Chapter 11 Miles
MILES
Ava is yammering away, but I’m lost in thoughts of Skye. Right before Ava arrived, I’m pretty sure we were going to kiss. Our faces were so close, I could feel her breath on my lips. But then, as soon as Ava came in, Skye took off like her hair was on fire.
If I go now, I might be able to catch her before she goes to bed.
“So what do you think?” Ava leans closer to me, her eyes shimmering in the firelight. I don’t know what she’s talking about because I didn’t hear a word she was saying.
“I have to go.” In my mind, I’m already catching up to Skye, maybe as she’s coming out of the bathroom, her face freshly washed. A small trickle of water running down her cheek to her silky nightgown.
“But what about my idea?”
“Yeah, sounds great,” I say as I bolt out the door, passing Callum on his way in.
“Ah, your friend found you?”
“Yep.” I wave over my shoulder as I bound up the stairs.
I slow my stride once I get to the hall. The bathroom is empty when I pass it. Walking to the end of the hall, I hesitate in front of her door.
Natalie’s voice echoes in my head. “Miles, you can’t date her. We’re going to be filming there for weeks. We’re not set to wrap until a little before Christmas. What if you two have a lovers' spat? We can’t just switch castles mid-movie. We’d have to reshoot the whole thing for continuity.”
I back away slowly from the door. It’s better this way.
The past few years, I’ve started to feel like my heart is whole again instead of slapped together with duct tape.
I don’t need to go falling for a beautiful woman who lives halfway across the world and has expressed no interest in me romantically.
Well, that last part isn’t true. I’m pretty sure she wanted to kiss me as much as I wanted to kiss her.
A woman’s voice echoes down the hall as a door opens.
“The room is beautiful. I’m just wondering if there is anything slightly larger for Ms. Gareth.”
Callum’s voice booms, “Not if she likes heat.”
Before either of them can see me lingering outside Skye’s door, I duck into my room.
As I get out my running clothes for the morning, I let out a long, low breath. Focus. I just need to focus on my part in the film. The rest of the crew will be here tomorrow, Jake will arrive next week, and I’ll be too busy to worry about Skye.
I try to sleep, but I just keep thinking.
Instead, I pull up Skye’s Instagram on my phone, scrolling photo after photo.
Her captions are clever. She is a good writer—from what I can tell from these snippets.
Posts with her face in them are few and far between.
I find one with her standing in front of the loch, a scraggly tree branch dipping into the frame.
The sun behind her is lighting up her hair like a rich glass of red wine, a glint in her eyes. I go to sleep wondering who took it.
In the morning, I drag myself to the kitchen for a cup of coffee before my run.
I hate to eat before exercising—I get nauseous easily.
But just a quick nip of coffee usually helps wake me up enough to not hate the first mile, and boy do I need to wake up this morning.
I tossed and turned all night thinking about Skye, replaying our almost kiss in my head on a loop.
There’s already a pot of coffee on, so I pour myself half a cup.
Callum and Skye both seem to be early risers.
Must be tending to the animals. I sit for a moment at the kitchen table and gaze out the window.
The sunrise is throwing pink splotches at the clouds, and the sky behind it is an almost unnatural shade of lavender.
I feel an itch to be out there in it. To feel the ground under my feet and the cool morning air on my face.
I take one more sip of coffee before heading out the door.
Not really sure where I should head, I run down the dirt road and decide to retrace the route of our horseback ride, but not go as far.
The cows are looking dapper this morning, shaggy hair in their eyes. The mist clinging to the grass at their feet makes them look even more like rock stars on stage with a smoke machine. “Rock on,” I call to them as I pass.
Muscle memory kicks in, and my feet find a comfortable rhythm.
I put in my earbuds and turn on the Scottish folk music mix I’ve been listening to since I agreed to take the role.
My blood pumps, heating up the chilly morning.
I lose myself in the landscape, the music, the strong beating of my heart.
By the time I head back, I’m covered in sweat. I meant to do an easy three miles, but got a little carried away and probably went four, some of the hills on the way back making it not so easy. But it was glorious.
I slow to a walk. Once I’m close enough to the castle, I can see vans parked out front.
Disappointment tugs my shoulders down. This will be my thirty-seventh film.
More films than years I’ve been alive. I’m exhausted, and we haven’t even started shooting yet.
These days, I enjoy the planning, the prepping, the lead-up of everything more than actually being on camera.
How many times can you look longingly—or furiously, or pensively—off into the distance?
That’s not the only source of my disappointment, though.
I was enjoying my time alone with Skye. She took off the moment Ava got there yesterday.
Will I get to hang out with her with all these people here?
I shake it off. It doesn’t matter. I’m not here to hang out with Skye. I’m here to yank my career back onto some kind of respectable track. I have a job to do.
Once I get inside, the castle is bustling. There is a low chatter of voices everywhere. The smell of bacon and coffee wafts through the air. I want to find it, but I also don’t want to see anyone yet.
I walk softly up the stairs. After I shower and dress, I’ll be able to face everyone.
“Milesicle!”
Only one person calls me that. I turn to see Elsie at the bottom of the stairs. Her light-pink pixie cut hair is sticking up at odd angles, and she has a massive cup of coffee in her hand, and suddenly, my desire to hide fades away.
“Elsephant!” Elsie has written the screenplays for three other films I’ve been in.
She is a genius, by far the hardest-working person in the room and the funniest. We became good friends after a particularly grueling shoot in Alaska, where I had to do a lot of scenes with very little clothing in the snow.
That’s when she started calling me Milesicle.
Some days she would send me fake pages of more and more ridiculous scenes in the snow or on a frozen lake just to mess with me.
She’s like my little sister—well, if my little sister was a pale, pink-haired smart aleck.
I dash back downstairs, my hamstrings screaming at me that I should have stretched after my run. Picking her up, I swing her around in a bear hug, making her coffee splash everywhere.
“Whoa there. Don’t mess with the caffeine.”
Skye comes in the door, muttering under her breath, just as I’m putting Elsie down.
“I’ll clean this up.” I motion to the coffee droplets on the stone floor. “Skye, this is my friend, Elsie MacDonald. She’s a writer too.”
Skye nods.
Elsie smiles. “It’s so nice to meet you. Thank you so much for letting us film here. It means a lot to me.”
Skye half smiles. “It was my father’s decision, really. I should… I have to go.”
“Oh, okay.”
As Skye walks upstairs, I watch her go. Those jeans are made for her. Elsie swats me on the arm.
“What was that for?”
“Put your tongue back in your mouth, dude.”
I run a hand over my face and sigh. “Is it that obvious?”
Elsie laughs. “Yes. Are you two…”
I shake my head. “We’ve just hung out a couple times.”
Her eyebrows shoot up to her hairline.
“No, not like that. Just friends.”
“Okay. Good. We don’t need that kind of drama on this set. Remember Barbados?”
Another film I’d been on with Elsie. We were making a sexy heist movie called Swipe, kind of a take on Mr. and Mrs. Smith, if they weren’t married but had just met on Tinder and were thieves instead of secret agents.
I started dating my co-star the first week of filming.
She was so hot, and we had all these trivial things in common, like we both loved that old movie High Spirits.
We both took our coffee black. Little things, but I thought we were meant to be.
It turned out she wasn’t really a one-man-at-a-time kind of woman.
We stopped dating the sixth week of filming on a ten-week shoot. It was the most awkward time of my life, and unfortunately, it wasn’t just awkward for me. It was terrible for everyone. The director came to Elsie to try to write fewer scenes with us together. But we were the movie.
“Don’t worry, I already got an earful from Natalie. I won’t date anyone on the set.”
Elsie gave me a pat on the shoulder. “I’m not trying to mom you. You’re both grown-ups. Do what you like. Just don’t get us kicked out of the castle.”
“We’re just friends.”
I drag myself upstairs to finish my workout, the planks won’t do themselves, and nearly run into Skye at the top.
“Skye.”
She just gives me a curt nod as she heads the other way. Did she hear me talking to Elsie? Her full lips are pulled into a small frown.
“Hey.” My mouth completely forgets about everything I just agreed to and says, “Do you want to go for a walk later this afternoon?”
Skye’s lips twitch at the side, and I know I made the right choice. “Aren’t you going to be busy filming?”
“No… There’s a table read. I’m pretty sure that’s not until tomorrow, though.” Eighty percent sure. Truthfully, more like seventy-six, but one thing at a time.
She nods, mischief dancing in her eyes. “You know what, I have a better idea than a walk. If you’re up for it?”
I smile. “I’m always up.” Skye’s eyes go wide as quarters, and it dawns on me what I just said. “I mean… I didn’t mean…”
Skye laughs.
“I’m just going to stop talking now.” I cover my mouth with my hand.
“Should we meet around three?”
I nod, my mouth still covered.