This picks up where that leaves off. So let's see what Steve and the girls are up to. Life does complicate things sorry for the delay. this is AI fun. Steve came to Blush for one drink. His sister insisted he needed to get out more. She neglected to mention that an evening with five women might require the emotional equivalent of legal representation.

Now Chloe has flirted with him, dancing has happened, and the table seems to know something he doesn’t. Steve decides it’s time to clear up one potentially important misunderstanding: he’s a man.

Surely that will simplify things.

Instead, his carefully supplied facts meet an audience with excellent questions, terrible poker faces, and absolutely no intention of letting him escape a conversation. Nat wants his entire life history. Tori objects to the interrogation while quietly enjoying it. Sofia discovers that he cooks. Maddie offers assistance nobody is brave enough to accept. And Chloe keeps looking at him as though his clarification hasn’t changed the most interesting thing about the evening.

For a software engineer who prefers predictable results, this is inconvenient.

“Relevant Information” brings sharp banter, unexpected tenderness, and the particular horror of realizing that people you barely know are already very good at getting under your skin. Steve can defend his logic, explain his choices, and identify a bargain with impressive precision. Whether any of that will protect him from these women is another question entirely.

Especially once they ask about his car.

Read Chapter Three of A Life in Plain Sight for an evening of affectionate chaos, increasingly personal questions, and a man discovering that being understood can be considerably more unsettling than being misunderstood.

My Secret Life
By
Rebecca Anna Coleman
Sequel To
Magnolia Blooms & Sakura Petals

-4-
Volunteering for the Dunking Booth

Dieithryn Chapter 1

© Maeryn Lamonte 2026

Introduction

Of all the places in the UK I never expected to live, Wales had to be at the top of the list. Or near if you include the places I have lived but had no choice. Much of my childhood was spent in Nottingham, and I have absolutely no desire to return to the place.

Disclaimer

The glass doors of the fitness center slide apart, letting a rush of over-conditioned air hit the August heat still clinging to my neck. I step inside. The lobby smells of rubber flooring, ozone, and citrus cleaner.

I haven't been here in weeks. I haven't swiped my membership card since the afternoon I tried to run on a treadmill and felt my chest tearing itself apart. The plastic card is slippery in my damp hand. I scan it at the turnstile. The desk attendant, a college kid wearing a tight black polo, doesn't even look at his monitor.

The theory that one of their classmates was suspected of being part of the gang that was raping women and destroying their lives took a while to sink in for Trish. While it had been rumoured, it was John’s words that made it all too real.

Chapter 2: I've Had Enough

I stared at the silver key, transfixed by the way it trembled in that impossibly pale, inhuman hand. The paper tag fluttered gently, as if moved by a breath I couldn’t feel, the words—First prize: Your Name—curling and uncurling in the lamplight’s glow. My pulse thudded in my ears, sweat slicking my palms, every instinct screaming that nothing good waited on the other side of this exchange.

CHAPTER 25
Mary was quite clear about things.

“I will be bypassing Kendal. It’ll be chocker with traffic; I mean, all of the towns will, but I’ll get this one out of the way first”

The countryside was starting to lift up properly now, and it wasn’t bloody raining for once., and Herdwick sheep started to appear in the fields, Jacky fascinated by their colour, We stayed on the A591 past Windermere station, where Mary called out, “This is Beatrix Potter country, Jacky. Her old home’s the other side of the lake”

“Who’s Beatrix Potter?”

CHAPTER 73
We got a few texts and e-mails over the next few weeks, sometimes at long intervals I presumed were due to the huge gaps in phone coverage RFO. There were also photographs, and one ended up printed and framed, joining the ‘family wall’ group.

Mark Lansing never wanted to stand out. He was perfectly happy disappearing into a football huddle with the rest of the team until one play made him the talk of the town. Thrust into a spotlight he never wanted, every choice can reshape his future, and every decision could transform him in ways he never believed possible. Mark’s destiny will be determined on the field … assuming he can figure out how to dress the part.

CHAPTER 24
It was down to the Eden Centre, then, where Jacky got suitable boots as well as, on Mary’s insistence, a better jacket and some waterproof overtrousers.

“But it’s Summer”

“But it’s the Lakes and the Highlands. It rains”

We stood and watched Jacky as she worked through the boot choice, and I quietly asked Mary, “And what does this friend of yours know about me?”

“Fran? Not sure. She knew about, well, Harry”

“So what are you going to say?”

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

Or something. Those who have followed this will know that I stuffed up a bit of chronology, in that Gemma's arrival happens here after the mass arrest, whereas it was the other way round. I will be amending the manuscript for publication, but not just now, as it will be a heavy job. What I am going to do is to write the rest of this in the right time sequence, so the next few chapters may be a little off compared to the earlier ones. To quote Hawkwind, 'Do Not Panic'

CHAPTER 51
That was really just like my god box in the flat: ‘pause’ had been pressed, on my life, but was it time to press ‘play’ once again? We stood shoulder to shoulder as the wind pushed the reeds this way and that, and Amina muttered something about work.

“Sorry?”

“This is sort of going to be my workplace, if I get the job I’m after”

Harold had exactly three hours to complete his initiation task, and he'd already wasted forty minutes of it standing outside Kappa Delta holding a box of Russell Stover chocolates like an idiot.