"Don't think you're getting away with not spilling every single detail about your conversation with Alastair."

Maisie's arm swung, happily linked in mine as we meandered down the dark streets of Sandy Cove. The neighborhoods were quietened, the only thing interrupting the gloomy atmosphere was the happy flash of Christmas lights dotting every other front garden we passed. One thing I loved about Australia was the summery December, the outdoor displays of festive spirit encouraged with the warm weather.

Maisie had missed the point. We'd left the bar at ten, and for the few more hours we'd remained I'd been adamant not to interact with any of the boys. Well, besides Daniel. Until now, I thought Maisie had not noticed my strange interaction with Logan. But, stupidly, I hadn't considered her making a fuss of my interactions with Alastair instead. It made perfect sense, she'd probably heard from Daniel that we'd hung out earlier, and then I went to talk with him alone in the hallway.

"Well, I do have something to tell you," I said. Her lips lit up in a wide grin at my words. "But its not what you think."

"Spill."

"Alastair made it clear he wanted to... you know, be more than friends," I explained awkwardly. It wasn't often that I had anything like this to report to her. "And I said something stupid, asking him what I could do to make him stop pestering. Because, as I'm sure you were expecting, he ambushed my reading spot."

The glare I gave her and the accusation in my last words didn't diminish her curiosity. She gestured me for me to keep going, frustrated that I'd paused to display my annoyance.

"He came up with this condition," I went on. I frowned as I tried to think of a way of phrasing the deal so it didn't sound as absurd as it was. The alcohol tonight didn't help, my thoughts were a little cloudy. "I had to give dating a try with someone."

"Are you serious?!" Maisie unlinked her arm so she could clap her hands in glee, like a cartoon villain who just discovered a way to implement their master plan. "Seriously? Val this is awesome, how did he convince you? I am so envious of him right now."

"You're not pissed?" I questioned, hesitantly hopeful.

"Why would I be pissed? I mean, I'd hoped you were going to tell me you were in love with Alastair and about to elope with him or something. But this is seriously the next best option."

"You've been trying to get me to date, like, my whole life though," I reminded her. "And you haven't been successful since we were twelve."

"Exactly, you're too used to my suggestions. You needed a fresh face," she wiggled her eyebrows, linking her arm back in mine. We were two blocks from my house, where we'd decided to stay tonight. Maisie was the only one I ever had back at mine, nobody else was aware how lonely my household was.

"I don't really know why I agreed," I admitted. "Nothing's changed, Maisie, I still don't think it will go anywhere. I just figured, like you said the other night, I'm eighteen now. I owe it to myself to give it a shot, you know?"

"Val, that's the wisest thing you have ever said," she told me gallantly. "So who have you got your eye on?"

"You mean, who did Alastair insist I put my eye on?" I corrected. "You're going to flip if I tell you."

"Its Logan isn't it?" Her blue eyes flashed red and green in reflection to the decorated house we were passing.

"How did you guess that?" I asked suspiciously. Surely it wasn't that obvious to everyone that I should be trying to date Logan.

"I saw you talking with him," she said. "You haven't already been implementing this plan without me, have you? Oh wait, you wanted a nice outfit... that must have been part of it, right? I can't believe you didn't tell me then!"

Of course, Maisie was just starting to realise why she had a right to be angry. She may be great at master plans, but clicking onto things quickly? Not quite her forte. "I tried! I was just scared. I still don't know whether I'm going to properly go through with it or not!"

"But you've already implemented this grand plan, haven't you?" she narrowed her eyes. "Tell me everything, right now!"

So I told her. I told her what an idiot I'd made of myself with Logan in my mission to obtain a drink from him, and Alastair's promise that if he'd lashed out and told his friends to mock me, then the deal was off. It felt good to gauge her opinion on what I was quickly deciding was an outrageous plan.

"I just don't understand why he wants me to target Logan. Surely he'd want to select someone a little easier to show affection to rather than my arch enemy," I finished.

"Come on, Val, he's not your arch enemy. I think its a good idea. I mean, you both are already pretty close and, you know, everyone says there's sexual tension between you two."

"Who is saying that?!" I said loudly. I looked to the houses surrounding us apologetically on behalf of my elevated voice. I was just so appalled at her words.

"Oh, you know... Zoe mentioned it, so did Ingrid... Luke, Pete, Dan," she listed nonchalantly.

"Ugh." I suddenly felt sickened by all of the Logan compatibility nonsense. "Can we talk about something else?"

"Sure." One thing I loved about my best friend was that she never lingered on a topic, and always had a million different things to talk about when the conversation was getting boring. "So Mallory's going to start working at Cherry-On-Top."

"Really?" This piqued my interest. I'd known we were hiring because of Susan's incapability, but I didn't think Mallory had applied. "How come I didn't hear about this?"

"She only found out this evening. Dan celebrated by buying her a drink. They even hugged."

I had to look at her to make sure her words were properly reflecting her feelings about it. Yep, her mouth was pulled to the side in a pout and her eyes were even watery.

"Maiz, you have nothing to worry about. Dan's been with you for, what, three years now?" I assured her. "I'm sure he was just excited he had someone to dampen my personality. He gets sick of me pretty fast when we work together."

"I know its nothing, but sometimes I wish he'd get that excited with me. I know it sounds petty or whatever, but I just hate seeing it."

We had finally made it to the front of my house and I fished my key from my pocket, hastily unlocking the front door. The house was empty. My father wouldn't be home until after sunrise, he fished all night from when the sun went down to when it raised again the next day.

"Your boobs look really good in that top, by the way. I think Logan definitely would have been struggling to keep it cool," she said glumly. Leave it to Maisie to give compliments when she was feeling down.

"Thanks, Maiz." I scanned my mind, thinking of some way I could cheer her up. It wasn't that unusual for her to get upset about Daniel, but I still felt awkward every time. What could I say to comfort her? don't worry Maiz, true love always works out? And I couldn't even say what a dick he was being, because really he was never being a dick, he was just being Daniel. He was often friendly with other girls, despite only having feelings for Maiz, it didn't mean he loved her any less. But, luckily, Maisie wasn't too difficult to make happy. "Want to watch Silver Linings Playbook?"

Being one of her favourite novels and movie adaptions, Silver Linings Playbook always worked a treat. Tonight proved no different.

"I told Lottie I'd go over to her house to swim tomorrow," she mumbled about three quarters into the movie. I could already sense that one of us was going to fall asleep any minute, both propped up on an assortment of pillows as we watched the movie on my laptop screen, snuggled up in my green patterned bedspread. "Do you want to join us?"

"Sure," I told her, the friendship jealousy only stinging a little. "I don't have a shift tomorrow so that would be nice. Will..." I trailed off, unsure of whether asking about Alastair would cue a fit of Maisie-excitement.

"Alastair?" She yawned. "I'd say he'll be there."

"Okay," is all I said.

The last thing I remembered was watching Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper perform their character's dance at the end of the movie to their audience's delight. Then I fell into dreams about performing in front of our friend group, dancing a ballet number. Alastair and Lottie were my coaches, muttering strings of criticism to me from the sidelines. Maisie was holding a banner with my name painted decoratively in hot pink. I managed to slip and fall because of a rogue lemon slice on the stage, which looked a lot like the one from the vodka and lemonade Logan had ordered me. Logan yelled out from the crowd telling me what a terrible dancer I was, and that I was an even worse flirter.

I woke to the sound of food frying. The sizzling from the kitchen prompted me sit up, waking Maisie who was cuddled up with one of my pillows beside me.

"What's going on?" she asked. Her face was puffy from sleep, the blonde hair usually framing her face so neatly was askew, escaping its conformity at odd angles.

"I'll go and see," I whispered sleepily. Maisie must have put my laptop on my desk before falling asleep last night, which I was grateful for. The image of it smashed on the ground somewhere unsettled me.

I padded out to the kitchen, wearing my baggy striped pajama shorts and ancient Mickey Mouse shirt. I was surprised to see my father standing there, shaking a frying pan skillfully as bacon sizzled away. His tall figure was angled expertly as he simultaneously placed two pieces of bread in the toaster. He had changed into dad-like normal clothes, but still faintly had the fishy smell to him which never left after his nights at sea.

"Morning, Dad." My words alerted him to my presence.

"Oh, morning there, chicken," he said enthusiastically. I could see how tired he was despite his happy demeanor from the shadows beneath his eyes. "I saw Maisie slept last night from her shoes on the rack. I thought I'd make you both breakfast."

I smiled, my dad adored Maisie, and it was really sweet of him to go out of his way to make a meal even though he'd been working all night. "Thanks, Dad. Were the fish biting last night?"

"Nope, little buggers were hardly about. We stocked up on crabs though, it was a reasonable haul."

"That's good then."

I darted back into my room quickly to notify Maisie of our breakfast plans. I was sometimes jealous that she was able to talk to my dad better than I was, but it was refreshing to have a third person present for breakfast, to divert the weird tension that seemed to awkwardly develop when it was just Dad and I. It reminded me of days when I was little and we were a functioning little family.

"Thank you so much for breakfast, John," Maisie said through half a mouthful of egg and bacon toastie.

"No worries," Dad said bashfully. He was washing off his own plate while Maisie and I were eating on the rickety little dining table with peeling blue paint. "I hope you girls enjoyed, but I'm going to have to go to bed, its been a long night."

"Of course," I told my father. "Go to bed, Dad. We don't mind washing up."

"Thanks, girls," he said. "I'll see you later."

Maisie and I did the dishes, engaging ourselves in a foam fight as we went. Dad went up to his room, where I knew he wouldn't be able to sleep, so we were quiet as we did so. Afterwards, we changed; Maisie changing into an outfit she'd left at mine weeks ago, and ventured down to Lottie and Alastair's house.

Lottie had put the address to the Sullivan's holiday house into Maisie's phone. I wasn't particularly surprised that they were staying on one of the richest streets in Sandy Cove, which consisted of large mansions on the beach side. It actually wasn't far away from my regular-classed street, but it had a much nicer view of the ocean and the housing lots were a lot more spacious.

"You know," Maisie pondered as she glanced at the exterior of a particular lavish house. "Its not even summer for them in England."

"That's strange," I commented. It was weird that their family could get winter off from their usual life, which must involve hard work if they were able to own a property on this street.

"Lottie's in university, you know, she has to do her course work online while they're away," she continued. We were five houses away, which was a considerable distance because of the large size of each block.  I looked out to the ocean, wondering if the gorilla boys were out surfing today at my usual reading spot. I wouldn't be surprised if Logan was avoiding me after last night.

"Why do you think they have chosen to holiday now?" I questioned.

"Not sure, maybe they want to be with family for Christmas?"

"I wonder who they're related to here, surely we know them."

"Hmm, you're right," she nodded. "Maybe I'll ask today."

"Do you think Alastair told Lottie about our deal?" I suddenly wonder.

"Maybe? They are twins, chances are they share everything." She paused on the street and turned to the house in front of us to observe it, shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand. "This must be it."

We stood outside the humongous contemporary take on a beach-themed holiday house we'd just arrived at. It had a huge front garden, decorated with cacti and palm trees to give it a desert-like landscape. The house was massive, carrying a country feel with white rendered walls and dark wooden lines creating triangular shapes about its two storeys. There was a little wooden sign on the door, hand painted with the words 'Sullivan's retreat'.

"I can't wait to see the inside," Maisie chirped happily. She walked briskly up and rang the doorbell, from outside we could hear the faint noise of wind chimes alerting the inhabitants of their visitors.

"Hey!" Lottie's face appeared in the foggy glass of the little window on the door moments later. She opened it and greeted us each with a hug.

"Hey!" Maisie greeted. "Your house is magnificent!"

Magnificent truly was the word. Lottie invited us inside, to an impressive marble foyer filled with abstract paintings hung on its tall walls. We followed her into a modern kitchen, one that would have probably fit mine inside of it at least three times. It had a black polished surfaces and high-tech looking appliances. A ceramic dish lying next to a cutting board carried pieces of freshly cut up fruit.

"I was just making some fruit salad to take outside," Lottie explained as she resumed her place in front of the board and continued to cut a cantaloupe. "Take a seat, make yourself at home."

I sat on a stool next to the breakfast bar, but Maisie took her words literally and began pacing around. I observed the room, it was beautiful, exquisite even, but it carried an almost clinical feel. There were no photographs lining the walls or clothes thrown over the back of chairs. The dining table, which sat along side the kitchen area, was large and formal looking, a contrast to the rickety little one Maisie and I had eaten at this morning.

"My parents have owned this place for years," Lottie explained as she worked. "But we've never even visited until now, before it was just an investment property."

"It's beautiful," I told her. "I can't imagine what your house in Leeds looks like."

"Oh, its similar I guess," she responded modestly. "It doesn't quite have the same beach view."

"Where are your parents?" Maisie asked, tracing her finger over an ornate vase.

"My father flew to America last night to attend a business meeting," Lottie chuckled lightly like it was normal for her parents to engage in overnight international travel. She used her hand to shift the cut up fruit into the bowl. "It's pretty crazy the way he does that. My mother is with my Auntie Beatrice in Port Elizabeth today."

Port Elizabeth was the largest town in fifty or so kilometers from Sandy Cove.

"Is Beatrice from here?" Maisie questioned.

"Nearby, yeah, she lives in the middle of nowhere though so I doubt you know her."

"I don't recognise her name," she admitted.

The three of us traveled out through sliding glass doors to the pool which was large, deep and looked like it belonged in an advert for some luxury home. I wondered where the other twin was, but only out of curiosity, not because I would like his presence.

We sat on the slate lining the edge of the pool, dipping our feet into the pleasantly heated water.

"So did you enjoy last night?" Maisie asked, pulling a grape from the fruit salad and popping it in her mouth.

Lottie's straightened brown hair blowed in the wind and I absentmindedly wondered if she'll get it wet in the pool. I kind of sensed she was the type to refrain from activities that would give her split ends or unwanted curls. "It was nice, I like you guys and Zoe. Its a shame she has work today, otherwise I would have invited her."

"Well, we like you too. Were there any guys catching your interest?" Of course, Maisie would bring up love interests at the earliest chance. I'm sure she already had a mental list of Sandy Cove's finest bachelors for Lottie's convenience.

"Well, they were nice," Lottie smirked. "But I actually have a boyfriend at home."

That didn't really surprise me, Lottie had the same naturally beautiful features as her brother. Not to mention, she seemed really likable. Definitely girlfriend material for any guy.

"Tell us about him," Maisie pressed.

"His name is Max," she said tentatively. "I met him at uni a few months ago."

"Do you have any photos of him?"

I wiggled my toes in the crystal water, zoning out as I felt like I had little to add to this conversation. It irked me a little that Maisie could talk so easily about love with Lottie. I could hardly entertain her as much. I selected a large strawberry from the fruit salad bowl and chewed on it as an excuse for not contributing to the chatter between the two.

"You didn't tell me you were inviting people around, Lotts."

We all turned to see the source of the deep British voice, of course I'd already identified it as belonging to Alastair. The sight of him made me blush, because he was yet to put a shirt on. He was wearing plaid pajama bottoms and nothing else, squinting sleepily as he shielded his eyes from the sun.

"Well, you're struggling to wake up by noon anyway," she pointed out. "Unless you're harassing girls down at the beach."

Ah, so she had heard about that.

"Well, I could harass girls in my own home if you had given me notice," he joked.

"Go and get your own friends," Lottie told him.

"If I am recalling correctly, Valerie was my friend before she was yours," he reminded her.

"Hey, I'm hardly leverage in this conversation," I said awkwardly, trying to look anywhere but his defined abdomen. I didn't want to get involved with their sibling bickering, but at the same time I didn't want Alastair to use me to his advantage.

"Just stating the facts, Val."

Something about his cockiness and the casual use of my nickname made my heart plunge in a way I didn't warrant it to. I turned away, unable to look at his shirtless figure any longer.

"Lets swim?" Maisie suggested to Lottie. I heard the patter of Alastair's steps as he returned inside.

"Sounds good to me!"

We removed our clothing, all wearing our bikinis beneath our clothes already. Lottie really did look like a Victoria's Secret model in her light pink two piece. It made me a little self conscious in my navy bikini that I'd owned since I was sixteen, the fabric a little faded and loose.

We jumped in simultaneously on the count of three. The warm water was pleasant compared the the usual harsh bite of the ocean. Lottie fetched some inflatable pool chairs and we spent some time blowing them up on the small patch of lawn in their back yard before each laying on one in the pool, bobbing around in random motions the artificial currents pulled us in. We chattered away for a while, thankfully not just about boys or love but about things that interested me as well.

I decided that I liked Lottie. She was hesitant, a little secretive, but had a feisty side as well. She told us about the time she'd been suspended when she was young for telling a boy to eff of when he asked to see her underwear. And the time she'd discovered her now ex-boyfriend was cheating, and hid a raw fish under his car seat. She was funny, and I found myself relaxing, content in her presence.

Maybe at least one of the Sullivans were normal.