Sunday September 28th 2025
Feel powerful urge for a list. Always a sure sign I’m stressed-out.
Here’s the situation:
Red thinks she’s about ten weeks pregnant.
Toby is the father. (Poor confused Toby—but more on this soon.)
Red needs to see a midwife.
Red doesn’t want Marly and Rosie to know she’s pregnant, because she’s worried they won’t let her stay at the B&B.
Toby doesn’t know Red is pregnant.
Marly thinks I’m pregnant.
Red’s pretty overwhelmed right now, so I didn’t want to go too hard on the whole “You need to see a midwife! You need to tell Toby! You need to tell Marly!” stuff.
But she does, she does, and she does. Can’t go on with Marly thinking I’m pregnant—it’s too hard.
And there’s only so long that I can be all that Red needs here.
Pouring with rain today—have just ducked into the pub to write this out. They’ve lit the open fire, so I’m drying off here, waiting out the weather, figuring out what and how to tell Jones about today when I get home.
It’s been an intense afternoon.
Red asked me over to the farmhouse to help her sort her head out, as she put it.
We sat on her bed—“Is this weird?” she asked.
“Being my boss and seeing how messy my bedroom is?” I explained that being a boss is not the same as being your mum and I really don’t care about the state of her bedroom as long as she knows how to sell an onion that’s slightly past its prime.
Though it really was a state in there. Clothes and shoes everywhere, Chappell Roan posters stuck to the walls with dried-out poster putty, several plates growing new species of mold.
“I don’t know how to tell Toby,” Red said, fiddling with an envelope.
“Oh my God, is that the love note?”
Very nearly finished this sentence with that Jones wrote—saved it just in time.
“How do you know about that?”
“Just…Toby mentioned it to Jones.”
“He did?” Red’s eyes were wide. “What does he think is going on? He must be so confused. But he’s so young, Charlie—he’s nineteen. He still lives with his mum! I can’t tell him he’s going to be a father.” The last word was said in a whisper.
“He only lives with his mum because rentals are really limited on this island,” I said, pointing a finger at her. “And you’re young, too!”
“I’m twenty-three.”
Said with gravity, as though announcing that she was in fact middle-aged.
“He’s a kind, sensible guy, Red, and he loves you. I think you should tell him soon, especially if you’re sure you want to have the baby.”
“I am sure,” she said solemnly, and she pressed one hand to her stomach, which made mine turn over.
“Good.” Took a little moment to collect myself, then plowed on. “And you love him, don’t you? Don’t you want him to be part of all of this?”
“Right now, it’s…mine,” she said, so quietly I almost couldn’t hear her.
“Like a little precious secret. Once I tell him, it’ll be a problem, won’t it?
” Her eyes filled with tears. “We’ll have to work out what to do, how to manage, I mean, we have no money, neither of us have a place to live that’s ours… ”
“Could you live with Toby’s mum?” I suggested.
“I don’t know! I don’t know, and I just…don’t want to think about it all right now.” She looked down at her hand, pressed to her belly. “For now, I just want it to be my precious secret. Does that make any sense?”
I sighed. Because yes. It made total sense to me.
Left her with a (fresh and clean) plate of biscuits from the pantry downstairs, a large bottle of water and firm instructions to stay hydrated.
On my way down the corridor, couldn’t help stopping outside Puffin room.
The door was clicked shut now—Jones said it was ajar when he came by.
But I’m not as scrupulous a person as him, let’s be honest, so I peeked inside.
Then stepped inside, and closed the door behind me, because if you’re going to snoop, you might as well actually do it properly.
Why was that room empty? Whose had it been, or who was it waiting for? And did that person have something to do with the mix-up that brought me and Jones here together?
I moseyed around, doing the sort of random low-key “searching” that someone might do for approximately five seconds on the telly before zoning in on the spot in the room where all the secrets were hidden (Look, a book sticking out on a bookcase!).
Didn’t work, unfortunately. Everything was very nondescript.
The room was decorated pretty neutrally compared to the B&B as a whole, as though it was waiting for someone to bring their character to it.
Headed for the little stack of books on the shelf by the bed. They were all about Ormer—hardly surprising for a guest room on the island. Tugged out The History of Ormer and flicked through it, and finally got my TV-detective “bingo” moment.
There were a few sheets of paper folded in the center of the book. I opened them up. The pages were typed, with photographs dotting each one.
It was a list of people, each with a picture beside them. And every single person on the list was called Charlie Jones.
Got home to find Jones fast asleep on the sofa, in front of the crackling log burner.
Was slightly shocked by how impossible it was to hold back a smile at the sight of him, especially given pounding anxiety after B&B discovery.
With his hair messy and his checked shirt unbuttoned enough to show the hair on his chest, the firelight caught the sweetest side to him.
“You’re home late,” he said, cracking an eye open.
“And you’re not even using the bed. If you were willing to take the sofa, why did we have that argument about sleeping arrangements when we first arrived here?”
“You stole half my new life. I was irritable.” He yawned, stretching. “Where were you?”
Dropped my bag on the floor by the sofa (have decided that, since Jones leaves everything on the floor and cannot be trained out of this, I will just start doing the same. If you can’t beat ’em, etc.).
“You stole half of my new life, thank you,” I said, but I was thinking of the list, the other Charlies. Seemed like the two of us ending up with half a new life wasn’t a coincidence at all. “Budge up,” I said.
Jones shuffled along the sofa, swinging his legs around so there was room for me. He smiled as I sat down beside him, then frowned.
“You’re feeling anxious?” he said. It was only half a question—he already knew the answer. He laid one steadying hand on my arm. “What can I do?”
God, I could have wept at the loveliness of that question. It was impossible to resist the urge to lean onto his shoulder, so I let myself rest my head there and closed my eyes.
“I went to the room,” I said.
“At the farmhouse?”
“Mm. And look.” I shifted to pull out my phone. I’d taken a photo of each page of the list before putting it back where I’d found it.
Charlie Jones from Wisconsin, Charlie Jones from Paris, Charlie Jones from Llandrindod Wells…all with their little profile pictures beside them. Some had more information beneath their name:
likes dogs
one of four siblings
works in banking
“What the fuck?” Jones breathed, scrolling down to the page below. “This was in that room? At the farmhouse?”
I nodded.
“What the fuck?” he said again. “What does it mean? Why…are they obsessed with Charlie Joneses?”
“A Charlie Jones fetish is currently my top explanation,” I said. I wasn’t even joking. “They didn’t contact you, did they, about the job? Like how they recruit people for Love Island from TikTok?”
“What? No, I just…” He looked back down at the list on my phone, his brow furrowed. “I never spoke to Rosie or Marly before we came to the island.”
“Well, me neither.”
“But they knew who we were,” he said slowly, and then paused. “Except they didn’t. I’m not on here. You’re not on here, either.”
“Nope.”
He kept flicking through the pictures, searching each page in turn.
“What does it all mean?” He rubbed his eyes as he handed my phone back.
I tucked my feet underneath me. “You know those big dog gatherings they do? Five hundred cocker spaniels all in one place?”
He started laughing. “That, but for Charlie Joneses?”
“Right. There are four hundred and ninety-eight more of us on this island right now, waiting for the big meet-up.”
Was still close to him from leaning on his shoulder.
Our knees were touching, our bodies turned toward each other.
It was lovely—too lovely, dangerously lovely—but the anxiety was still roiling in my stomach, and it wasn’t just the business with the farmhouse and the shop.
The more I get to know Jones—the more I fall for him, if I’m truly honest with myself—the more I find myself coming back to that question of my intentions.
When I arrived here, my intention was to start a new life.
It was nothing to do with anybody else, I reasoned—it was mine and my future child’s, and any truths I decided not to share wouldn’t hurt anybody.
They were just part of the fresh start. Nobody here had a right to know about who I was before I got here, except Marly and Rosie, but as long as I’m doing a great job at the farm shop, I can keep the guilt about that at bay.
But the closer I get to people—to Jones—the harder it becomes to say that my intentions are entirely positive. If I’m being truthful, I’m now hiding parts of myself because I’m afraid of how everyone will feel about me if they find out the truth.
“Shall we have one of your honey and chamomile teas?” Jones asked. “Forget about the whole weird situation for a while? I don’t want to talk about it if it’s making you feel more anxious.”
He gave me the ghost of a smile, eyes crinkling, and my whole body warmed in response. Reminded myself very sternly that I didn’t come to this island for the tingly, glowy feeling I get when Jones smiles at me—I came to this island determined to leave men aside.
Just hadn’t counted on a man like this one.