Chapter 26
Another busy week passes. I’ve mostly settled into my routine and I’m almost able to forget the reason I escaped to the island.
Of course, that’s when I get the email from Tia’s legal team.
Not just from a single solitary lawyer. It’s signed off by an entire legal team.
Yikes. I hold my breath as I read, dizzy by the time I come to the end of it, and confused to boot.
I figure out the time difference and call Lily.
‘Hey, hey, don’t tell me. It’s a balmy thirty-two degrees and you’re going swimming with your tortoise friend before you fall into a day bed at the bookshop and read a book. Honestly, I’m so jealous it hurts.’
I laugh. ‘Well, yeah, Turt Vonnegut would be cute to swim with, but he sleeps most of the time. This might sound crazy but he looks so sad, like he’s got the weight of the world on his shoulders.
Or maybe he’s just an old man who is set in his ways and I can respect that.
It’s balmy all right – the humidity’s enough to curl your hair as well as your toes, I’m not even joking. ’
‘I could handle that after another summer’s day in London where bloody rain is forecast. So much for sunshine, eh?
Send me another pic of old man Turt. I love his little face.
How is it going with all those hotties you’re surrounded by?
Xavier, the hot hotelier with a chip on his shoulder and a smouldering smile, the dangerous gleam in his eyes.
Michel, the incorrigible flirt who flies choppers over the rippling blue blanket of the Indian Ocean…
And is there anyone else I should know about? ’
I haven’t confided in Lily about my attraction to Xavier.
While she’s the non-committal type in her own relationships, she’s always hoping I’ll find my happy ever after.
And Xavier isn’t exactly my ideal man so there’s no point mentioning it.
It’s just some weird pull he has, probably over everyone.
He’s shockingly handsome, and that is a red flag.
He’s probably never had to develop his personality because of his looks, and that says it all.
I cagily sidestep her question. ‘Have you taken up reading romance novels, Lily?’ It’s unlike her to speak so whimsically.
‘Yeah, after I read Bang, Bang! I kind of got the taste for it.’
I gasp. ‘You liked Bang, Bang!?’ If Lily’s a fan, maybe I am completely off base with my suspicions.
I may as well admit to defamation and offer the legal team all my worldly goods which amount to one fabulously curated romance novel collection and a range of IKEA Billy bookshelves and be done with it.
‘No, no, I didn’t. I see exactly what you mean about the clunky robotic writing, the plot that goes nowhere. When I finished it, I wanted to compare it to another cowboy romance, for comparison purposes, and that’s where my addiction started. Cowboy romance is a vibe!’
‘Okayyyy?’
‘The point is, I understand what you’re getting at now, Harper.
Not only does it read like the work of AI, but whoever gave the prompts for the novel has a serious lack of knowledge about how a woman’s body functions and exactly how it can bend for crying out loud!
’ She dissolves into giggles. ‘In a certain intimate scene, their limbs just couldn’t have gone that way unless they were both completely boneless.
In the end, I had to call Tyler from next door to try it out – fully clothed of course – and nope, cannot be done. ’
I shake my head. ‘You just wanted an excuse to call Tyler over!’ Lily is the love-them-and-leave-them type who doesn’t want to be bound by a long-term relationship. She’s more a situationship type of girl. But she has been eyeing the new neighbour since he moved in a few months ago.
A titter flutters down the line. ‘Yeah, there’s that.
A girl can only ask to borrow a cup of sugar so many times, if you get my drift.
But you’re right about Bang, Bang! It’s hard to pinpoint how it’s so obvious, but it just is.
There’s no flow through each chapter, no real plot to it.
If you’re the type who likes a book loaded with spicy scenes, it might not hit you over the head as much, but it really does feel robot written. It’s salacious, but why?’
That’s exactly it! It reads almost like each chapter is just an explicit scene that has no link to the previous one.
There’s no character growth, and the story doesn’t develop except the spice ramps up.
‘Vindicated! Well, that’s why I’m calling.
I finally got the dreaded email from Tia’s legal team.
’ I read it to Lily even though it’s mostly gobbledegook to me.
‘What does all that word salad mean?’
I wrinkle my brow. ‘I’m taking it to be a cease-and-desist type thing. There’s a clear warning that if I disparage Tia’s name on or offline again, they will progress with a case against me. As for the rest, it’s hard to make sense of the legalese.’
‘Do you need a lawyer, you think?’
I settle on the stool by the bookshop counter. ‘They asked for my lawyer’s details. Like, yeah sure, I’ve got her on speed dial, let me send you her number.’
‘Right, who has a lawyer except trust fund babies?’
‘Do you think it’s best to reply or just leave it?’
‘Leave it for now,’ Lily says. ‘I bet they’re monitoring your social media and making sure you’re not campaigning against her under another name or anything like that.’
I’ve been too heartsore to check my backup account in case the internet trolls found that it is linked to me. They’re savvy like that.
‘OK. I’ll leave it for now and hope they let it go. How’s it going with Mai?’
‘Urgh, she’s a nightmare. I had to call her mum and get her to intervene, so now Mai’s giving me the silent treatment.’
‘What did she do that would make you call The Mums!’ The Zhōu Mums are only called in Defcon 5 level situations.
They’re like a hurricane blowing in, leaving nothing standing in their wake.
They bring the fun and the entire extended family but you wouldn’t want to get on their bad side because the lectures are lengthy and soul sapping.
I’m met with a long sigh. ‘Mai decided she’d have a housewarming party and invite all of her Snapchat friends. Her Snapchat friends. Like, aren’t we supposed to be keeping a low profile because of the doxxing thing and she’s inviting randoms from Snapchat?’
I’m sure Mai hoped an incel or two would appear so she could Krav Maga them, just for kicks. ‘How many people turned up?’
‘A lot. Luckily, they didn’t get very far because I came home just as it kicked off.
I was supposed to be going to Kent to stay with my mum, but I got caught up at work and decided I’d head over in the morning instead.
So I got rid of them all, but Mai kept on, saying I was ruining her social life and she’d never live it down. ’
‘Who has the energy for house parties these days? We’re really showing our age.’
‘Right? Nineteen-year-olds! The next morning Mai went into damage control and rang my mum and told her I’m being too protective and interfering in her social life.
My mum calls and lectures me about being a supportive older cousin.
Can you imagine! So I called Mai’s mum and told her about the impromptu party.
These petty games one must play when you come from a family like mine.
No one likes The Mums being involved and – I know how infantile this will sound – Mai started it. ’
I let out a laugh. ‘Oh God, you called in the big guns and now you’ll never hear the end of it with the whole gang there.’
Lily and Mai’s family, which consists of many aunts and uncles, don’t mind stepping into their kids’ petty arguments.
In fact, they downright delight in it. It’s an excuse to come to London and be together, cook and referee squabbles while doling out life advice over spicy xiao long bao dumplings.
I love the Zhōus but I’m never on the receiving end of their punishments, which I’m thankful for.
Punishments that consist of long visits where Lily loses the will to argue and admits they’re right and she’s wrong.
‘Yeah,’ Lily sighs. ‘The gang’s all here.
Mai and I have been unceremoniously booted out of our beds for the foreseeable and are forced to share the sofa bed, so you can imagine how that’s going.
The girl is up all night, headphones on, hunched over her computer without any concern that I’m trying to sleep on the bloody sofa bed and have work the next day like a regular human. ’
‘Up on her Twitch stream all night, is she?’
‘Yeah that and secret squirrel meetings with the gamer nerds, plotting world domination each time they play Call of Duty, or whatever it is with all the guns. I’m trying hard not to be that person, but she could pick up a book, you know. I even offered her Bang, Bang!, and guess what she said?’
‘Oh, let me count the ways – romance is trashy? It’s formulaic? Too Hallmark?’
‘Nailed it!’
If it’s one thing that grinds my gears it’s when the uninitiated denigrate romance novels, or try and lessen their importance in literature. ‘She’s a typical belligerent nineteen-year-old, who thinks she knows better than the rest of us.’
‘Like you were?’ I can’t help but tease.
Lily was much the same at that age. Only used grunts to communicate with her family, bent the rules so much there was many a Mums intervention, because they worried she’d slide off the rails.
She didn’t, of course, she just went through a sullen stage, and Mai is only following in her favourite cousin’s footsteps.
‘Hey! I was going through my emo era.’
‘I remember it well. All that black eyeliner, those heavy studded belts.’
‘Ha! Good times. According to The Mums, I’m smack bang in the middle of my spinster era, and apparently that is a fate worse than death.’