Chapter 12 Skye
SKYE
Miles just told that super cute girl with short pink hair that he was absolutely not into me. Once I got past the surprisingly swift sting, I realized this is perfect. We can hang out, (for muse purposes) and I don’t have to worry about leading him on.
I get to work writing comments for one of my critique partners' pages, make lunch, finish a few chores, and then get ready to hang out with Miles. After I pull on my turquoise jumper that makes my eyes pop, I take some time with my makeup, lace up my nice hiking boots, and head down to meet him.
Coming down the hall, dressed in a white-collared button-up shirt, is a tall man with full, dark hair. He smiles when he sees me, his teeth so white against his dark skin; he looks like he walked straight out of an ad for toothpaste. Actually, I think I have seen him in a toothpaste commercial.
“Oh, hello.”
I instinctively look behind me, but no, he is talking to me.
“I’m Ty Marshall.” He holds out a hand.
Ty Marshall. It wasn’t a toothpaste commercial I’d seen him in, more like close to twenty films. It’s so odd having all these famous people just roaming about. Like seeing peacocks in the wild and realizing they’re just birds. I shake his proffered hand; his palms are smooth and warm.
“Skye Ainslie.”
“Ahh, the Lady of the Manor.”
Lady of the Manor? Ick. “I guess so.”
“It’s wonderful to meet you. I just got turned around looking for the bathroom.”
“Aye, it’s right over here.” I motion to the closed door. Exactly how many people will be sharing this bathroom with me while they are filming?
“I tried that one. It’s locked. Is there another?”
“There are quite a few downstairs. Some of them even work.”
Ty’s brow furrows. His face doesn’t look too happy about this bathroom situation either. Just then, the door opens. Miles emerges smelling of that subtle mix of cinnamon and cloves and looking handsome in a cream fisherman’s sweater that highlights his dark hair and lashes.
“Miles.” Ty smiles and holds out a hand to Miles, which—to my surprise—he sidesteps, keeping his arms resolutely at his side.
He gives a curt nod. “Ty.”
I’ve never seen Miles act so cold. Usually, when he greets someone, his eyes light up and he gets bouncy. Like an excited puppy. I thought he was incapable of not being friendly, but I was wrong.
Miles turns to me, and his full-watt smile is back. “You look incredible.”
Heat rises in my cheeks. I thought I looked nice, but incredible?
“Are you ready to go?”
I nod.
Ty frowns again, his perfectly manicured eyebrows pulling down. “I think Natalie is looking for you.”
Miles gives Ty a slap on the back that seems a little harder than necessary. “Thanks, buddy.”
He grabs my hand, and we head to the door.
What was all that about?
“Where are we going?”
I smile, dropping his hand as I throw on my coat. “You’ll see.”
I lead Miles out to the Land Rover and turn the key. “This Will Be Our Year” by the Zombies fills the car.
Miles surprises me again by turning it up and singing along.
I join in and am about to pull out when, out of the corner of my eye, the door to the castle flies open.
A woman with thick curly chestnut hair, luminous brown skin, and bare feet is running toward us, waving her thin arms in the air like she’s mad.
“What in the world?” I say.
Miles follows my gaze. He puts his hand on his face and mutters, “Shit.”
As the woman gets closer, I see it’s Natalie Rodriguez.
The Natalie Rodriguez. I’m not so much of a movie buff that I would recognize every director I came across.
But Natalie is one of the hottest up-and-coming directors working right now.
And by hottest, I mean that quite literally.
She is absolutely gorgeous, with flawless light-brown skin, thick black hair, and dark eyes that take up most of her face.
She looks like a Disney Princess if they drew them with more curves.
The paparazzi love her. She directed one of my favorite movies—Me, Myself and I—and she was just featured in Time’s One Hundred Most Influential People.
Dad swears she and her mom came over all the time when I was little and we lived in LA, but I don’t remember.
As she approaches the car, I roll down the window.
Natalie’s cheeks are rosy from her jog. She takes a second to catch her breath. “Oh my god. Skye! You’re all grown up. Oh you might not remember me but I babysat you a few times. I’m Natalie.”
She holds out a hand with perfectly manicured black nails, with small jewels on the tips. I shake it, feeling her warm, soft skin.
She gives me a half-smile and turns her full attention to Miles. “We are all setting up in the dining room for the table read. Remember the table read?”
Miles smiles, and it is so wide and charming, it practically has a cartoon sparkle that goes along with it.
“Is that today? I thought it was tomorrow.”
She shakes her head, her gorgeous hair swishing with the motion. I wonder if I could get my hair to look like that. More soft and luxurious, less frizzy and untamed. “No. It’s now. My feet are freezing. I’ll see you inside in three minutes.”
I roll up the window and turn off the engine.
Miles shakes his head. “Sorry. Can I take a rain check?”
“Aye.”
“Tomorrow? After my run?” He reaches out his hand and puts it over mine. It’s like his skin is electrified. A jolt goes straight to my heart.
“Sounds like a plan.”
We walk inside together, close but not holding hands.
Miles heads off to the dining room with his head down.
I nearly run to my writing room, my skin still tingling from Miles’s touch.
I need to get it all down on paper. When I reach to open the door, it’s already open, the fire burning in the hearth.
The woman I met earlier at the bottom of the stairs, Elsie, is lying on the couch by the fire, her laptop on her stomach, clacking away. She sits up when she hears me come into the room.
“I hope you don’t mind. I needed a quiet place to work, somewhere far away from the dining room and Callum said...”
It feels like I should mind, but for some reason, I really don’t. “It’s fine. But do you need to be alone?”
She scoots back so she is more upright but still leaning against the arm of the couch. “No, not at all.”
I always work at my desk, but Elsie looks so cozy by the fire, with her laptop perched on her knees, that I think, why not?
I unplug my laptop and bring it over to the chair by the fire.
I put the blanket over my lap and get situated, crossing my legs.
Opening my novel, I dive in. That’s what it feels like, too—like I’m so immersed in the words, they surround me like cool water on a sultry summer day.
After about twenty minutes of clacking away, I notice Elsie staring at me.
The look on her face seems like she’s trying to figure me out.
She was doing her fair share of typing, too, so I’m not sure what she’s trying to decipher.
I close my laptop. “Would you like some tea or coffee?” Elise shakes her head, so I check the time.
Four o’clock—that’s not too early. “Or I think I have some whiskey.”
“Whiskey, please!” Elsie says while she clicks her computer shut.
Placing my laptop on the floor, I bring over two glasses and the bottle to the small coffee table. I pour us each two fingers, and then, on second thought, just a splash more.
Elsie holds out her glass to me. “Cheers.”
“Slàinte.”
“Oh, I love that.” Elsie tries out our Scottish Gaelic way of saying cheers, not doing too bad a job of pronouncing it.
I point at her laptop. “Are you working on the script they’re going to start filming?”
She shakes her head. “No. Not tonight. I’m sure I’ll have some rewrites after the table read, but I was working on something new.”
“Why aren’t you at the table read?”
Her eyes look haunted at the prospect. “I can’t.
It honestly gives me a panic attack just thinking about sitting there while they read the entire script.
I get defensive. I correct them if they skip lines or change little words.
And I hold a grudge, so Natalie tapes it for me and I make all my edits in the morning. ”
“Aye, that makes sense.”
“I’m sure you get it. You’re a writer.”
“Not published or anything,” I’m quick to add. I don’t want her to think I’m pretending to be something I’m not.
“Being published doesn’t make you a writer. Writing makes you a writer. What are you working on?”
I’m going to tell her the same lie I’ve been telling Miles, that I’m working on a new murder mystery, but instead I say, “A romance novel.”
My cheeks feel a little warm at the admission, or possibly the whiskey.
“Oh, how fun. I love romance novels. Have you read any Natalia Jaster?”
I shake my head, and Elsie goes on. “She writes romantasy, and the chemistry sizzles off the page.”
I nod and make a mental note to check it out.
“I only recently got into romance—novels, I mean. Obviously, I’m a grown woman and have had my fair share of actual romance.
” My cheeks burn hotter than the roaring fire.
What am I saying? “Not my fair share, but a handful of relationships—well, one meaningful one.” I clear my throat and get back to the safe topic of books. “I’ve read mostly contemporary.”
Elsie nods, a small smirk on her face, probably from my whiskey-muddled ramblings. “Have you read any Lynn Painter? She’s one of my faves in that genre, so cinematic. I can never figure out how she puts so many song lyrics in her writing. Her publishers must have deep pockets.”
I shrug. “I haven’t read any of hers either. I’ve just dipped my toe in, really. Up until recently, I exclusively read mysteries and thrillers.”
Her eyes light up. “How fun! A genre switch. What’s your book about?”
I take a long sip of whiskey so that I don’t say Miles Casey. “It’s about two people from different worlds who fall in love.”
“Sounds intriguing. I’d love to read it sometime.”
If Elsie read my pages, she’d instantly see it was about Miles and me, or would she? It might be a good test to see how thinly veiled I’d made his character. I give her a half smile. “It’s not ready yet, but I’d love that when it is. What is your new script about?”
She tells me all about it. This one takes place in the Pacific Northwest. There’s bigfoot and a love story, but she hasn’t quite worked out the plot yet.
An hour and two whiskeys later, we’re sitting on the floor by the fire, me reading from her laptop and her reading from mine.
Screenplays are a different beast, but her writing is wonderful.
Her dialogue is heartfelt without being sappy, and there’s an undercurrent of mystery.
The more I read, the more nervous I get about what she thinks about mine.
We both agreed we’d just read the first five pages.
When I look up after finishing hers, she is still intently reading mine.
My pulse is banging wildly at the side of my neck.
She must hate it. She must be having to reread parts because it doesn’t make any sense.
My thoughts swirl until I feel dizzy. “It’s just a very early draft—in fact, it’s the first draft. I know it still needs a lot of work.”
Elsie nods but still doesn’t look up from the screen. Cursed whiskey. I would never have shared pages so early if I hadn’t been drinking. Well, except to my writing group, but that is different.
She’s smiling. “This is great. The voice is so fun. Really good stuff, especially for a first draft. Forgive me, I’m a slow reader. I’m only about halfway through.”
She likes it. I let out a sigh of relief. “It’s fine. Take your time.”
Grabbing the bottle, I pour us each a little more whiskey. Stealing glances at her the whole time as she reads, I watch her face change from delight to what looks like confusion. Her brows knit together. Then they shoot up and she lets out a little, “Oh…”
Is it too spicy? Did I go too far with the metaphors?
When Elsie finally looks up from the pages, she lets out a heavy breath. “Wow. You’ve got it bad.”
“It’s bad?”
“Oh, no. It’s a saying. The writing is wonderful. It’s just… Is this based at all on somebody in real life? An actor staying here, maybe?”
I shake my head quickly, switching our laptops back. “No, of course not.”
I reread the opening pages. Our meet cute where Miles fell in the mud, dressed in his ridiculous tuxedo top and kilt.
In my version, when I help him up, I fall on top of him—just as he had suggested after it happened—our bodies pressing together, our breath mingling in the morning air, our lips almost touching.
Elsie is on her phone, tapping away. Is she texting Miles? Oh God… What if she talks to him about the pages?
She turns the phone to me and shows me a picture of Miles on a red carpet, a white and gold backdrop behind him, dressed in a tuxedo top and kilt. “I was at the festival too. I saw his outfit.”
I close my laptop. “It didn’t actually happen—well, some of it did. But not like that…” I think about our near kiss last night. We hadn’t actually done anything. What exactly am I trying to deny here? I sigh. “Okay. It’s Miles.”