The Reluctant Roadtripper (A Romantic Comedy)

Chapter 13

Before Owen starts talking, we decide to top up our alcohol supply. The prosecco is long gone now, after all.

I order a large glass of white wine, while Owen opts for a beer. There are a number of public rooms in this hotel, apart from the restaurant and bar, so we find an empty one and settle beside the window. A view very similar to that in the restaurant greets us, but once again, I'm more focused on the guy sitting opposite me.

He's so handsome and tanned, sleeves rolled up, hair perfectly mussed - the original golden boy of my dreams. Main star of The Owen Show, and the briefest of guest stars on The Mirren Show, once upon a time.

And we're finally about to find out what caused that damn plot twist.

He laughs awkwardly. "I honestly don't know where to start," he tells me.

"Well, I can't really help you with that," I reply. Probably slightly snippily judging by his wince. "Sorry, old habits die hard," I mutter with an apologetic shrug.

It's his turn to take a deep breath, gather his thoughts. "So . . . As a kid, I always had a bit of a love-hate relationship with Galloway Haven." He clocks my confused look. "Trust me, this all ties in with that summer!"

"Context. I get it." I shoot him an encouraging semi-smile. "Do continue."

"I know it might have seemed pretty cool growing up on a caravan park, and to an extent, it was. But I used to get a hard time for it at school; I'm not really sure why, but you know what kids can be like sometimes. They find something that's different about you and use it against you.

"I tried not to let it bother me. I suppose, in a way, I even embraced it. Just kept my head down and concentrated on my schoolwork during termtime. And when my holidays rolled around, I got to let loose a bit, meet new people, and just generally have fun." A brief grin lights up his face. "I was effectively living a double life, I guess.

"But there were other downsides too. Like I mentioned to you once before, I never got to go on holiday myself. And from fairly early on in my life, I felt this pretty heavy expectation from my parents that, as their only child, I would take over the running of the holiday park at some point."

"And you didn't want that," I state. He nods in agreement.

"I didn't know what the hell I wanted to do with my life, but I knew my future wasn't meant to be at Galloway Haven. And I felt like a piece of shit for feeling that way . . . because how many people actually have the privilege of having an inheritance like that? There were probably other kids who would jump at the chance to have a ready-made successful business they could just take over, and I was an ungrateful arsehole."

"But it wasn't going to make you happy," I say gently. I would have felt exactly the same in that situation. 

"I was already certain that I didn't want to stay in Portpatrick my whole life. I figured whatever I did in the future would probably involve travel, but I felt like without an actual career path planned out, my parents would try and steer me back to the caravan park plan. So, at some point in my mid-teens, I decided to tell them I wanted to be a lawyer. I knew I was smart enough to get the results to get onto a law course, and I figured that they wouldn't try to stop me if they thought it was my dream job."

He shakes his head. "I know I should have just told them the truth, but I was young and stupid and didn't want to upset them. In my head, this was the perfect plan to avoid that. There was only one problem."

"Which was?"

Owen smiles wryly, nudging his glasses up his nose with a finger. "It turns out I fucking hated studying law."