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“You would know, Darcy,” Owen shoots back. “I heard that’s what you and Oliver West do when you sit next to each other in class.”

“Do not!” the twin on the left, Darcy, shouts.

Dana sniggers while reaching for a handful of nachos.

Trying not to stare, I assess Owen, wondering what’s happened to the man I’ve known for a year. I don’t recognise this version of him. Since he pulled up outside my apartment this evening, there’s been no scowl, no grumpy front. I’ve never seen him this relaxed, this cavalier, and I have to say, it suits him.

“I don’t mind if you want to sit with the girls,” I tell Owen.

“Yeah, come and sit with us, Uncle Owen.” Dana slides away from her sister and pats the space on the bench.

“Excuse me,” Owen says as he puts his chair back, moves around the table, and climbs onto the seat between the girls.

They both shuffle in towards him, sandwiching him between them. I can’t help but laugh, a warmth flooding my chest as he starts pushing their headbands down over their eyes and tapping them on the shoulder as if someone is behind them.

The chilli is served, rice is put on the table, and everyone helps themselves as Smithy and Romana join us, Romana sitting next to me and Smithy perching on a stool at the end.

I don’t hold back. The chilli smells amazing. I’m so hungry, so I happily ladle a large helping onto my plate, followed by rice and wraps, sour cream, and cheese.

“Well, Owen wasn’t exaggerating when he said your chilli was amazing,” I say after my first mouthful.

“Thank you.” Smithy nods. “It’s taken me years to perfect, and I’ve had to cut down on the spices since the girls were born. They can’t take it as hot as we used to have it, but I’m working on it. Every week, I add a little bit more.” The last sentence he says quietly, as if letting us in on his little plan.

“We heard you,” Darcy says as she munches on a nacho.

“We like hot food,” Dana says.

“Do you always refer to yourselves as ‘we’?” I ask no twin in particular, and they both answer in unison.

“We do.”

“Wow. What’s it like being a twin?” I ask. “Are you guys psychic? Can you read each other’s minds? Do you know what the other one is going to do before you do it?”

“It’s okay.” Dana shrugs like it’s the most boring thing in the world.

“We just do the same things without thinking. But I don’t like cheese,” Darcy says.

“And I do,” Dana adds, popping some cheese into her mouth as proof.

“Do you play pranks on your teacher, like pretending to be each other to confuse them?” I ask, genuinely interested. I’ve never met identical twins before. There were twins in my art class at high school, but they were male and female, Tori and Callum Higgins, and they hated each other, so there was no point in asking them about what it was like to be a twin.

“They do that with us, never mind the teacher.” Romana laughs.

“I bet it’s so cool. I used to play a lot of pranks when I was your age,” I tell them.

“Do you have a twin?” Dana asks.

“No, I wasn’t that lucky, but I had friends, and I’d get them to help me. In high school, I had a best friend called Sydney, and we used to get up to all sorts of stuff.”

“Like what?” Darcy asks.

“There was this one time when we superglued all our stationery to the table and then told the teacher we couldn’t do any work. And then there was this other time when I pretended to have a fear of bananas in food technology the day we were making banana bread, and I had to leave the class as I couldn’t cope with all the bananas in the room.”

“Seriously?” Darcy screws her face up.

“Who would be afraid of bananas?” Dana says.

“Some people have weird fears,” Owen jumps in. “I used to work with a guy who had a fear of buttons. He had to cut them all off his clothes and replace them with little strips of Velcro.”