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your keys. Ben.” She grinned at me. “Oh goody, now I get to have a closer look at your new neighbour.”
    Before I could gather my wits, she pressed the button for Ben’s flat. Oh hell, I wasn’t sure I was ready to see him again quite so soon after making such a complete tit of myself. Still, I suppose it had to be better than having to try and contact Merv to get my things back.
    My heart was in my mouth as Ben opened the door. Shelly gave him one of her best smiles. “We found your note. Thank goodness you’ve got Chloe’s keys, she was really worried.”
    He smiled back at Shelly sending a tiny shaft of jealousy through my chest. “No problem. Mervyn gave me Chloe’s things when she got rushed away.”
    He turned his attention to me and I tried to curb my instinct to hide away behind my friend.
    “How are you feeling now, Chloe?” He sounded genuinely concerned and not at all cross that I’d apparently been sick over his shoes and landed him with commentating on Merv’s abseil.
    “Much better, thank you.” I couldn’t quite bring myself to look him in the face though.
    We followed him into the hall where he handed Shelly my jacket and sweater while he unlocked my front door.
    “I’m so sorry about today. It was good of you to cover for Merv while he took my place on the abseil.” I summoned up my courage to finally take a peep at his expression as Shelly turned on the light in my tiny hall way.
    “That’s okay. I’m glad you were okay. Substance abuse can do terrible things to people.”
    My mouth fell open. Substance abuse! Oh my God!
    “But it wasn’t, I mean I wasn’t. They were prescription things.” My words piled up in my mouth like a giant log jam as I struggled to explain.
    “I’d better go, see you ladies later.” He flashed Shelly another smile and bounded back up the stairs to his flat leaving me still spluttering and indignant on my door step.
    “What was that about?” Shelly reappeared at my elbow having missed the last part of the conversation while she’d been switching on the lamp in the lounge.
    “He thinks I’m a druggie.” I trailed miserably down the hall and into the kitchen.
    “That’s crazy. Why would he think that?” Shelly busied herself with the kettle.
    “Oh, I dunno, maybe someone told him about the tablets and he’s got hold of the wrong end of the stick.” I looked closely at her face. Her cheeks seemed to have turned a slightly darker shade of pink.
    “Don’t look at me like that. All I said to Merv was that maybe you’d reacted to the tranquillisers. Merv must have mentioned something to him.” She turned her back on me for a second to rummage in the cupboard for my teabags.
    “Why did you tell Merv I’d taken tablets? Misuse of drugs is a sackable offence.” If Merv thought I was on drugs then I was definitely out of Live it Up .
    “I thought I’d killed you, remember?” Shelly banged the tea caddy down on the counter, her eyes filled with tears. “I panicked. I didn’t know what to do. Any way, I don’t think taking a couple of tranquillisers is what they mean by being sackable. They probably mean Coke or something like that.”
    Remorse flooded through me. “I’m sorry Shelly. I’m not blaming you, honestly. It was my idiocy that got me into this mess.”
    She stepped around the counter to hug me. “Listen, everything will be fine. You can explain to Ben when you see him next and Merv will understand. It isn’t as if you made yourself ill on purpose. If he and Steph hadn’t pushed you into doing that stupid abseil in the first place then you would have been fine. You could sue him!”
    The muffled sound of my mobile ringing from the depth of my jacket pocket in the lounge pulled us out of our consolatory hug. I scurried through to try and grab it before the call could go to voice mail.
    I wrestled it from the folds of fabric and gasped a breathy “hello” into the mouthpiece in the nick of time.
    “Chloe?”
    I should have