“Talking every day kind of friends, though? He might think it was something it wasn’t. You didn’t tell him either,” I pointed out.
We both took a long swallow of beer as Eilidh processed this. Then she said, “I wasn’t telling himanythingabout my life. It wasn’t a deliberate secret I was keeping.”
“I didn’t mean for it to seem like I was keeping you a secret.”
She considered me and nodded with a heavy sigh. “Okay.”
Relief started to slide through me. “So … are we good? Like, actually good this time?”
Eilidh wiped her forehead and I became fully aware of the heat again, sweat trickling down my back beneath my T-shirt. “If we’re friends again, then I don’t want to hide that from people. Hiding it makes it seem like there’s something to hide. Right?”
I nodded, willing to agree to anything to have her back in my life. “I will tell Lewis I came here and that you and I are good friends. I promise.”
A sexy wee smirk curled the corner of her mouth, and she bridged the distance between us to clink her bottle against mine. “It’s nice to have you back.”
My gaze devoured her gorgeous face, her big, expressive blue eyes. “You too, sweetheart.”
Seven
FYFE
“You’re on holiday?” I repeated, because I wasn’t quite sure I believed her. Eilidh had been working nonstop since she was a teenager.
She was sitting on the cool hardwood floor of her flat, her back to an armchair and her knees drawn toward her torso. Sweat glistened on her chest as she drank from her fourth beer. I was on my fifth. The alcohol was making our hot bodies already hotter and had loosened us both up. As I sprawled on her couch, beer bottle dangling from my fingers, it pleased me that it hadn’t taken too much for those nine months of distance to melt away.
“My agent wasn’t very happy about it. Says I could lose momentum since the show isn’t as talked about anymore. But I’m exhausted. When a fellow actor offers you a pill to give you energy and you seriously consider taking it, that’s when you know you’ve got a problem.”
Anxiety flickered hotly through me at the thought of Eilidh going down that path. “Fuck, Eils, please tell me you’re exaggerating?”
She shook her head grimly. “I didn’t take it, of course. But the fact that I considered it scared the shit out of me. That wasaround the time Harley was born. I was about to sign on to a movie shooting this summer, but I know I’m burned out, so I said no. That went down like a lead balloon with my agent.”
“Fuck your agent.” I’d like to mash the bastard for overworking her. “You’re really taking a break all summer until the next season ofYoung Adultstarts filming?”
“I am.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Were you planning on coming home?”
She gave me an exasperated look. “Of course. But Mor is coming to stay with me for a few weeks as soon as school’s out. She wants to spend some time in London, and I want to get to know my wee sister again. I didn’t see any point coming to Ardnoch now. I’ll visit when I bring Mor back.”
Looking around her flat, I hated that she was here alone in this place. It was more art gallery than home. Not that I could talk. My house had very few knickknacks in it or personal touches.
“What is it?”
“Merely wondering if it’s a break you need or a change of career,” I told her bluntly. Eilidh hadn’t been happy for at least a few years now. She was only twenty-four and she couldn’t go on like this.
“Well … I have been writing.” She didn’t meet my eyes, and I couldn’t tell if the flush on her cheeks was the heat, the beer, or her insecurity. Most likely all three.
I sat up, intrigued. “Writing?”
“Screenwriting.” Finally she looked at me. “I’ve been writing a script. It’s inspired by my family. By Ardnoch Estate. The club. The members. The weird shit that’s happened to us.” She grinned wryly, yet just as abruptly, her amusement fled. “I think it might be something, but I’m not sure and … I don’t know if my family would see it as a violation of their privacy.”
Eils was writing a script?
Awed, impressed, I shook my head. “Sweetheart, their lives have been splashed across national news. Also you saidinspired, right?”
“Right. Different names, fictional village and estate, etc.”
“Then I don’t think they’d see it as a violation. This is amazing. I can’t wait to read it.”
