Ey up @DanLawrenceMusic remember Alison Connor? Look what’s she’s up to … only bloody famous!
@CarterK9

@AliConnorWriter

Alison Connor. Jesus. Dan stared at her image.

Alison Connor.

Alison Connor.

@AliConnorWriter.

It was the first time he’d laid eyes on her for, what, thirty years? God Almighty. She looked the same: older, obviously, but the same. He clicked on her name, and the screen changed to her page, then he clicked on her picture, and it filled the screen. His mouth went dry, and this astonished him, because he’d made himself get over Alison Connor three decades ago. But she looked so lovely still, so intelligent, so vulnerable somehow. God Almighty. He studied her face. Yeah; she looked fucking incredible. He clicked back to her profile page:

Dan sat back in his chair, folded his arms, and contemplated the world he lived in: the same world as Alison Connor, who unbeknown to him had moved to South Australia and forged a career as a novelist. A bestselling novelist, if those stats were anything to go by.

‘Sweet Jesus, Dan, what do you need to do on your laptop at this hour?’

Katelin had left their bed, walked upstairs, opened the door and was now leaning on the frame watching him, evidently disgruntled, and he hadn’t heard a thing. He felt obscurely guilty, then immediately defensive.

‘All sorts,’ he said. ‘You might be sleeping but half the world’s awake.’

‘I’m not sleeping, Dan. Your music filtered into my dreams.’

‘Ah, sorry, did it wake you?’

She shrugged, relenting slightly. ‘Well, no, I needed the loo, but then once I was awake, I could hear it through the floor.’ She ran a hand through her hair and it stuck out at all angles, so that she looked comical standing there, slightly grumpy, in tartan pyjamas.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Sorry. Willie Dundas, fisherman from the East Neuk.’

‘Great. Well, can you switch him off and come to bed?’

‘You got it.’ He looked at her and smiled, but he didn’t switch off his Mac. ‘Just doing some notes on Billy.’ Jesus, he thought. Why am I lying?

She rolled her eyes. ‘Now? Really? Can it not wait?’

‘I promise I’ll be with you in five.’

‘God, McCulloch’s up here too.’

‘He followed me. I’ll put him back when I come down.’

‘In five.’

‘Yep.’