Never Letting Go

Chapter 1

I can smell the mixture of freshly made toast and coffee before I make it to the kitchen. It's only gone seven in the morning and judging by the bright light streaming through the small gap from the ajar kitchen door, I know the curtains have already been pulled back in the living room and I know who's the one behind the amazing breakfast smells this morning.

I push the kitchen door open fully, step into the kitchen, and smile at the sight of my best friend standing at the furthest away side. She's leaning back against the white granite worktop with a cup of coffee in one hand and her mobile phone in the other.

Her head is lowered, causing her mid-length strawberry blonde hair to conceal her face from my view. I know she's too immersed in what's on her phone to register the fact that I'm now up and ready for work and standing next to her.

"Good morning, Allison." I greet. I stand next to her as I make myself a cup of coffee. "As to what do I owe the pleasure of seeing you here today at this early hour in morning?"

"Hmm," she responds lowly.

I lean back and look at her.

Is that meant to be helpful to me? I know I gave her a key to my apartment but it was under the strict rules that she was to use it for emergencies and nothing else unless I asked her to use it for something else.

She's never here this early unless something really important happened. Even at that, she wouldn't have waited this long to turn up and tell me what happened if something did happen. There's something else going on and she'll have to come clean and tell me sooner rather than later or risk someone else telling me or me finding out.

But if there isn't anything going on, then there really is no need for her to be here.

If she wasn't here, I'd be putting my coffee in a travel mug and packing a cereal bar into my work bag before heading out to walk to East Croydon train station to get the train to Victoria Station, then onto the bus to get to the office before nine o'clock.

Not a very good benefit of working in London.

"Are you going to eat that?" I ask, looking down at the two slices of toast sitting behind her.

"Hmm," she replies again.

I pick up a slice of toast up and take a bite. "Free ready-made breakfast for me, then."

"Wait. What?" She turns and looks at the plate then to me. I shrug with a smug look on my face while walking over to the adjoining living room, and take a seat on the black leather couch. "Hey, that's mine. I made that for myself. Not you."

I take another bite of toast and chew it a few times before responding to her. "Which I thank you for making considering that it's my toaster that toasted the bread which I bought."

"Cheap shot, Kaylee. Cheap shot."

"Sure it is," I mutter on a nod.

I take a sip of coffee and watch Allison as she turns her attention back to her phone, her fingers moving quickly as she types away.

I frown.

Who's she texting? Or better yet, what's so interesting that she's not sharing with me?

She shares everything with me, even when I don't want to know. I've known her for almost fifteen years and to call her my best friend is an understatement. She's more like a sister to me than a friend and it's no disrespect to my little sister, or my little brother because they see her as another sister.

She's been through a lot with me and I with her; we see each other through all the hard times and good times, and trust me when I say that there's been plenty of both over the years. Neither of us take anything for granted which is probably why we both made the move to London together from Surrey when the chances for our dream jobs came up here.