“I’m Ebony and I’m Harmony,” they chorused. I nodded, even though I knew there was no way I was going to remember who was who in a million years and wondered if I was going to have to resort to Twin One and Twin Two? Which I hoped not, because between them and the Hoodies, too many numbers.
“I’m Zoe, this is my friend Noah,” I replied, pointing back at Noah, who had been drawn into a conversation with someone else already.
They turned their attention to Noah, and then looked at each other and smiled.
“Noah’s kind of cute,” they said at the same time. “Although he is old enough to, like, be our dad,” the other one added.
“How old are you guys?” I asked.
“Nineteen,” they said at the same time.
“I think it’s highly unlikely he could be your father then,” I replied.
“Oh.” They both looked back at Noah. “Well, we were never that good at math,” they said simultaneously, and looked at Noah again. I also turned and looked at him. Clearly, his conversation had ended, and judging by the flush in his cheeks and the fact that he was looking in our direction, my guess was that he’d heard what we’d been saying. The fire blazed as someone tossed another log onto it. Small bright orange sparks like fairies flew up into the air around us and the orange blast from the fire made a color flicker across Noah’s blue eyes, as if they were merely mirrors reflecting the world around him. They weren’t so much a color as a canvas that was constantly changing.
I blushed, turned away quickly and looked back at the twins.
“Oooh, looks like he’s totally into you,” one said, leaning in with a conspiratorial smile.
The other one leaned in too, also lowering her voice to an almost-whisper. “Totally.”
I shook my head, and then hung it a little.
“What?” They moved closer to me.
“I can’t say,” I whispered. “Not here anyway.”
They looked over my shoulder and then overly loudly announced it. “We’re just going to the loo.” They stood up and one of them held their hand out for me.
“Want to come?” they asked, and one of them winked at me.
“Okay, sure.” I stood up and they immediately laced arms with me and marched me across the sand. They stopped as soon as we were out of Noah’s earshot.
“Tell us, what’s the vibe?” they asked.
“The vibe?”
“Yeah, with you and Noah?”
“Uh . . . I’m not sure,” I confessed.
“Tell us everything,” they said, at the same time again.
Hang on, was I having girl talk?Was this what it looked like? All those nights I’d missed sleepovers at my friends’ houses because I was in the hospital, was this it? If it was, I was going to go with it.
“It’s embarrassing,” I said.
“Babe, you can tell us.”
“Anything,” the other echoed.
“Well, earlier today, I thought he wanted to kiss me, but I don’t know, maybe I misinterpreted it, so I leaned in and tried to kiss him, but he kind of pulled away.”
“Harsh!” they chorused.
“What, you never told us that.” I turned when I heard a familiar voice. Zamantha and Lila were walking towards us with drinks in their hands.
I introduced everybody and soon we were all talking. I explained every single detail of the incident to them, and each one asked me for more and more details and posed more questions. The five of us did an entire post-mortem on the event, and when I was done, they stood there looking at me.
