“We rode bikes. It was a lovely afternoon when we left.”
Margie makes a farting sound and waves her arm. “Well, it’s a right downpour now.” She lowers her voice. “The room is available if you need it. You know where the key is.”
I raise my eyebrows. Room? Margie turns her attention to me. “Ahh, my bonnie American. How is Scotland treating you?”
I can’t contain my smile. “Better than I thought possible. It’s reignited my soul, sparked my passion, and exceeded all my expectations.”
Skye blushes an adorable pink, but it’s all true.
Margie laughs. “Oh my. That is grand.”
She takes our order—two fish dinners—and leaves, still shaking her head.
“Room?”
Skye’s blush deepens. She takes a long drink from her beer.
“Aye, Margie has a couple of rooms upstairs, like an inn. One ofthem, she never rents out on a case it’s haunted. But she says she keeps it open for me. When I was a teen, I needed a place to crash sometimes.”
I run through all the scenarios of Skye and me heading up to that room after this, me helping her pull her black shirt up and over her head.
“No,” Skye says abruptly.
My face must’ve given me away.“Why not?”
She’s shaking her head and about to speak when a petite woman with straight black hair and green eyes weaves between the crowd of people in line at the bar, past the women waving to her by the fire, and sneaks up behind Skye, putting a finger to her lips when she catches my eye.
She puts her hands over Skye’s eyes as Skye lets out a yelp. “Surprise.” The woman drops her hands and grabs a wooden chair from a nearby table. The older couple sitting at it waves to her as she does.
Skye has her hand clutched to her heart. “You devil.”
The woman reaches her hand toward me. “I’m Kate, Skye’s oldest and dearest friend.”
I take her hand and shake it. “I’m Miles.”
She smirks like she can read my mind. “Oh, I know who you are. Did Skye tell you we were obsessed with that football movie when we were kids?”
I smile, thrilled by this confession. “Undercover Quarterback?Really?”
Skye is pinker than shrimp and fiddling with her beer. “We weren’t kids, exactly. We were teens.”
“Ah, well, that makes me feel a little less old.”
Kate laughs and says, “We even had a dance.”
Skye looks like she is going to murder Kate and hits her arm. “Haud yer wheesht.”
This makes Kate laugh louder. Margie comes over with our food. “Stop being a bully. Let them eat.”
Kate stands. “Okay, okay. I’ll talk to you later.” She gives Skye akiss on the cheek and goes back to sit in a tufted chair by the fire with a group of women who are knitting.
After a few heavenly bites of my fish, I say, “So, this dance…”
She rolls her eyes and finishes chewing her bite. “We were fourteen. Give me a break.”
“Fourteen…” I nod, doing some mental math. “I was nineteen when we shot the film, twenty when it came out.”
Skye looks at me in surprise. “Oh, that’s younger than I thought you were.”
