliver chuckled to himself, he pointed towards a beanie styled hat that was Aztec patterned in the most unflattering of colours, mixture of a curry yellow and dark red with a random stripe of bright blue, but aside from that it had two mock furry wolf ears on top of it. Oliver watched Charlotte’s eyes widen in delight.

“That is ugly yet gorgeous.” Charlotte giggled. She picked it up and placed it on her head. She laughed harder at Oliver’s facial expression. “You so need one too, I can’t be a freak on my own.” Charlotte grinned as she picked out a similar hat to hers just with slightly different colours.

“Oh no, yeh don’t,” Oliver laughed, moving away from her.

Charlotte pouted at Oliver, trying to use her big eyes to fit the expression of puppy dog eyes. Oliver slowly but unwillingly gave in, he rolled his eyes, snatching the horrid hat out of Charlotte’s grasp who laughed with glee as he put it on.

“Ooh Oli, don’t yeh look fancy and neat.” Tom sniggered. His camera used as a third eye as he focused in on both Charlotte and Oliver, he quickly snapped a photo. “C’mon a bit more enthusiasm mate.”

Both Charlotte and Oliver decided to stick their tongues out at the camera, Charlotte also sticking her middle finger at the camera too. Tom sniggered even more, rolling his eyes playfully as he walked away, snapping photographs of Lee on the floor in the snow.

Oliver went into his pockets and got out a twenty pound note, leaving it in front of the cashier who grinned at them both. “We’ll have both of them, thanks.”

Charlotte looked at Oliver with surprise. “Seriously? It’s only some cheap shite, you honestly don’t mind.”

“Lottie, if I didn’t give a shit I wouldn’t have bought it, plus it kind of suits yeh.” Oliver smirked.

Charlotte rolled her eyes playfully, placing her hat on properly, making sure her hair wasn’t bunched all round the place. She leaned her head on Oliver’s shoulder with a soft smile. “Thank you Oli, I love it. Plus your put everyone to shame in your hat.”

“Is that another way to say it looks fuckin’ hideous?” Oliver questioned teasingly.

“Yep!” Charlotte grinned, popping the ‘p’.

“Okay, yeh now owe me one of these weird herbal mixed beers.” Oliver said, pointing towards the stand where Rissa was glugging down a rather odd coloured beer.

Charlotte’s eyes widened, she looked at Oliver who had a cheeky smile on his face which suited his weird hat. She couldn’t help but not grin widely at how he looked. “Okay, whatever floats your boat.” They both walked towards the beer stall, Matt joined them babbling about this bong he bought for himself as an early Christmas present.

As they walked up to the stall, Charlotte’s nose scrunched up. The smell was rather bitter spiced, a smell that either made you gag or hold your breath. She watched Rissa spit out her gulp, retching as she tried to rid of the taste in her own mouth. Charlotte’s eyes widened further, she glanced at Oliver who was smirking, almost as if he was rallying himself up for the challenge.

“Whoever gags first owes the opposite person free drinks the whole time we are here.” Charlotte offered, her lips pulling into a sneaky smile.

Both Oliver and Matt shared a smirk before nodding their heads childishly. Charlotte rolled her eyes, ordering two beers for them each, putting the money down. She grabbed hold of both pints, handing one to Matt and the other to Oliver.

“Come here, Tom please!” Charlotte hollered. Tom turned his attention away from the sweet stall and made his way towards to them. “Document this.”

Tom smirked watching both his brother and his mate have a stare down. Testosterone filled the air with anticipation. He had his camera to his eye, Charlotte watched him use the camera to focus on them both. She was giggling away at both of them swigging it down. She saw the concentration in Oliver’s eyes. Matt’s eyes started to water as he continued to drink, his whole body tensed as he continued. Oliver continued, obviously not fazing him, he didn’t even wince. Charlotte could smell that weird concoction, she winced. With an inch left, Matt choked up and spat it out. His eyes were screwed up as he stuck his tongue out.

“Fuck yeah! Matt suck me dick, yeh owe me one.” Oliver grinned boyishly, as he finished his drink off.

Charlotte couldn’t help but laugh at both their expressions, one was elated happiness, the other was absolute disgust. Oliver winked at Charlotte, wrapping his arm around her shoulder. He leaned in to whisper into her ear, but she moved away, her nose pinched up. Oliver couldn’t help but be offended, he raised an eyebrow.

“Your breath stinks Oli, what the fuck is in that thing?” Charlotte laughed.

She felt warm at Oliver’s offended expression, in a way it showed that he cared enough for her, to care about her actions. Oliver’s offended expression soon softened with realisation and turned into a sheepish smile.

“Sorry Lottie. But don’t yeh think the winner deserves a kiss?” Oliver asked, raising both his eyebrows.

Charlotte scoffed, hiding her blush as well as she could. There was no way she could just agree and impulsively kiss Oliver, as much as she would like to, it wasn’t like her. She stared in his eyes to spot any sincerity, but as always there was that mischievous glint mixed in with his deep muddy brown eyes.

“Dream on babe,” Charlotte scoffed.

Shortly afterwards, they wandered through the snow towards their restaurant for the night. Charlotte was walking with Rosie, leaning her head on her best friend’s shoulder, both absorbed in a happy silence. Charlotte smiled as they walked through the door of the restaurant, the warmth of the restaurant hit them all like a brick. She swore she could feel her cheeks burn as if she was defrosting.

They all assembled themselves in their circular booth, Charlotte found herself sitting beside Oliver and then Rosie was on her left, Jona called dibs on sitting opposite Charlotte. Everyone else slotted in the gaps. Eating out with all of them was one of the most difficult things, Charlotte found. Since most of them were vegan, vegetarian or pescetarian, she also found that no one was a preacher either. Her last few experiences with vegetarians always ended up with constant guilt trips about her eating habits that infuriated her. Charlotte used to get enough grief over the fact that she was slim and often accused anorexic, which is to no fault of her own. But no one gave too shits if you had quorn or juicy steak, you were just accepted for who you are and dealt with it.

That explained how they got onto the subject of embarrassing ex’s. Matt was on a roll with his never ending list of ex girlfriends, all who each had some sort of weird sexual fetish. Tom admitted his first girlfriend had an uncanny resemblance to Marilyn Manson that he questioned his own sexuality then hers.

“No, I think Charlotte win’s worst ex boyfriend.” Rosie giggled, her eyes glazing as she thought back to the memory.

Charlotte groaned loudly, putting her head into her hands with shame. “Please no, Rosie.”

Oliver watched them with an amused expression. “C’mon bird, spill.”

Rosie burst into another fit of giggles. “I won’t go into detail but basically during year eleven, Charlotte got her second boyfriend, he was from Poland-”

“France you idiot,” Charlotte corrected.

Rosie shrugged, rolling her eyes. “Whatever, but he was like the talk of the school, a real French looker, y’know this whole new boy vibe going on, which girl will he pick. He picked Charlotte to go on a date-”

“It was a group outing to the cinema!” Charlotte mumbled in her hands.

Rosie laughed harder, holding her sides. “They copped off in the cinema, then he took her home-”

“Ey Charlie I wouldn’t think yeh to be the type to that.” Tom said, all the guys nodded their heads in agreement. Charlotte sunk further into her seat with shame.

“She was reckless in school but anyway, they got home, he took off his shoes and he was about two foot shorter.” Rosie squealed as she went into another fit of giggles.

Charlotte lifted her head up. She didn’t even dare to look at Oliver. Her cheeks were in a blood red blush, deepening red by the second.

“He was then nicknamed Hobbit afterwards, poor Charlie seemed to attract a lot of extremely short boys after that.” Rosie grinned.

‘I hate you’ Charlotte mouthed to her. She glanced at Rissa who was muffling her laughter. “It was so not funny, he was a short arse and he wore height enhancing shoes. It was so shameful, especially since he kept hitting on me afterwards, but all I got was Hobbit loving jokes.”

“The best was ‘You know what they say about big feet’ and boy is that phrase right.” Rosie tittered.

“No I am sorry but ‘Will you be my Precioussss?’ was the best one I got.” Charlotte cracked a small smile at the memory.

“I still can’t get over the fact that you were a slag. You are so innocent!” Jona exclaimed.

“My slag days are behind me, thankfully. But c’mon, doesn’t every teenager go through the slag phase?” Charlotte argued in her own defence. She swore she heard a few of the guys groan.

“Yeah, Oli is still goin’ through his now.” Vegan smirked.

Charlotte looked at Oliver who rolled his eyes and chuckled along. He gave Charlotte a smirk, she rolled her eyes playfully. She didn’t notice how close they were sitting together, their arms brushing along with their legs. She couldn’t wipe that silly smile off her face, she swore he was still edging closer to her. Charlotte was getting quite tipsy off the wine, so she couldn’t take full blame for whatever might happen.

“Yeah Vegan, coming from yeh that is bull shit, at least I can say I wasn’t the one who got tested for a std.” Oliver grinned wickedly at Vegan.

Vegan groaned loudly. “That was a mistake. Yeh said yeh wouldn’t bring that back up mate.”

“I remember that, our tour manager then said no more birds on the bus.” Lee laughed.

“Shame that rule didn’t apply to her.” Jona joked.

And just like that, the embarrassment was soon over and forgotten. Charlotte regained normal composure. She opted for shooting death glares at Rosie, who was giggling quietly to herself for the night. Rissa casually dropped in Lord of The Rings quotes throughout the night, according to Oliver she used to be a fanatic, borderline obsessive. They finished their meal shortly afterwards, just ordering continuous drinks, everyone getting slightly drunker by the second. Also without the annoying presence of Robyn made the whole night extremely better.

“I think I am goin’ to head back.” Oliver announced.

“No no no no. Stop, we need to toast first!” Rissa shouted at him.

Charlotte raised her eyebrows at Oliver, who shrugged back with a little shake in his head. She watched Rissa order another round of drinks. Once everyone had a drink in their hands, whether alcoholic or not. Rissa smiled softly, almost taking her time to look at each one of us. Charlotte was still trying to figure out what was up her sleeve.

“A toast to friendship.” Rissa started.

A chorus of mock gags echoed from everyone else, whilst Tom looked troubled.

“Shut up and toast.” Rissa snapped. “A toast to friendship and fuck-tards, here’s to a merry Christmas and a special one since you are all home to celebrate it for once.” Rissa beamed a cheesy grin.

“Cheers!” Everyone else mumbled together, clashing their drinks boisterously against others.

Charlotte giggled as she finished off one of her countless glasses of wine. She had that warm and fuzzy feeling inside. Her cheeks numb and flushed pink. Her speech came out all slurred, the happy reasons to drink. She was certainly not the only one who was intoxicated, Rissa and Rosie were far worse than near enough all the lads too, apart from Jona, who kept himself amused taking the piss out of everyone. Oliver left shortly after the toast. He wanted to make sure that Robyn was okay.

“I wanna go home now.” Charlotte mumbled, her lips shaping into a pout.

“Charlie, don’t think that is a wise decision. At least wait until someone is ready.” Jona advised.

Charlotte glared at him, crossing her arms stubbornly. “I want to go now.” She watched Jona smirk widely. “Pretty please Jona.”

Jona looked round at the rest of the guys, to check out which one was more sober and responsible. His eyes landed on Tom who was shaking his head in shame at Rissa’s rendition of All I Want for Christmas is You.

“I am gonna take Charlie home, she is pulling a tantrum.” Jona told Tom.

Tom nodded his head. “I can imagine everyone will be followin’ yeh shortly.”

Charlotte beamed happily at Jona, as she made her way out of the booth, stumbling towards Jona like baby giraffe on her wobbly egs. Jona controlled himself from laughing, he placed a supporting arm around her waist and couldn’t help but think to himself that Oli managed to lose out on this. Jona could sense that his band mate has an infatuation with Charlotte and maybe her for him. But he knew that she was far too good for him. He couldn’t help but think that maybe Charlotte might be the girl to help alter Oliver into being that human being that Oliver always wants to be. Jona kept these views quietly to himself. He didn’t want to scare Charlotte nor Oliver.

“You are bein’ very very very quiet Mr Jona.” Charlotte giggled.

They stepped outside into the cold air, Charlotte barely felt it. Her head was covered by the hat Oliver bought for her previously in that night. Her cheeks were still flushed with the alcohol, it was clearly strong in her system as she managed to slip and slide all over the icy snow, luckily Jona’s grip on her was steady.

“Sorry Miss Charlotte, what do you want to talk about?” Jona asked.

Charlotte sighed, making cold mists of her breath. “How nice is Christmas time?”

Jona rolled his eyes. “Yes, it is lovely, certainly has a British atmosphere.”

“I thought so, Christmas is my favourite time of the year, the snow, the presents, the woolly jumpers, the films, I could go on forever and ever and ever about my favourite things.”

“You are beginning to sound like Julie Andrews in Sound of Music.” Jona groaned.

“Ooops. Are we there yet?” Charlotte asked.

Jona suppressed another groan. “Nearly, hang on.”

Charlotte giggled, focusing on where her feet were going. If it weren’t for Jona’s grip, she’d be on the floor by now and broken several bones no doubt, which is not what she needs.

“We are here. The door’s open thank fuck.” Jona grumbled.

Charlotte was helped into the cottage by Jona, who didn’t look very impressed. She swore she could see him fighting a smile. She noticed that all was quiet. The shock of the cold air managed to sober Charlotte up quite a bit, not that much. But she was now able to stand on her own two feet without stumbling.

Jona made his way to the living room then shouted as he backtracked out. Charlotte’s curiosity perked then, she walked towards him, poking her head round the door to see half naked Oliver and naked Robyn. She groaned, throwing her hands to her eyes as she back stepped out of the room into a furious Jona.

“For fuck sake Oli, go fucking it up as always.” Jona shouted.

Charlotte was still quite befuddled as Jona was beside himself with anger. She was in her own little world, but reality shook her when Oliver came out shirtless. Then a Robyn slid past them all, almost doing a walk of shame, making a beeline for her bedroom. Charlotte understood why Jona was angry. She herself had some sort of bottled up fury inside of her. She didn’t quite understand why, it wasn’t as if she was remotely dating or has any special tie with Oliver. She just focused on Jona, who was cursing under his breath. She placed a hand on Jona’s arm. She daren’t look at Oliver, scared that she might not literally bite his head off.

“Jona, I am sorry but what do yeh expect?” Oliver muttered.

“You to not act like that. I expected more of you Oli. You said you were done with that whole fucked up thing you had going with Robyn. And I quote, I remember you saying you wanted something real. What bullshit.” Jona snapped.

“Jona calm down.” Charlotte mumbled. Her eyes welled up with tears, the tension and intoxication was clearly getting to her.

“Charlie, I’m sorry.” Oliver said softly.

“Whatever Oliver, I think it’s Jona you-” Charlotte burped softly, her eyes widening as she through her hand to her mouth. She darted towards the sink and upchucked. “I’ve been sick.” Charlotte laughed lightly, moving away from the sink.

She sat down on the kitchen tiles, pulling her knees under her chin. She watched both Oliver and Jona look at her incredulously, their spat clearly forgiven and forgotten.

“Okay, yeh need to go to bed I think.” Oliver said. He walked towards Charlotte, picking her up into his arms.

“I’ll clean up the puke in here and bring a bucket for emergencies.” Jona said slowly.

Oliver nodded his head in return. He headed up the stairs, finding that Thor was following them in tow. He walked towards his bedroom. Charlotte’s head lolled as she looked up at Oliver sleepily. He opened his bedroom door, placing her down on his bed. Charlotte let out a groan.

“Sorry.” Oliver whispered.

Jona walked in, watching them both. He placed the bucket beside the bed and glanced at Oliver. “You shouldn’t fuck this up, she deserves more.”