Chapter 8 Skye
SKYE
Miles is gone. It’s completely fine. That’s what I wanted in the first place. I don’t need him here to write my horseback riding scene.
It’ll be business as usual. I get on my bike and ride into town. The Thistle House is hopping when I get there, and I wave to the men at the bar. They’re here so often that their bahoochies are probably shaped like the stool, or vice versa.
Kate is knitting by the fire, so I go to join her. Without even looking up from her turquoise wool, she says, “You missed out this morning.”
My shoulders tense because I know what she’s going to say before she says it. “Oh really?” I watch Margie clean up a table by the window.
Kate looks up at me, her striking green eyes alight, and leans forward as if the bodach’s at the bar care what we’re saying. “Do you remember that movie you made me watch a million times when we were thirteen about the football star and the nerdy girl who became a cheerleader?”
“We were fourteen, and I don’t remember having to force you.”
“Were we? Oh, God… Remember the dance we made up to the song in the credits?”
I grin. The theme song to the movie was OutKast's “Hey Yeah” and Kate and I made up an epic dance and lip sync number that we even performed at the local pub, with all the town cheering us on, just about dying laughing into their pints.
“Well, the football player was here,” Kate says, breaking me out of the memory.
“Here?”
“And he’s a braw-looking man. A real snack.”
I let out a breath. “You’ve been watching too much Kardashians.”
Kate narrows her eyes. “You don’t seem surprised. Oh, hold on a second… He’s here for the movie at the castle, isn’t he?”
“Yes. Miles came before the rest of the crew, for research.”
“Ahh, Miles, is it? Miles looked good in that movie, but he looks even better at thirty-five.”
“He’s not thirty-five.” I can see his Wikipedia page in my head, the one I’d read and reread about four times since Miles showed up on my doorstep. “He’s twenty-nine.”
“Is he now? What else do you know about Miles?”
Born in Brooklyn. Never been married, no kids, never a serious long-term relationship to speak of, but is always dating glamorous women.
A little like young George Clooney before he met Amal.
But I don’t want to admit—even to Kate—how much I know about him, so instead I ignore the question completely and get up to grab some coffee from the pot.
Margie comes back out of the kitchen, “I could’ve got that for you.”
I wave her away, knowing full well she would’ve brought me another foul, flowery tea.
“You missed your lad.”
I sip my coffee so I don’t huff in frustration. She’s trying to get a rise out of me, and I won’t give her the satisfaction. “He’s not mine.”
She winks at me. “Not yet, hen.”
As Pippi and I go for a ride in the afternoon, I take in the landscape with fresh eyes.
The sky is a blanket of clouds in quiltwork patches of gray.
The farther they recede into the horizon pops of robin’s egg blue poke through.
The blue of her eyes—the heroine in my book, Sorcha.
I make a mental note to put that in the scene.
The air smells fresh and just a little sweet, as if the rain is not yet done with us today.
I entertain the idea of pulling out my phone and filming some content for my now sizable following, but I feel Pippi beneath me, raring to go.
I give her a swift kick to let her know she can run to her heart’s content.
The wind blows my hair back, and I grip the reins tighter.
It feels like I’ve traveled back to a simpler time, where there is no TikTok, Facebook, or Instagram.
Where I would write my books at night by firelight with a quill and ink pot, my fingers stained in the morning just like Joe in Little Women.
The rest of the evening passes uneventfully. I want to ask my dad when Miles said he’d come back. I also don’t want him to know that I care, so I don’t.
This morning, there’s no hum buzzing through me. There’s no desire to put words on the page. There’s only habit and routine. It’s empty, but I do it anyway. Fire in the hearth, coffee in hand, candle lit, arse in chair, laptop open.
I try to write a heartfelt, sexy scene with Miles—yes, my male main character has his name, but I’m going to change it later—and Sorcha riding horses through the countryside.
But all I get down is a paltry description of the hills and, of course, “Her robin’s egg irises shone brighter than the sky peeking through the gray clouds. ”
It’s awful. A right load of shite. The sun is already rising, and I get all of one hundred words done. At this rate, my novel will be published when I’m eighty.
The tiny voice echoes in my chest. It’s because he’s not here—your muse.
I try to drown it with more coffee. Twenty more minutes. I’ll do a timed sprint, get a mess of words in, and then do my chores. I set a timer on my computer, wiggle my fingers as if I’m casting a spell on my keyboard, and I’m off.
Twenty minutes and fifty words later, I click my laptop closed. I want to slam it, but clearly, I won’t be able to afford a new one anytime soon…or ever.
The next morning, it’s the same, and the day after that, and the day after that. On the sixth day of Miles being gone, the writer’s block has fully settled in, and I don’t write a word. Not one new word down. The voice in my chest whispers to me.
Call him. Text him. Ask him to come back.
While I’m dressing, while feeding the demons with beaks, while cooking dinner, even at the dinner table.
“Pet, are you okay?”
“Fine, why?”
“I’ve been asking you to pass the salt for a good three minutes.”
I hand him the salt.
“Do you have your writing group tonight?”
Is it already Tuesday? Wait… Didn’t we meet last week? I rack my brain and realize Dad’s right. “Aye. I should go.”
I take my plate to the kitchen and hurry to the library.
Rain lashes at the window, so I decide to take the car.
Slipping into my wellies, I head to Thistle House.
The windshield wipers working overtime, I can’t help but wonder where Miles is in this weather.
What kind of research on his character does he need to do, anyway?
Is that the real reason he left, or was it my temper?
Thistle House is warm and blessedly dry when I enter, hanging up my wet coat.
Kate, Gabs, and Bella are already seated in the cozy chairs by the fire, clacking away with their needles.
I grab a whiskey from Margie and make my way over.
A few years ago, when our writing group formed, it didn’t technically start out that way.
If it’s not knitting, then there’s not a group for it in Foyers.
When I was a teenager, I tried to start a book club.
We read Gone Girl. At the meeting, many of the members expressed concern for my mental state, that I would select such dark materials.
They acted like I had us read the Necronomicon and suggested we try a few of the chants. It’s not like I wrote Gone Girl.
God, I wish I had.
So, I joined the knitting group, and it turned out they were all avid readers. They read my pages and gave me feedback. Bella and Gabby started writing their own novels. Now we get to exchange pages, instead of them all reading just my stuff all the time.
“Skye!” Gabby smiles, her brown hair pulled back in a loose bun held together with knitting needles.
Despite her sweet face, Gabby writes dark historical mysteries—emphasis on dark.
Bella holds up the mitten she’s working on to me in greeting, her long braids swishing with the motion, her dark skin glowing in the firelight.
She’s a nanny and is writing a cozy mystery about a bookstore owner who stumbles upon a dead body with her pet cat in tow. Our work used to have a lot in common.
Kate holds up her whiskey to me, and I clink it with mine.
She’s the only one of the group who hasn’t tried her hand at writing yet, but she gives great feedback.
I sent them some of my new pages the other day, thinking I was giving them enough time to read them.
They would’ve, if I hadn’t gotten the dates mixed up.
In reality, ‘not realized what date it was’ is more accurate.
I could’ve sworn we met last Tuesday, but no, that was the day Miles got here.
“We were just talking about Bella’s pages. Then we’ll do mine, then yours. Does that sound good?” asks Gabby, her cheeks a little extra rosy tonight, either from the fire or the nearly empty glass of wine next to her.
I nod, wishing I’d actually learned to knit so I’d have something to do with my hands.
I hate going last. I’m nervous enough about how they’ll react to the genre switch, which none of them have brought up.
Now I have to wait until the end. We discuss Bella’s latest chapters and get into a lively conversation on how many characters are too many.
We move on to Gabby’s latest chapters. Gabby’s writing is clean, her research is thorough, and her plots are hole-free.
She doesn’t really need us, and any suggestions we have or feedback we provide, she usually doesn’t do anything with.
But she seems to enjoy our meetings, and she’s a great facilitator.
We spend her time questioning one of her character’s motivations on whether it was believable for an uptight English woman in 1922 to stretch in the garden in plain sight of the neighbors. She convinces us it is.
Gabby sips her wine. “Okay, now on to Skye. New genre.”
Kate smiles like a cat that’s caught a canary. “Romance. How’d you get into that?”
I make eyes at her.
Bella chimes in. “Romance is my second favorite genre.”
Gabby pushes the bridge of her glasses up. “So, the pages themself are, well, they’re…”
I might throw up into my whiskey.
“They’re marvelous.”
Every muscle in my body relaxes at the same time, and a pleasant tingle moves through me. This must be what drugs feel like.
“I loved them,” Kate says with a massive smile.
Bella is nodding so hard that the beads at the end of her braids are clacking together, almost like applause—an ovation for my pages.
“Sorcha is just a spitfire. I like her. I’m rooting for her. And Mickey…”
I’ve been calling the character Miles, but I did a quick find and replace, changing the name to Mickey before sending the pages.
“…oof, he’s a dreamboat.”
I giggle, not able to contain the pure elation this praise is giving me, but also because blouse-buttoned-to-the-top-button Gabby saying dreamboat is too much.
We talk for thirty minutes about my opening pages, and the response is overall very positive. They are excited to read more…but as of now, there isn’t any.
I need to get my head back in the game. I need to text Miles.
I lay in bed writing texts and deleting them.
Me: Do you know when you might come back?
Delete, delete, delete.
Me: Do you have an ETA for your return date?
Delete, delete, delete. Sounds too corporate.
Me: You up?
Delete! What is this, a booty call?
What do I want to say? I want him to know that I’m not upset anymore about the whole paparazzi thing. That it's safe for him to come back without enduring my wrath.
Me: Hope the research is going well. I just wanted to say, I know it’s not your fault about the whole picture thing. I’m sorry.
I read it over and over, delete the last two words, then hit Send.
I’m about to plug my phone in when three dots appear. They disappear, then reappear.
Miles: Thank you for understanding. For what it’s worth, you did really look incredible.
My stomach flips. His words at the dinner table play in my head for the millionth time. Stunning.
Me: You didn’t look half bad yourself.
Delete! Who am I? The only things missing from that statement is a cigarette hanging out the side of my mouth, a martini in one hand, and an eyebrow waggle.
Me: What have you been up to?
I send it. What am I? Twelve now? Really sophisticated conversation.
Miles: Monster hunting :)
I can picture his face, lit up like when he was petting Bessie, and I smile.
Me: When are you headed back this way?
I’m about to hit Send when another text comes in.
Miles: I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow, if you’d like?
Me: Can’t wait.
I put away my phone before I can judge my last text, because while it may not be the most eloquent thing I’ve ever written, it is absolutely true.
The next morning, the words fly from my fingers. The desire is back. Maybe it was the feedback from the girls, but I know that’s not true.
Miles will be back today.
I sail through my chores and take extra care getting dressed, even putting on proper makeup—not just my usual swipe of mascara and halfhearted comb through my hair.
Miles will be back today!
I’m just about to get on my bike for my morning ride when my watch buzzes. The tourism board is calling. It must be Logan.
“Hello.”
“Skye, you owe me big-time,” Logan says.
In the distance, I see a figure walking steadily toward me, in dark jeans and a cream fisherman’s sweater. Tall, dark, and handsome—that saying was invented for Miles Casey.
“Skye, are you there?”
“Yes. I’m here. Lost connection for a moment.” To earth. “What did you say?”
“I said I found an alternate castle on the other side of the loch where the Hollywood people can shoot. Your quiet little castle and quiet little town can stay that way.”
Quiet. Dormant. Devoid of any inspiration. No muse.
“Um, actually, Logan, my dad convinced me it’ll be good for everyone. Bring money in, help the economy, all that.”
“You sure?”
The blood rushes to my ears, roaring loudly. What about my mom?
She would understand. I hope. “Yep.”
“Okay, I’ll call Dun Hares and tell them the whole thing’s off. Are you sure?”
Miles is only feet away from me, his smile wide. Even if he did read my stupid letter, even if it really was him who replied, it was so long ago, there’s no way he remembers. What’s past is past.
“I’m sure.”