Page 22 of The Next Chapter

It’s becoming a bit weird that Seb and I are still standing here, watching them have a conversation, our eyes moving backwards and forwards between them.

‘Right, come on then, twinnie.’ Seb watches Ashton jog up the stairs before picking up the cottage keys.

I don’t trust myself to speak. It’s possible I’ve gone into shock.

That’s not a thing, is it? On those reunion programmes you see on TV, one half of the people being reunited don’t just stand there not moving. I want to watch Lola some more, but Seb is leaving again, so I’m forced to offer up a small smile and follow him back out of the front doors towards the car.

He’s humming the tune to ‘Storm in a Teacup’.

‘Well, that went well! Couldn’t have gone better. The business will be saved in no time! At least I got to meet Ashton Vain. My crush brought to life. Still does it for me. By the way, why did you tell her we were twins?’ Seb angry mutters. He’s talking so fast I hardly catch what he’s saying.

‘I panicked!’ I angry mutter back, whacking my neck fan to try to get it back in action. ‘I did just see my biological mother and maybe my biological dad for the first time in thirty years!’

‘True. What did you think?’

‘She’s just not what I expected. I thought I’d be getting Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada, not Meryl Streep in Mamma Mia.’

‘I know, right, what was with those overalls? They looked older than me.’

‘They were unexpected—’ another whack ‘—plus my fan has broken.’

‘Good, it looks ridiculous. Please take it off.’

‘Ashton seems more aging rock star, though. I knew he was Scottish. Was he born round here?’

‘Glasgow.’

‘You really do know a lot about him.’

‘I was sure I was going to marry him when I was about thirteen.’

We’re still talking as if we’re bickering, even though we aren’t. We keep going as we pull all of our things out of the boot. I give my fan one final hit. It lands with so much force, I’ve essentially just smacked myself, hard, on the back of the head. I stumble back a few steps and crash straight into someone.

‘Oh my god, I’m so sorry—’

I turn around and…

Oh.

‘Sorry. I’m so sorry. My neck fan, it’s on the blink.’

‘Don’t worry about it.’ The man I bumped into smiles. ‘No harm done.’ He rubs a hand over the back of his own – decidedly fanless – neck. ‘I’m Noah,’ he says. ‘Lola just mentioned that you’re staying in the other cottage.’

Sometimes the genetic lottery really does play to win. Noah is wearing navy shorts and a white T-shirt that should be illegal. He has tattoos poking out from under his sleeves and his dark blond hair is long-ish, it curls around his ears.

He’s like a Nordic David Beckham. And if I was a judgemental sort of person – which, clearly, I am – I’d say that he doesn’t look like a writer. There must be something in the water up here.

Seb moves first. I’m pretty sure that given half the chance he’d throw me on the ground and trample over me in an effort to get closer to Noah.

‘Nice to meet you.’ He’s shaking hands with Noah. ‘I’m Seb and this is my twin sister, Lily.’ He throws me a dirty look, like he’s still not over having to pretend that we’re related. ‘Non-identical, obviously.’

‘Nice to meet you both.’ Noah takes in all of the bags sprawled at my feet. His accent is very Scottish. ‘Do you need a hand with those?’ he asks.

I say no at the same time that Seb says yes.

Deciding that on balance we probably do need some help, I agree that we’d really appreciate that. It’s a good call because we get to watch as Noah picks up almost all of my bags at the same time. And even though feminist me should be offended, I can carry my own luggage thank you very much, feminist me has gone into hiding at such an overt display of raw, manly strength.

We follow Noah down the side of the house. Yet more kayaks are propped against the wall here. Seriously, how many kayaks does one dilapidated hotel need? There are also some life jackets and a couple of blow-up two-person canoe type things. I ignore them. There are animals everywhere. Cats sleep in the shade of the hotel walls (they don’t wake up and hiss as we pass, so it’s very much just Elton and not the entire feline species who hates me).