Chapter 5
Chapter Five
I f she was being honest, Grace was mildly disappointed to realize that the pies on offer at the Three Puffins were various and sundry savory meat and veg pies, not giant portions of apple or rhubarb or whatever fruit pie was popular here. Fruit slice, Diego had called it.
Of course, it was silly to expect American pie in a Scottish pub, but Grace was jet-lagged and her brain filled in the blanks with what she was craving, not what made sense.
The meat pies on nearby plates smelled delicious, but she ordered fish and chips just to show her disdain for pie that wasn’t sweet. Still , she and Wes sank onto their shared stool, back to back, and she couldn’t help feeling somewhat content as her glass of sauvignon blanc warmed her tummy.
“Maybe it wasn’t a complete mistake,” she said over her shoulder to Wes .
“I’m so glad to hear it.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Only mistake I see is Rebecca bailing, and since that worked out very much in my favor, I could hardly call it a mistake. Sucks for her, though.”
“She didn’t bail. Her asshole husband threw a hissy fit until she backed out.”
“Yeah, well, he was her first mistake.”
“No argument,” Grace agreed, and they clinked glasses.
The man at the next stool picked up his pint and tipped his flat cap to them before ambling away across the bar so Wes could claim his stool.
“Something-something about the kindness of strangers,” she drawled in an exaggerated Southern accent before taking a long swig of her dark ale. It made her wince a little, but she licked her lips.
Across the bar, the karaoke crowd was getting raucous as a cute teenaged boy gave an earnest rendition of a Taylor Swift tune while all the young women in the bar swooned.
Maybe Grace should add a karaoke scene to her draft. Maybe that was the thing to save it, or at least jump start the nonexistent romance.
She sighed.
“Nope,” Wes said, she of the killer hearing. “ No fretting about your book. Not tonight.”
Grace didn’t bother to pretend she hadn’t been thinking about it. “ I don’t know how to write it,” she moaned.
“Luckily, you’re marooned on a beautiful island with a gorgeous landlord.”
“He’s not gorgeous. He’s a jerk with an overinflated sense of his own forearms.” She took a gulp of her wine, trying to blot out the damn tattoo.
“What about his forearms?”
“You’ve seen them.”
“Inspiration will strike.” Wes rubbed Grace’s back. “ Promise . Just as soon as you tell me what he did to piss you off so bad. He seems sort of… nice, what with us hijacking his house and all.”
“Nice?”
“Yeah, in a grouchy Harrison Ford kind of way. It’s hot.”
“You’re deranged. That reminds me.” Grace picked up her phone. “ I was going to try to find a vacancy.”
“Not! Tonight !” Wes gestured for the bartender to bring Grace another glass of wine. “ We’re all adults. We can share space for a few days without bursting into flames. You guys can even share a bed if you want.”
“I don’t want,” Grace protested, mentally batting away the image of her bearded landlord with tousled bedhead. Bad enough she’d had to do the race of shame from the bathroom to the bedroom in nothing but her towel after Wesley’s offer to share the vibrator had flustered her so much she left her change of clothes behind. Of course he’d been sitting right in the kitchen when she’d come out. She wasn’t used to having to share space with anyone, let alone a man she’d known little more than five minutes. “ Remember the part about him being a jerk?”
“I’m just saying.”
“I came here to write,” Grace reminded them both.
“Sure. But writers need a muse. You’ve said yourself you’re stagnated, right?”
“I don’t think that’s exactly what I said,” Grace protested, but Wes wasn’t listening. “ He doesn’t like books.” She frowned at her glass of wine so hard the bartender took it back to look inside. “ Who doesn’t like books?” she asked, and the bartender handed her drink back with a shrug.
“My point is, when did you last get laid? Maybe a no-strings island bang is exactly the inspiration you need?—”
“What?” Grace spluttered, choking on her wine, and wishing her friend would crank the volume down a decibel or ten.
“Answer the question.”
“I’m not going to answer the question.”
“That, in itself, is an answer,” Wes said, smirking like she’d won some sort of game.
“There’s no sex in my book!” Grace whispered the word sex and glanced quickly at the bartender, who raised his eyebrows.
“So?”
“So how could it possibly be an inspiration for a book about minors ?”
Wes snorted. “ The fact you don’t think minors are having sex tells me everything I need to know.”
College. College was the answer to Wesley’s annoyingly intrusive question. Grace had last slept with her college boyfriend about eight years ago, and then he went home to Jackson and she stayed behind in Knoxville , entering a long dry spell, which, honestly, she preferred.
Besides, she’d been very busy, first in grad school and then working the equivalent of two full-time jobs, as a school librarian and an author. An author who was about to be in breach of contract if she didn’t deliver a second book by the end of this trip. A trip which wasn’t a mistake, no matter how long they had to share their accommodations with a grumpy landlord and his bee tattoo.
“I wonder what his tattoo means,” she mused aloud.
“Who’s tattoo?”
This time Grace choked on a french fry. “ My character.”
“I thought your characters were all minors.”
“It’s just an exercise. Like , ‘ What kind of tree would you be?’ Besides , he’s an edgy artist and he’s already designed the tattoo he’s going to get the minute he turns eighteen.” This was good. She’d have to remember to write it down later.
“So you’ve designed it, but you don’t know what it means?”
“No,” Grace answered, thinking quickly. “ I just imagine it would mean something.” Lying was exhausting.
Wes nodded. “ Or he could be a dumb teenage boy and it doesn’t mean anything except he likes pizza.”
“Speaking from experience?” Grace teased, eyeing her friend, but Wesley’s ink wasn’t visible.
She grinned and shrugged. “ I’ve never been a teenage boy,” Wes replied coyly.
“The thing about YA is the characters are usually really deep and brilliant. They’re the embodiment of every mature thing the readers wish or believe themselves to be.”
Nodding once more, Wes whispered into her pint. “ I bet your readers would be thrilled to have a hot holiday bang.”
Grace sighed again and shook her head. When her editor had asked her to consider adding a romance to her sophomore book, she’d genuinely considered the idea before rejecting it completely. When her editor then explained how she could only offer a contract on Grace’s option if she added the romance, she’d given in, complete and utter sellout in need of a more reliable car that she was.
And it wasn’t because she’d grown up Catholic or because she was maybe a little bit of a prude, or any of the other things. It was because she didn’t want to do a disservice to her young readers by conditioning them to an idealized fantasy about sex and happily ever afters. Now she was stuck, her draft was a year and a half overdue, and they were threatening to revoke her advance.
“I’m really tired. You ready to bounce?”
“I mean, I was hoping to sing a duet, but it’s your trip I guess.”
The Catholic guilt was strong with this one.
“It’s our trip,” Grace reminded her. “ You want to make fools of ourselves, we’ll make fools of ourselves.”
Wes grinned and they crossed the pub to pick out a song and put their names down. The teen had finished his timid but perfectly pitched T Swift song to hoots and hollers from his rowdy friends, and the emcee shoed him off stage before glancing back at the list.
He pulled out a pair of reading glasses to check it again, much to the amusement of the crowd.
“Thought me eyes were playing tricks,” he quipped, and they all chuckled. “ Can it really be? Ryan MacNeil , the prodigal son, returns?”
Grace’s head snapped up to see Mr . Bee himself making his way up to the stage, his permanent glower in place.
“B- B - B - Bryan !” someone shouted, and he gave them the finger before leaning over to whisper to the emcee, who looked equally annoyed as he changed over whichever song had already started to play.
“This one’s for you, Mitchell Murray ,” he growled as the song switched to the opening beats of Pink’s “ Blow Me ( One Last Kiss ).”
Wes leaned in close. “ Just me, or does this feel like an inside joke we’re outside of?”
“Wait, is it Bryan or Ryan ? Everyone’s been saying Ryan , right?” Grace whispered, but Wes , merely shrugged, bopping her head in rhythm with the song.
Mr. Bee’s forearms flexed as he gripped the mic in a possessive sort of way.
Was Grace jealous of a microphone right now? No , of course not, but his gravelly purr did something to her, like a swarm of bees rumbling deep in her belly. Suddenly she found herself shouting the lyrics alongside him because, after all, it truly had been the shittiest of days up until they landed on Barra’s pristine white beach.
Eyes shining, Wes gleefully joined her for the refrain.
As she watched him sing, Grace had the oddest sensation that she was transfixed by his lips, physically unable to stop staring at them, at their shape and the way they moved. He had Bono lips—the only other man whose mouth she’d ever noticed, during an interview she’d seen in college. This time, she had the rather ridiculous urge to trace those lips, first with her finger, and then with her tongue.
What was wrong with her? Was jet lag causing her system to go haywire? She didn’t lust after men, she wasn’t here for that. She was here to write a book, damn it.
Vacation is for food and orgasms , Wes had said, and they were fresh out of food. Good thing for Grace this was work and not a vacation.
But it sure felt good to scream out her frustrations with Pink . By the end of the song, she and Wes were practically louder than he was and they’d gotten the whole crowd to join in.
When he finished, Mr . Bee glanced around the bar with a smug little smirk, and Grace hated how much she liked it. Boys who could sing had always been a weakness, even more than boys with accents. But he was a jerk, she reminded herself. He might have good taste in music and facial hair and dumb tattoos, but he hated books—her literal life’s work. He thought he could just glower and flex his forearms and get his way. No , thank you, sir.
“That’s us!” Wes shoved her towards the little stage.
“I didn’t hear our names.”
“He called us ‘the American lassies who apparently cannae wait their turn,’ so…” Wes rolled her eyes along with her R ’s as she imitated the old emcee.
To reach the stage, they had to squeeze along a row of tables near the wall. Mr . Bee stepped between two chairs so they could pass, but Grace’s shoulder grazed his upper arm, sending out a spark of heat as though she’d brushed against a hot oven.
“Sorry,” she whispered up at him, catching another waft of smoky sandalwood. His green eyes, serious and scowling as usual, almost singed her. What happened to the smirk? Was he angry at them for drowning him out? For stealing his thunder?
As she took the stage, still burning from the way he’d looked at her, the pleasant buzz from her wine suddenly fled, but too late. The opening notes of “ Bad Romance ” were already skittering through the speakers.
She ran her hands down her waist, past the weight of the worry stone in her right pants pocket. “ This is what you picked?” she asked Wesley , who smiled angelically.
“I’m going through things, remember?”
“You don’t seem like it.”
Wes shrugged.
Grace reached in her pocket to grasp the cool soothing stone and twist it in her anxious fingers. Why not go for it? the stone seemed to ask. She didn’t know these people and would never see them again. Might as well sing her heart out.
Together, she and Wes gave the anthem everything they had, every last shred of energy and confidence and dignity, and when it was over, jet lag hit like a 747.
One sideways glance at Wesley and her friend nodded in agreement, so they shoved their way to the exit.
After the darkness of the bar, Grace was surprised by how bright it still was outside, and she stood blinking into the evening sun, the hands of her internal clock spinning helplessly out of control.
“I’ll walk you,” a familiar brogue rumbled as their landlord fell into step beside her.
“You don’t have to,” she protested.
“And let you accuse me of negligence when you wander into the ocean and drown?” he asked, raising that one cocky eyebrow.
“Well, we’d be dead, so…”
“Your song was very good,” Wes cut in.
“Aye, you too, Ladies Gaga ,” he said, teasing, despite still sounding serious—and seriously put out.
“Really, we found our own way here just fine,” Grace grumbled, but when Wesley elbowed her, she added, “ I mean, in case you’re not ready to go.”
“I am,” was all he replied.
“Then thanks,” she acquiesced.
They walked in silence, far too close together, and there it was again, that whiff of fresh sandalwood. Or was it cedarwood? Or some other kind of manly wood—she choked.
“All right?” he asked, both he and Wes turning to her in concern.
“Fine! My spit went down wrong,” she said, oh so smoothly, and when his brows lifted, she added, “ Allergies . I don’t think I’m used to it here. All the fresh air.”
“Right,” he nodded. “ Where’re you from? Tennessee is it?”
Had she told him that? She didn’t think so. “ How did you know that?”
“Cait said, didn’t she?” he answered quickly, turning away from her and starting down the road again.
“I don’t think so…?” God , was it her accent? Grace had often been told she didn’t sound Southern . She prided herself on not sounding Southern . But , born and raised in Knoxville , maybe there really was no taking the Tennessee out of the girl.
A gentle rain began to patter as they strolled down the high street, and Mr . Bee handed her a small umbrella after casting them both an irritated look for not having brought their own.
“Do you want to crowd in?” Wes offered.
“Nah,” he said, staring straight ahead with his mouth set in a line as the rain beaded up and rolled off his leather jacket.
They walked on in silence, though Grace kept getting the sense he was about to speak only to pull himself back. When they arrived at the tiny stone cottage, Wes went off to shower, leaving Grace and their host standing awkwardly in the kitchen once more.
“Night cap?” he finally grunted.
“Sure, why not?” she said, just to end the awkwardness.
“Let me guess. Gin and tonic?”
She lifted her chin defiantly. “ And why is that your guess? Because it’s boring?”
Putting his hands up in surrender he said, “ Nothing dull about gin, Rios . It’s versatile and… junipery...”
“And I strike you as… junipery?”
She didn’t know why she was being so combative. Just , he put her on the defensive, and she didn’t like being there.
He studied her, his jaw working back and forth like he had a lot to say but kept deciding not to say it. “ What do you like then?”
“I don’t really drink much.”
“Afraid of the demon rum?”
“No, I just… don’t know what I like besides white wine.”
He tilted his head to study her after that pronouncement, as though he could see right through her to the words she didn’t say, and it felt like flames were licking her arms and face until he turned away to open cabinet after cabinet, finding only dishes and a mismatched set of mugs and teacups.
He swore something Gaelic under his breath. “ Just a tick,” he rumbled, storming off to his bedroom and returning moments later with a bottle in hand. “ Whisky all right?”
Grace shrugged. “ Host’s choice.”
He snorted and took down a pair of juice glasses, pouring two fingers of amber liquid in each.
“Slàinte mhath, Rios ,” he said, lifting his glass and handing one to her, the name running through her like hot lava, so she took a large sip of the whisky to quench it, which merely made her insides match her outsides as it burned right down to her atoms.
He watched her swallow and waited for some kind of response.
“What do you think?” he finally asked with an anxious sort of scowl.
Honestly, Grace didn’t want to like it, and he seemed to expect her to hate it, so why not give him that?
When she could breathe again, she said, “ It’s a joke, right?”
“What?”
“No one actually likes whisky. It’s just a club to prove your manliness, like stout and black coffee? ‘ I’m a braw, manly man who eats fire and drinks Band - Aids !’ It makes you feel like some kind of dragon warrior, right?”
“No,” he said, still glaring at her, as though he was trying to decide whether to be offended. “ I love it,” he added, and for some reason she got the impression this time she was the bee and he’d felt her sting.
“Why?”
He looked away from her then, studied the glass of amber liquid in his hand. “ Good whisky is extremely complex. It demands your attention.”
“Are you sure you don’t just tell yourself that because you’re overly fond of feeling numb?”
“It heightens your senses, it doesn’t numb them.”
She snorted.
“Unless you overindulge,” he admitted.
Grace turned towards the back door which opened out of the claustrophobic little cottage onto an ample covered porch with a view of the beach and the ocean beyond. “ Will we get to see the Northern Lights here?” she wondered.
“Not likely, unless you extend your trip three or four months,” he answered from close behind her, setting all the tiny hairs on her neck at attention.
He said it almost like it was an option, an offer, and Grace forced a laugh. “ When I find somewhere with a vacancy, maybe I’ll ask about long-term rental,” she said.
Stepping past her, he led the way out on to the porch. It was still raining, just like he’d said it was going to.
“When does the sun set?” she asked, realizing her error.
He leaned against the porch rail facing her, his back to the gorgeous view. “ This time of year? Doesn’t really. You get a few hours of twilight around midnight. Cait’s installed blackout curtains in the bedrooms though, no worries.”
“That’ll be handy,” Grace said, taking another sip of the warming whisky to counterbalance the cool evening air, leaning her forearms on the porch railing beside him. “ Maybe the extra sunlight will make me extra productive.”
“Only twenty-four hours in a day. Why come here to write?” He sounded annoyed, or baffled maybe.
“I entered a contest with no expectation of actually winning. It was supposed to be a carrot to lure me to the end of the draft. Didn’t work.”
“Maybe you just don’t want to write.”
“Maybe you have a lot of opinions about someone you barely know!” she snapped, and he raised his eyebrows, posture stiffening.
He opened his mouth for a long, drawn-out minute before words finally came out. “… I only meant… after years of telling myself I couldn’t come home—time wasn’t right, I wasn’t ready— I realized the inconvenient truth was I didn’t want to come home. Maybe I’m not really an islander at my core. Not of the island .”
Was he suggesting she wasn’t really a writer at her core?
That hurt. Like a truth-punch to the gut she’d been dancing around for weeks. “ You want to be though, right? Of the island?”
He nodded.
Grace shrugged. “ I want to have written.”
“Why can’t you finish?” he asked, turning the full force of his green eyes on her once more, and the air around them felt prickly with unintended innuendo. If only he knew.
He took a drink and she realized too late she was watching the way his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. This was bad. Get a grip, Gracie .
“It’s worse than that,” she confessed. “ I can barely get started.”
The intense way he was watching her now made it impossible to breathe.
“Well,” he said, his words always so deliberate. “ May you find the words you’re looking for.” He lifted his glass in toast.
Were they still talking about her manuscript?
His gaze fell to her lips, and she drained the rest of her whisky to block them from view.
“What you won’t find is a vacancy, not in the midst of the festival. Unless you enjoy tent camping, might as well get used to… being in the way,” he added with a quarter-moon smile before finishing his own dram and heading back inside, calling, “ Good night, Rios ,” over his shoulder.
Grace sagged against the porch railing, her head starting to spin. For a moment, she thought he’d been about to kiss her, which was the absolute last thing she wanted or needed, no matter what Wesley thought. Grace Rios Rivera didn’t go around kissing men. She didn’t date them or sleep with them or even go out to dinner with them anymore, and she wasn’t about to start getting distracted by them or their bee-tattooed forearms and Bono lips.
So why did she feel disappointed the evening had come to an end?