Probably the Best Kiss in the World. Pernille Hughes

into it won’t cut you out. You’ll be part of it. Robert knows that.” Jen took a softer tone, understanding this must be a big deal and a shock for Lydia. “My home will always be your home, Lyds. I’m not leaving you alone.”

      Lydia’s jaw flapped up and down a couple of times, but she couldn’t verbalise her feelings. Instead she gripped her crutches back in place and stormed out of the lounge door. Jen had never heard her negotiate the stairs so fast, but the slamming of the bedroom door on the other hand was an all too familiar sound. Lydia hadn’t believed her. She’d have to spend some more time convincing her, but for now she knew it was best to let her calm the hell down.

      Flopping exhausted back on the sofa, Jen dug out her phone from her dress pocket and started to browse Appstore for a useful tool. A wedding was going to need its own app. She found one she thought best suited to her needs, ChAPPel, and installed it. She loved watching the little dial completing as another tool was uploaded onto the device that kept her life organised and controllable. Each was a little cog of orderliness slotting into place in her life, shoring up her defences.

      Opening it, she found herself staring at the screen in front of her. Normally her fingers would race across the keys to spill all her ideas for a project immediately. Jen definitely considered herself an ideas person. That she got them actioned was purely down to her being conscientious and no one else being around to do the jobs. But right now, she couldn’t think of anything she wanted to list.

      The low TV buzz from next door went silent. It was late and she’d been up early. Of course she couldn’t think of anything to list, she was knackered. She closed the app. She could look at this in the morning. Who knew what gems of inspiration would come to her in her sleep? That happened all the time. Several of Well, Honestly!’s marketing campaigns had evolved during the night. They were always the best ones.

      Jen locked up and scaled the stairs. Lydia’s door was firmly shut. She hesitated for a moment, but turned for her own bedroom, the room her parents had slept in. It had taken her ages to move in there. Sleeping in a bunk again after her uni room hadn’t been ideal, but she’d wanted to be around Lydia, for when the phantom limb pains came during the night. But now, lying spread-eagled across the double bed, Jen considered the space between them a blessing. She gazed at the ceiling, as her parents must once have done, and reminded herself they too must have found parenting and adulting hard at times. Lydia might not always like her decisions, but then Jen probably hadn’t always liked theirs either when she’d been growing up. And she’d turned out all right, hadn’t she?

      Pulling her mother’s green patchwork quilt to her chin, she reassured herself Lydia would come round eventually. But perhaps her argument with Lydia had been a good thing on another level. It had focused her thoughts. Life did move on, people did grow up, they adapted their dreams. The more she thought about it, looked at things in the context of their life, of Lydia’s care and her own future, Robert’s proposal was a gift. Being his wife and making a home for them all would fill her time she was sure, because she’d give it everything. So of course, something had to give – that was the way change worked. And the beer she made, which as Robert said, was a hobby, would fall by the wayside. But that was okay, Jen told herself as her eyes lolled shut; not everything in life was forever. She’d experienced enough to know that. She could adapt and adjust. Surely her happiness didn’t depend on beer …?

       Plucky amputee Lydia Attison (22), raised £2,000 for children’s prosthetics last Sunday morning, when throwing herself out of a plane. Poor Lydia lost both her parents and her left leg at the age of 14, in a horrific crash on Westhampton High Street when a run-away lorry smashed into them. Now, back on her feet and raring to go, Lydia was on the first plane up and first to jump out. Camera-shy Lydia said it had been “a rush”. Her skydiving instructor, Glen Harris (26), to whom she was strapped for the tandem jump, was happy to tell the Echo, “She’s a natural; fearless and a fast learner. I’m hoping we can hook up for another jump sometime,” he said, giving her a cheeky wink.

       -Neil Finch, Staff Reporter, Westhampton Echo, Page 6

       Chapter 4

      “OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD!! Sister!”

      Jen wanted to crawl under the desk and disappear as Ava scuttled across the office in her skinny jeans and wedges.

      “Robert’s told you then?” Jen asked, turning around in her office chair to face her future sister-in-law, who might have been grinning from ear to ear, had Botox allowed. Oh good grief, she’d also had one side of her head done in cornrows.

      “Darling, we knew,” Ava said with a giggle. “Mumsie rang Sunday morning to say he’d asked for the ring. Took her a while to find the thing. It was hidden in the depths of her knicker drawer. Anyhoo, we’re all delighted.” Ava pulled Jen up from her seat and crammed her into a hug. Over Ava’s shoulder, she saw Aiden the intern watching them with a rather heated expression. Jesus God, it was just two women hugging, not lesbian office porn. She had her reservations about Rupert’s eighteen-year-old godson, which was why she generally set him tasks that kept him away from her. Today she’d given him a stack of the local newspapers she’d been ignoring, to scrapbook the ads Well, Honestly! had placed in recent months.

      “How was the festival?” Jen asked, wanting to move the conversation, and Ava, off her. She still hadn’t quite got her head around her newly-fiancéed status. Monday had flown by as she’d been immersed in Ava’s mountainous workload. Robert had sent a goodnight text, but that was it and not out of the ordinary. All in all, Jen wasn’t experiencing much difference, with the exception of Lydia giving her the cold shoulder, but they’d been through that enough times. So really, Jen suspected her initial panic and Lydia’s concern was a gross overreaction.

      “Glasto was fabulous. Aiden darling, two teas pronto per favore.” Ava sat on the edge of Jen’s desk, but didn’t give her ex-workload a glance. Jen had most of it sorted and piled neatly for filing. “The bands were amaaazing as always, and the kids just loved it. It’s so good to see how they thrive when we sleep under canvas and get back to nature.” Jen wasn’t sure glampy yurts counted as camping. Nor did she think hot showers, porter services and spa facilities constituted getting back to nature.

      A thought suddenly hit Ava and Jen worried she was having a seizure, but no. “Oh. My. God. I nearly forgot. Something mind-blowing happened at the festival. I was coming out of a laughter workshop in the Healing field and there was this woman making these things. Actually making them with her own hands. They’re the next Best Thing. For the company I mean. I’m soooo excited.”

      “Really?” Whatever it was, it had to be astounding, as Ava was flapping her hands like little birds’ wings.

      “Yah, totally. I FaceTimed Zara immedo. She sends her love and congratulations by the way. Says not to bother with the Seychelles for your honeymoon, the hotels still let children in. Which made me laugh as Zaz adores having my babies over. Isn’t that funny? Must be other people’s children she despises. Anyhoo, the thing.”

      “The thing,” Jen encouraged. She wanted to know what it was that had Ava so excited, but also she wanted her off her desk as she had tonnes to do. There was an advertorial deadline for Saga magazine to hit and she wanted to get a call in to the National Trust for a flyer in their next mailing.

      “So, you know Zaz and I have been talking about expanding the company? Growing the range?”

      Jen bit her tongue. She was the one always pointing out the entire business plan was based on one product type. Pads and pants counted as one. It seemed like an all-eggs-in-one-basket approach to business. And okay, on a purely selfish note, more products would give her options when it came to telling people what she did for a living. People always asked what specifically she marketed.

      “Well obviously, given our niche strategy and our dedication to the ethical values of the products,