Page 129 of The Next Chapter

‘I can’t speak for the fish, but I know me and Noah, we’d never let anything bad happen to you.’

God, I do know that too.

This past year has been amazing.

No, that’s not quite true – parts of it have been amazing. Other parts have been hard because whatever happens, I miss Mum and Dad in the same way that you might feel an old bruise. Constantly aching, no matter what else you have going on.

But having Lola and Noah in my life (and Harper and Blake, for that matter), I have a family. Not the one I expected to have, but they’re mine, nevertheless.

Plus, and I can’t believe that I’m going to say this, I’m a little bit rich. Apparently, my song, the one Lola wrote for me, well, she’s been saving the commission from it all these years in case I ever got in touch. It felt weird, taking her money; after all, she earned it and the hotel needed it.

But Noah’s right, Lola can be stubborn, and she promised that she’d never spend a penny of it so it would be there when she died. And then I’d gotten all freaked out about the thought of her dying and had agreed to take it. Let’s just say that Your Life has a new partner who was happy to invest in a new business plan (printed and bound, of course).

Plus, unexpectedly, Mr Vandergilden had left a rather large tip.

We didn’t sell Lola’s memoirs, but we’re doing just fine.

‘Okay.’ I stand up on shaky legs, grabbing the side of the boat as it wobbles. Noah swims closer to the edge, ready to catch me even though I’m the only person wearing a life jacket, because come on, I haven’t had a personality transplant this year.

‘I’m coming, right now, here goes!’ You’d think that I was counting down to launching myself off a cliff, or else shooting along that zip line Noah took me on in Wales (incidentally, I didn’t mind that as much. The staff there did have a risk assessment and it’s nice to see someone taking health and safety seriously.). But instead, I step off the edge of the rowing boat and into the water.

‘Got you.’ Noah smiles, his hands finding my waist the second I go under the water.

My shoulders don’t even break the surface, such is the buoyancy of my life jacket, but still, there is a lot of water in here.

‘Don’t look down, just breathe.’

I do, because Noah understands me. Maybe it’s the ying and yang about us – he’s adventurous and I’m not – that makes us balance each other out. Or maybe it’s the fact that really, we weren’t all that different to begin with. I needed someone to make me feel safe, and he needed a reason to stay. And we get to be that for each other. Plus, we have our shared love of stationery, which seems like as good a foundation for a relationship as any.

‘I love you,’ he tells me, pressing his forehead against mine. I’ll never get tired of hearing that.

‘I love you too.’

‘If y’all are done, Harper wants to play some game,’ Lola interrupts. She’s in the water close by, her blonde hair fanning out around her. And though she must be treading water, she’s somehow perfectly still.

It’s hard to define my relationship with Lola. She’s not my parent, but she’s more than a friend too. Life, I think, is always more complicated than we might expect it to be. And anyway, I don’t really care about defining it, because I like her. I liked her last summer, and I liked her all the times I visited, or she visited me. I liked her when she hosted all of us, including Seb and Ashton, at Christmas on the promise that we help out with some hotel repairs. I’d drawn up a rota.

The game is Marco Polo. I’m awful at it, because my life jacket doesn’t allow for much movement, and also, who would want to close their eyes in water?

I only manage to end my turn when Seb accidentally on purpose bumps into me. I smile at him. I’m sure that behind his sunglasses his eyes are rolling. At least we get to go back to shore now. Oh sweet earth.

‘Having fun?’ I ask Seb as the two row boats we’re using bump against the shore and we all clamber (or in my case are hauled) out.

‘You’re all so unbelievably wholesome.’ Seb steps gracefully out of the boat. ‘It’s nauseating.’ Lola is walking a little ahead, holding hands with James.

It’s pretty cool to think that this group here, well, we’re pretty much the only people in the world who know what happened to Lola Starr.

Seb must be thinking the same thing. Noah now calls it twintuition, even though he knows we aren’t twins.

‘This happy ending could have made us so much money,’ he says, ‘so much money.’

Ashton, who’s been walking next to Seb (a fact that does not escape my attention one little bit) is looking at him with a puzzled expression.

‘Why’s that, then?’ Ashton asks.

‘Because you guys were ridiculously famous,’ Seb explains. ‘People would have paid good money to hear about what went down with Beyond Baton Rouge.’ He looks up at the sky. ‘So much money.’

Ashton rubs his chin. He’s wearing what look like Gucci swim shorts. They’re gold.