“What are you sorry for, Lady M?” he asks mildly. He doesn’t move his hand away from mine, though, I notice, and I close my fingers around it softly.
“Sorry about all of that,” I say, nodding back in the direction of the monument that’s now disappeared from view. “I wouldn’t have stopped there if I’d know that bus was going to pull up right after us. It wasn’t exactly the welcome to Scotland I’d have wanted for you. It was a bit of a mess, actually.”
“It was a bit of a mess,” Jett agrees, his eyes still fixed on my face. “You’re the one who got hurt, though,” he adds, pulling his hand out from under mine, then raising it to gently touch the redness under my eye, which I can tell has already started to swell. “So I’m the one who should be saying sorry.”
His hand is soft against my skin. It feels nice. And I know I shouldn’t, but it feelssonice that I allow myself to rest my cheek against his palm for just a second, letting the warmth of his touch seep through me.
“That was quite some fight you put up back there,” he says, pulling away and leaving me bereft. “I thought you were going to take on all of those women single-handedly.”
“I think I was,” I admit, closing my eyes as I remember the indignation that took over when I saw the way they were clawing at him. As if they owned him. As if he wasn’t even a real person, just some kind ofthingfor them to touch.
As if he wasn’tmine.
But, of course, he’snotmine, is he?
Not really. So I clear my throat and try to bring myself back to reality.
“I honestly don’t knowwhatI was thinking,” I tell him. “It just… it just really pissed me off, the way they were acting. It was kind of scary, really.”
I glance up, wondering if he’ll take that as his cue to tell me how he really felt about it. Instead, he just looks out of the window for a while before answering.
“Yeah, it’s a trip all right,” he says mildly. “Welcome to my world.”
“Thanks. And thanks for rescuing me,” I tell him. “I thought you were going to take them all on, too.”
We grin at each other, almost shyly. It’s a moment that feels one hundred percent real. It’s almost worth getting elbowed in the face for.Almost.
“Heather Bay, 5 miles,” Jett says, breaking the silence that’s fallen on us both as he reads the road sign that’s just flashed past. “Also, ‘Bàgh Fraoich’, whatever that means.”
His attempt at the Gaelic is so terrible I start to laugh, but it only takes a few minutes for the nerves to take hold again, and suddenly I’m feeling sick to my stomach again.
Five miles to Heather Bay.
Five miles until home.
Five miles untilMum —and all the other people I thought I’d never have to face again.
“Quick. What’s my middle name?” I say, desperately, turning to Jett as the panic threatens to engulf me.
The lines beside his eyes deepen with amusement.
“Did that woman hit you harder than I realized, Lady M?” he asks. “Do we need to get you a doctor?”
“It’s not funny,” I insist. “Come on, Jett, we’re nearly there. We have to rehearse. People are going to expect us to know each other. Toreallyknow each other, I mean.”
“I hardly think people are going to be stopping me in the street to ask me your middle name, or when your birthday is, Lexie,” he says, still looking amused.
“Whatismy birthday?” I fire back. “You should probably know that, shouldn’t you? I know yours is June 15th, which makes you a Gemini. Or is it Taurus? But I can’t remember—”
“Alexandra Louise Steele,” he says, sounding very much like a man who’s good-naturedly humoring an idiot. “Born April 12th. Year never to be mentioned. 5’4”, unless you’re wearing heels, which you almost always do, because you’re self-conscious about your height, even though you don’t need to be. You dye your hair a brighter shade of blonde than it is naturally, because you’ve got it into your head that it’s not good enough the way it is. You don’t have any brothers or sisters, but you do have a second-cousin called Alfie, who you think is ‘all right’. You’re terrified of crabs, but really like horses. You’ve read all the classics, but you have a soft spot for mystery novels. You do yoga every day and never eat sugar. You bite your nails when you’re nervous, which is often.”
He pauses to look pointedly at my fingers, which are currently hovering near my mouth. I snatch them away hurriedly, then sit on them for good measure.
“You like to act tough,” Jett goes on, “But you’re not really. You want people to like you, but you pretend you don’t care, so you don’t get hurt. You don’t have a favorite color, and you think that’s a stupid question, anyway. Is that enough, do you think, or should I go on?”
I stare at him, surprised into silence. I’ve only told him about half of that stuff. The rest he’s just noticed for himself, and I have no idea what to say to it; mostly because I had no idea he was observing me that closely.
Is that another actor trick, I wonder? Study people so you can imitate them later? Or was he listening because hecares?
