Page 29 of The Next Chapter

‘I feel like the answer you’re looking for is no, ’ I venture. ‘But the honest answer is yes. I overthink everything. Seb calls it the millennial curse.’

Noah laughs.

‘Well, how about this. I’m not great with… people. Too complicated, you know? So, honestly, if I don’t want wine, I’ll just say so. I don’t think too much about things.’

Interesting. Very interesting.

Imagine not thinking about things.

‘But as it is—’ He’s talking pretty fast. ‘—I’d really like wine. Thanks very much. I’ll open it, if you like. You seem to have your hands full.’

I actually can’t think of a reply to what he’s saying.

Honesty sounds refreshing. It’s just obviously not something I can offer him back. No matter how honest we are, I can’t tell him who I am or why I’m here.

It takes some of the shine off the evening.

Still, I can’t openly admit to not wanting to be honest either. He’d run a mile.

‘Okay, honesty. I like that.’ I just keeping talking as Noah moves to the kitchen drawer by my hip to get the corkscrew.

‘I read this thing once, about radical candour. Basically, it’s where you just say it as it is.

Seb sent it to me, I think. I liked it in principle, but I find it hard, you know, practically. ’

Can you over-stir a risotto? I’ve sped up despite the persistent arm ache.

‘You want people to like you,’ he says simply, like it’s not my whole reason for being, my worst and best quality all rolled into one.

‘I really do,’ I admit. He’s looking at me again and my breath catches in my throat. ‘This is nearly ready.’ Chances are, I’m about to stir this rice into oblivion. Noah pops the cork out of the wine.

I ladle the chicken and mushroom risotto into two bowls and get the side salads I’ve already chopped out of the fridge.

‘This looks amazing. Thanks for cooking for me,’ Noah says as I spread it all out on the coffee table.

‘Oh, it’s nothing, honestly. You showed me the secret pool,’ I reply, arm ache long forgotten.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever had so many vegetables on one plate.’

I realize here that he’s taking the piss.

‘Let me guess, you live off cheeseburgers and look like that. What a cliché.’

That makes him laugh.

‘Look like what?’ he asks.

‘You know.’ I take a prim mouthful of risotto. Seb was wrong, it’s definitely not soggy rice.

‘Cheeseburgers are delicious, though,’ he finishes. Now isn’t the time to get into the correlation between red meat and incidences of bowel cancer.

Keen to move the conversation away from Noah’s looks or my slight obsession with keeping everyone around me alive, I think of some of the pre-prepared questions I thought up earlier.

I started doing this after Mum died, when I became acutely aware that awkward silences had become especially awkward. Enter stage left, preconceived talking points. They’ve been a lifesaver on many a Bumble date.

‘Do you know what you’ll be working on next?’ I ask Noah. ‘After the stint in Scotland, I mean. Or is that not how it works? Do you not get to plan?’

Noah swallows. We’re twisted so that our knees are pointing towards each other.

‘Sort of,’ he answers. ‘You can’t plan too far in advance.

Normally how it works is that I get commissioned a couple of months ahead.

So, I know I have a month in Italy after Skye, working on a piece for Intrepid.

After that it’s a bit up in the air. I don’t like to plan too far ahead, I like the unpredictability of not knowing where I’ll be in six months. ’

Sounds like my actual living nightmare. Still, I can’t say that so instead I say, ‘Wow, Italy sounds amazing. I’ve always wanted to go.’

Noah has a drink of the wine. ‘So why don’t you?’

He makes it sound so simple.

‘I’m more of a home body. My ex said I was hard work on holiday.’

‘Fair enough. Though for the record, you don’t seem hard work to me.’

‘That’s because you’ve only known me, like, three days.’ I laugh. ‘And Colin was all right. He could be hard work as well, so we were probably too similar. Did you never want to settle down and stay in one place?’

This was not one of my pre-arranged questions. Stick to the script, brain.

‘Sometimes,’ he admits. ‘There are a lot of travel influencers now so commissions can be harder to come by. I pitched for the one on Skye, though don’t tell Lola that.’

‘Seb says that Instagram will be the end of us all,’ I tell him.

Noah laughs. ‘I’ve been offered a steady gig with the Guardian , actually.

’ He keeps his eyes on the rice. ‘I’d still get to travel, but shorter trips.

It’s one of the things I’m thinking about for after Italy.

I don’t like the thought of staying in one place.

’ He is still zeroing in on that rice. ‘I’m used to moving around a lot.

But it’s fine. I like my job. It would be good, though, being closer to Lola. I could help more.’

I’ve been eating the whole time he talks and when he’s done, I have a whole mouthful of salad so we both have to wait while I finish.

‘In secret?’ I ask.

‘Probably.’ He laughs. ‘Lola’s too…’

‘Stubborn?’ I offer.

‘She doesn’t like the thought of being a burden,’ he answers. ‘But I know how much the hotel means to her. She thinks she needs money, to do it up properly. I guess she’s not wrong…’

That has to be it, then. Lola’s selling her story for money for the hotel. I wonder why she’s so enamoured with this place. Majestic beauty aside, obviously.

‘So that’s what you’re doing this summer. The article, the repairs, the thinking of ways to bring in business, they’re all for Lola. Like a three-pronged plan?’

Noah doesn’t answer. Instead, he puts his bowl on the table and opens his notebook. His writing is all spidery, but it’s right there in black and white: ‘The three-point approach.’

And okay, a three-point approach isn’t exactly word for word the same as a three-pronged plan, but they’re still freakishly similar. He has bullet points and everything. Everyone knows that it’s not a real plan until it’s committed to page via bullet points.

‘That’s… so funny,’ I say, feeling a bit freaked out. Noah and me, we couldn’t be more different in so many ways, but we obviously have some similarities. Mainly those based around stationery and planning, but they’re pretty big ones.

I scan my eyes over his ‘Save Broadford Hotel’ plan. It’s broken down into the three things I suggested.

1. Increase footfall.

Underneath, there are things like ‘increase marketing’ and ‘involve people from the island more (run?)’

2. Guest experience.

Repairs to hotel, consider timetable – fit for purpose?

3. Pitch article.

Hidden gems of Skye? Focus on Broadford and surrounding area. Broadford hotel at centre?

There’s a big tick next to number three.

‘Wow,’ I say.

I have to, once again, resist the urge to jump poor Noah. A ticked off to-do list will absolutely get me going.

‘You have a whole business plan almost.’ My voice is full of wonder and awe.

‘I don’t know what I’m doing really.’

‘It looks great… but does Lola… is the hotel really struggling?’ I ask.

‘Maybe. But it’s not just that. Lola, she can’t keep going like she is. She wasn’t well, last year. Nothing serious.’

Noah must see me almost jump out of my own skin.

‘But she had a chest infection that turned to pneumonia, and it took her a while to recover. I just want to help, if I can. Get her to a point where she can maybe hire someone.’

I nod. So much nodding while I try to process.

I wonder if Noah knows that Lola plans to sell her memoirs to a publisher. They’re both trying to do the same thing, save the hotel, they’re just coming at it from different angles. It really is a tangled web of deceit up here on Skye.

‘You mentioned that Lola helped you out when you were younger?’ I ask, hoping that Noah doesn’t realize how desperately I want to know about all of this.

Maybe it makes me a bad person, using this thing with Noah to gather quite so much intel on Lola.

My need to know her overrides any feelings of guilt, though.

Noah nods. ‘Yeah. It’s a long story, but I moved around a lot as a kid. You know how it can be.’

I don’t, actually, my upbringing was incredibly stable. But Noah is still talking.

‘I up and left home when I was eighteen. Got as far as the train station before I realized that I had no money and nowhere to go. I’m not proud of this, but I pickpocketed the wallet of some guy.

Lola saw the whole thing. I thought she was going to call the police, but she didn’t.

She handed the guy back his wallet, said he’d dropped it.

She’d just finished doing up the cottages in the hotel and let me stay on.

Gave me money with the pretence it was to write a tourist information leaflet about the area, which gave me something to do.

That’s how I got into travel writing. I’ll always be grateful that she didn’t turn me in.

That’s not why I come back, though. Lola’s pretty special, once you get to know her. ’

Even though we’re the same age now, Noah at eighteen seems so much younger than I was at that age.

When I was eighteen, Mum had just died. It ages you, losing a parent.

I’d always been a sensible child but even more so after that.

I never wanted to give Dad any reason to worry, things were hard enough.

Noah has stopped talking, but instead of silence, there’s a ringing in my ears.

‘Lily, is everything okay?’

Chances are, I look like I’ve been drugged.

It’s just so confronting. My parents. Lola.

Clearly Lola now is fine, a nice person.

I’d get that from her affinity with animals if nothing else.

But what Noah’s saying makes it seem like she’s been a nice person for ages, like she really tried to help him.

But she hardly tried at all with me. Her own flesh and blood.

The urge to start wallowing in self-pity is strong.

I really have to work at the smile I set on my face.