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Strolling past the pebble-dash houses of suburban Kirkwall, Nick gazed up into the star-peppered sky. Catching up with Evie, his stomach satiated by the most glorious cupcakes—in Orkney!—the night had taken an euphoric detour from the raging dumpster fire a half-hour earlier.
“And that’s the other one I love—the old Sinclair house.” Evie pointed across the street where a small community church had been converted into a private dwelling.
“That’s cool.” Nick marveled, looking over his shoulder. “It’s freakishly quiet here. We haven’t seen a single soul since we left.”
“I like it.” Evie tugged her cardigan tighter. “It feels like I have the island to myself.”
“Do you feel safe? Walking alone after dark?”
She nodded. “It’s hard to get away with shit here. Everyone knows everyone else, pretty much.” Nick peered behind them again, and Evie giggled. “Don’t worry. Paparazzi won’t leap out from behind the wheelie bins. No one will see your Smurfy blue tongue. Not like before!”
“Before?”
“The Mail photos?” Evie added. “Last spring?”
Mining his memory, snippets of a rowdy Salford pub lock-in featuring numerous blue drinks swam through Nick’s head along with an intrusive exposé that appeared online the following morning. “Ohh, right. Yeah, my uni mates thought being papped was hilarious.”
“Was it easy…making new friends?”
“Not at first. But eventually they saw me as boring ol’ Nick and not some privileged tosser from telly—well, paparazzi ambushes aside.”
“Sounds like you’re having a great time.”
“I am, strangely enough! Going in, I thought uni would stifle me, but it’s been grand. I’m learning loads, meeting interesting people, livin’ like a typical twenty-year-old—and fucking loving it. I’m an all-new Nick!”
“That’s great!” Fiddling with her necklace, Evie gestured to the road bending off to the left. “My house is down here.”
“Brilliant.” A chilled buzz flowed through his veins. Two beers wouldn’t usually affect him like this, but with a busy week of travel, stress, and little sleep, everything felt a little fuzzier around the edges. Nice, but definitely fuzzy.
Nick cleared his throat. “How are things with Sunita?”
“Much better. She rang me the morning after the bonfire, hungover and mortified. She must’ve apologized, like, twenty times. Still, it took me a while to forgive her. My dad says being slow to forgive is a Sutherland family trait.” Evie shrugged and reached into her bag. “Who knew?” Her hand exited with her bottle of juice. “But I missed Sun, so I invited her for chips after class one day and we made up for good. I’ve never seen Fi happier.”
“Good. I’m glad,” said Nick.
“Yeah. We cleared the air about a lot of things—including you.” She unfastened the lid of her juice. “Sun thinks you’re okay now.”
“You think?”
“She’s not a bad person, Nick. She’s just overly protective. We both got picked on when we were younger. It was one of the things that brought us together, looking out for each other and standing up to bullies.” Evie sipped her drink.
“But I’m hardly a schoolyard bully,” said Nick.
“I know, but when it comes to guys I like—” Evie halted midsentence, her abrupt silence unintentionally highlighting ‘guys I like’.
A wave of hopeful curiosity crashed inside Nick, but Evie wasn’t forthcoming. Skirting his eyes, her lips waffled, closing and opening twice until she expelled a hurried “She interrogates people,” which she punctuated with a shaky swig of juice and an apparent attempt to change the subject. “Seen any musicals lately?” She chased the question with another drawn-out sip.
But Nick wasn’t having it. “So, you like me?”
Swallowing, Evie lowered the bottle. “Nick.”
“What?”
“I’m not doing this.” Her voice rose.
Nick threw his hands up. “Doing what?” he asked, playfully aware of being an annoying tease.
