Oh, come on, Mirren!" My friend Catriona pulls me towards the small circle of teenagers already forming around the empty glass bottle of Irn Bru. "It'll be fun!"

I'm not so sure. I've never kissed a boy before, and I'm unbelievably anxious. My eyes land on Owen Sullivan, Mr. Popular himself, and I swallow hard. What if I end up having to kiss him? He's always been too bloody cute for his own good. He'd probably laugh at my nonexistent skills, and I'd never live it down.

That being said, I think, looking around the rest of the boys in the circle, he might be the only one I'd even be half tempted to kiss.

"Right, who wants to go first?" Owen asks the group, as me and Cat sit down on the ground.

"You should, Sully!" Kieran tells him. "It was your idea, after all."

And there's the other reason why I don't want to play this game . . . My brother's presence. I don't really want to see him kiss anyone - gross! - and I'm sure he probably feels similarly about me.

Owen grins, and my heart quickens as his dimples deepen. There really should be laws against anyone being that adorable. One tanned arm reaches out for the bottle and sends it flying into a slightly chaotic spin.

We all watch, fascinated, as it completes rotation after rotation, slowing gradually to a stop, the neck pointing directly between me and Cat. I hear Cat gasp while I release a shaky sigh of relief. Owen is going to kiss Cat, of course he is. Cat is far cuter than me.

But . . . No. Owen is suddenly kneeling in front of me. "Looks like you're it," he says softly. Barely before I can react, he's cupping my face in his hands, and his lips brush lightly against mine.

"Not my sister, dude!" I hear Kieran groan. He sounds very far away. Somehow, I can no longer bring myself to care about the fact that he's here. Owen deepens the kiss fractionally, and although I admittedly don't have a clue what I'm doing, my response seems natural. It feels right, somehow.

When he pulls back a few seconds later, I feel . . . Bereft. Cheated. I wanted more. He smiles at me, eyes bright, and hands me the bottle. "I guess it's your turn to spin," he says, and I'm sure I hear reluctance in his tone. I place the bottle on the ground and spin it, but I can feel Owen's eyes on me the whole time, and my heart ties itself into a nervous little bow of delight . . .

A quiet knock on the hotel room door jolts me out of my reverie, and I sit upright on the bed, examining my face in the mirror opposite. I probably should have spent my time waiting for Owen more productively by fixing my hair and make-up, but instead, I found myself daydreaming about our first kiss all those years ago instead. Looking back to that night, with the hindsight filter in place, it's now so clear that he liked me even then.

With the teenage version of Owen stuck firmly in my head, it's almost unsettling to open the door to the 29 year old model. Slightly taller, more muscular, nowhere near as cocky as he seemed back then. The one thing that has never altered, though, is that smile and its magical ability to make me melt.

"You want to come in?" I ask, my voice shaking with nerves.

"Not yet," he says softly. "I think we should go out for a bit."

"But the others . . ." I protest.

"They're all having an early night," he tells me. "In case you weren't aware, suffering from an imaginary dose of food poisoning can really take it out of you." He takes my hand. "Let's go down to the hotel bar."

"It feels like you're just trying to postpone the inevitable here," I whine, but I let him lead me downstairs all the same.

There's that smile again as he turns to glance back at me, eyes sparkling. "I told you, I don't want to rush things with you," he says simply, grasping my hand tighter. "And I think I need a stiff drink to calm my nerves."

"You're nervous?" I ask, surprised.

"Can't you tell? I'm pretty sure I'm shaking right now." He takes a deep breath as we lean against the bar. "I thought this was never going to happen, and now it might, I'm . . . Well, to put it bluntly, I'm shitting a brick."

I find myself giggling. The fact that he's admitting he's nervous too puts me slightly more at ease. Maybe he's right that we need to pace ourselves a bit.

"I was just thinking about that game of Spin The Bottle," I tell him, after he's ordered us a dram of whisky each, and we've found a corner table in the bar. What sounds like Scottish folk music is filtering in from another room in the hotel. I'm trying to ignore that as I'm getting horrible flashbacks to a certain school tradition I used to dread as a teenager.

"Ah, yes, my genius plan that I didn't properly think through!" He says with a groan. "I was so focused on getting a chance to kiss you that I forgot you'd have to kiss other guys too. That wasn't exactly fun to watch."

"I've always thought the bottle was pointing more at my friend than me."

"It was somewhat of a . . . Grey area," he confirms, mouth twitching. "Could have gone either way, really."

"You could even say you got off with me on a technicality," I joke, and he lets out a bark of laughter.

"What is with the music next door?" I ask finally, unable to ignore it any longer. "It's giving high school Scottish country dancing vibes."

He grimaces dramatically. "Oh Christ, please don't mention that phrase again."

"You too?" I ask sympathetically, and he nods, instantly understanding what I'm talking about.

Physical Education class was bad enough for me growing up, since I've always been pretty much the polar opposite of athletic - but in the run-up to Christmas in some schools in Scotland, we were forced to practice traditional Scottish dancing in lieu of the usual sports, and that made the class even worse.

The dancing in itself was probably fine. The enduring trauma, however, came from the fact we'd be lined up, girls on one side of the gym hall and guys on the other, and forced to pick partners to dance with.

It was an absolute minefield, the fabric that nightmares are made of. If the boys picked, most of the time, I would be the reluctant afterthought. If it was girls' choice, I'd have to choose my "victim" carefully. It was, of course, assumed you must have a crush on whoever you chose. Oh, and there was nothing quite as ego-crushing as the look of disappointment from the cutest guy in the class on that one occasion I managed to bag him for a shot at the Millitary Two Step.

"I was nearly always last to be picked," I complain now.

"Same here," Owen agrees, with a wince. "It was always one of the most effective ways to realise just how unpopular I was."

"I honestly still can't believe you weren't the same popular golden boy at school that you were at the holiday park," I say in wonder.

"All my awkward growing-up phases somehow happened during termtime," he says with a self-deprecating shrug. "And I honestly was just a different person at school. I think part of it was because Galloway Haven was my comfort zone; school definitely was not."

"Hmm, I'm sceptical," I hum.

"Remind me to show you my yearbook photos sometime," he smirks, and my heart skips a beat. He's certainly talking like we could be sharing a future, even if I'm not sure what's going to happen after this week.

The barmaid has clearly been half listening to our conversation as she clears the table beside us. "There's a ceilidh going on in the function suite," she offers now. "We hold one every couple of months. Everyone's welcome."

"Hard pass from me," I say, shuddering. Thanks to the aforementioned P.E. memories, ceilidhs have forever been an item high up on my list of pet peeves. I've been known to avoid events if I catch even a hint that there's going to be one taking place. Once, I even hid in the bathroom at a wedding until the ceilidh portion of the night was over. That was a long 90 minutes.

"Your loss," the barmaid grins as she walks away. "Maybe it would be more fun than you remember."

"Maybe it would . . ." Owen muses quietly, and I look up at him in horror.

"No. No. No!" I shake my head emphatically as I spot the mischievous glint in his eyes. He seems to have reverted to his fifteen year old self in this moment. I'm half-expecting him to produce that empty Irn Bru bottle from somewhere on his person and gather the other bar customers together for a bit of ad-hoc snogging. "Owen, I swear to god, you can not make me do this."

"Come on, let's just go in for one dance!" He downs the rest of his whisky and indicates for me to do the same. "Look at it this way: we'll be in this together. We get to do the dancing part without all the boy-girl politics!"

I consider this argument. I suppose if I'm going to revisit what was arguably one of the most traumatic parts of my schooldays, it would probably be marginally less difficult with Owen by my side. I nod decisively and drain my own glass. "Okay . . . Let's do this!" I say before I regret it further.

Looks like instead of Spin The Bottle, we're about to go spin around a dancefloor . . .

So . . . I mean, there was a kiss of sorts in this chapter! It just took place fifteen years ago . . . Sorry, I can be a bit sneaky that way. 😉

I promise, it's coming, though! Just let Mirren and Owen have a wee go at a Canadian Barn dance first, and then we'll see how they feel . . . ❤️

I really hope you're enjoying the story!