Page 21 of The Next Chapter

I don’t know what I’m saying, I just need to throw her off. Maybe I imagine it, but she drops her head a little, giving it a small shake before she speaks again.

‘That’s nice. Well, y’all are very welcome. There’s spare bedding in the cottage if one of you wants to take the sofa bed.’

‘Good idea,’ Seb says, still glaring at me. ‘We shared a womb once, but we’re not Game of Thrones close, if you get me?’

Lola laughs.

‘You’re all paid up for three nights,’ she says. ‘The cottage is a whole lot nicer than the bedrooms, just don’t tell my other guests.’ She does a soft chuckle. Her voice still has a faint American accent to it, the twang of the south, but it’s being crowded out by Scottish more often than not. She’s wearing a loose white shirt underneath her denim overalls. I pull at my fan collar, realizing that it’s stopped working.

‘This is the hotel timetable.’ She slides a sheet of A4 paper towards us. It has a table on it with the days of the week at the top. I love a good timetable, who doesn’t? I mean this one isn’t colour coded, so it could be better, but it is pretty full. Kayaking, painting, hiking, yoga, skydiving… I do a double take. Skydiving.

It has never, ever made sense to me, why some humans throw themselves out of a plane. Sometimes, we really need to know our limits as a species. And if we were meant to fly, we’d have wings.

Lola is still talking. ‘You’re welcome to drive to town to eat if you like. It’s just ten minutes back the way you came. They have some great seafood restaurants there or The Broadford Inn does the best neep and tatties if that’s what takes your fancy. We serve a continental breakfast each mornin’, seven through ten. Most folk like the porridge the best. And the cottage has a small kitchenette too. You’ll have seen the shop out front.’

Seb peers down at the paper.

‘Look, Lily,’ he says, ‘there’s wild swimming Thursday mornings. It’s a shame we’ll miss that. It’s her favourite.’ He’s smirking at me. Knob. He knows how I feel about wild swimming. His remark does relax me enough to manage a small, ‘thank you,’ to Lola, as I take the timetable and fold it in half.

‘No problem. If you need anything else, just holler.’

A blond Labrador comes out of what must be a small office behind the desk and starts panting at Lola’s feet. She reaches down absentmindedly to stroke behind its ear. I watch the whole thing with rapt attention. ‘I’m always around,’ Lola carries on, oblivious to me gawping at her. ‘And Noah’s in the cottage next door. He knows the place as well as I do.’ She shuffles some papers on the countertop, straightening them.

‘This Noah you speak of,’ Seb asks. ‘Any chance he’s a lumberjack?’

Something about the name Noah rings a distant bell at the back of my brain.

Lola laughs again. At least she and Seb are getting on well. I’m mostly just standing here with my mouth hanging open, having well and truly lost the plot.

‘Afraid not. He’s a writer. He’ll be happy to help if y’all have any questions, though. Now you can go through the dining room out back to the cottage, or if y’all have luggage and what not, grab it and take it round the side of the house. Can’t miss it.’

‘Lola, have you seen my chaps? The leather ones. I can’t find them anywhere.’

Seb and I twist around so fast that I’m surprised the top of my body hasn’t detached from the lower half. Thumping down the wooden stairs from the top of the hotel is the man I am pretty certain is Ashton Vain. Aka Lola’s old bandmate, aka my potential birth father. Now was a really, really bad time for my neck fan to cut out.

Ashton hasn’t managed to stave off the aging process in the same way that Lola has. His face is tanned and there are some pretty serious wrinkles across his forehead. I have the beginnings of wrinkles there too. Do I get that from him? Am I looking at my future forehead right now? His hair is black and a bit curly and sits just above his shoulders. Hang on, is this where I get my dodgy hair from? Wow, it is hard to breathe.

‘Sorry, sorry,’ he says quickly, arriving at the bottom of the stairs. ‘I didn’t realize you had guests.’

‘Mm hm, meet Seb and Lily. They’re staying in the cottage overnight.’

Seb, clearly overawed at being in the presence of two members of Beyond Baton Rouge, says, very effusively, ‘The pleasure is all ours, honestly.’ He’s looking at Ashton like he’s the second coming. I think he might break into a bow.

‘The cottage is lush, you’ll like it there.’

Seb throws an arm around my shoulders and almost knocks me over.

‘Yes, we’ll be super happy in there. Won’t we, oh sister dearest?’

He squeezes my arm where his hand has landed and I’m forced to choke out, ‘Yeah, super happy. What he said.’

There’s a good chance that I’ve been confronted with both my birth parents and all I’ve managed are stuttered splutterings. Seb is never going to let me live this down.

‘You still okay to take me to the station?’ Ashton asks Lola.

‘Course, let me get the keys.’

‘Great, I’ll grab my case and have another look for the chaps. Two ticks.’