Page 55 of The Next Chapter

‘Wait, the hotel has archives?’ That does jolt me out of whatever trance I was in.

‘Mm hm, it’s pretty old. Early nineteenth century. The original owners kept decent records.’

I look again at the hotel just through the gardens. It is old. Not like Tudor old, but still. I love a good archive.

‘A race could be a cool idea,’ I tell him.

‘Apparently, people from the local town would dress up as Scáthach, even the men. Scáthach was a mythical warrior queen who had her fortress on Skye, in case you’re wondering.’

‘I was, I was wondering. Wow, that sounds great. Why did the race stop?’

Noah shrugs.

‘I can’t see any record of it after the Second World War, so maybe that, I don’t know. But it would be a cool thing to bring back. Do you want to check out the route with me?’

What the hell am I meant to do with the information that Noah is kind, hot and interested in mythical warrior queens?

Thankfully, Harper comes to my rescue.

‘You should definitely go on the warrior run,’ she says, standing up. Noah and I just look at each other. ‘I can’t believe forty-year-olds run for fun, though. Tragic.’ She wanders back towards the hotel, the crunch of Pringles getting quieter as she walks.

‘Do you think she’ll be all right on her own?’ I ask Noah.

He nods. ‘I saw her foster parents out front, think they’re back from a hike. The warrior run, though; I like that.’

‘Me too.’ I pause. ‘But for the record, I’m not forty. I’m thirty. Not one bit of me is forty. I did one of those “what age is your heart” quizzes on the BBC website and it said I have the heart of a twenty-eight-year-old.’

Noah laughs. ‘I never thought you were forty. But I bet you’ll look just as hot at forty.’ My brain deems this the perfect time to embark on a full body flush.

‘Okay, right, great. You too. I bet you’ll look brilliant. At forty.’ Looking at Noah makes me struggle to form human words. ‘So shall we get…’ I gesture back towards the cottage and then realize it sounds like I’m propositioning the poor man.

‘RUN. I mean shall we get ready to run? Or you could go your way and I could go mine. I could purposely run in the opposite direction from you, and we could see which way is best for the hotel run, if that’s what you’d like to happen. I’d just need to know your route.’

I chance a look up at Noah. The edges of his mouth are twitching. I think he’s trying not to laugh at me.

‘We should go together and compare notes at the end.’

‘Excellent plan. Two ticks!… Wait, do you think there’ll be ticks?’

I dart inside. It’s only a degree or two cooler in here, but being away from Noah makes it much easier to breathe.

There’s a text from Seb to distract me. He’s telling me that he’s back at the office and found Clementine putting shellac on her toenails. There’s a picture of the LED lamp on her desk.

Seb: Gen Z are fucking useless.

Seb: Did you send an out-of-office notice to your WhatsApp? Who does that?

Me: She’s not that bad. I don’t want people to think I’m ignoring them. I’m going to be too busy out here to keep on top of things. I’m going on a run with Noah in a minute. Part of his save the hotel plan. I’ll explain later. There are archives here!!

Seb: You really do not know how to take a holiday, do you?

Me: It’s a working holiday. I’m ghost-writing Lola’s memoirs, remember.

I feel a pang of guilt at the fact that at this point, I’m basically lying to everyone. Including, and worst of all, probably myself.

Seb: The WhatsApp thing is definitely going in your eulogy.

Me: It’s fun that you think I’ll die first.