Chapter 19 Miles #2
I stroke her hair. “Oh, Skye, that’s so fast.” I don’t want to intrude or poke at her pain, but I want to know everything I can about her, so I ask quietly, “How did she die?”
She presses her head a little harder into my chest as the wind picks up around us.
“She had cancer. Lots of tiny tumors in her brain. By the time they found them, there was nothing they could do.” Skye pulls away but keeps talking.
“And you know, I knew something was off. The whole year before she passed, she was not like herself. She was forgetful, and before that, my mother never forgot a thing. And she was sad. Her doctor said she was depressed and put her on antidepressants. My mom always had her small moments of sadness.” I can feel her shake, her head, her hair tickling under my chin.
“This was different. It was like a switch. She had no joy. Before, she was always singing when she did anything. Even when she fed those stupid chickens. But then she was just so silent.”
A tear falls down Skye’s face. I wipe it away. She puts her arms around my neck.
She sniffs back tears and smiles at me. “It’s been almost six years. You’d think I’d have a better handle on this.”
She looks so beautiful, her eyes glistening. It’s like rubber bands are wrapped around my heart to see her so sad, and knowing there is nothing I can do. I shake my head. “I don’t think it works like that.”
“That’s when I started writing. I’d always fiddled with it here and there before.
Poems and the like. But I wrote my first novel the year after she passed.
It gave me something to do with my hands, with my thoughts: a reason to get out of bed every day and a tangible goal.
You know. My first novel was fifty-two thousand words of absolute rubbish written two hundred words at a time, but it saved me. ”
A car backfires in the distance. We watch the deer bolt across the hill impossibly fast. I lean down and nuzzle her hair. She turns and brings her lips to mine, salty from her tears. I wish my kisses could take her pain away, but I know they can’t.
She walks me backward, still kissing me, until we are leaning against the car. Her hands move down my chest, and tiny electric pulses follow them. She moves to kissing my neck, but this feels like an awfully fast shift from sharing confidences.
She moves to kissing right where my jaw and neck meet. I tuck my hands into her coat, placing my hands on her hips. She moves her lips to my ear and whispers, “The back is quite spacious.”
I laugh. “Skye Ainslie, are you suggesting we make out on the side of the road?”
She smiles, and I feel it all the way down to my toes. “I’m suggesting we do quite a bit more than that.”
It’s sweet, but it also feels like a distraction tactic. A way to get us back on the physical side of things and less on the intimate sharing of our lives. I guess we are having a purely physical relationship, right?
But I shake my head. “It’s too risky. What if someone drove by? If you didn’t like the other picture of you all over the internet, this one would be much worse.”
Her eyes smolder, and my heart races in my chest. This is coming out all wrong. And I quickly clarify, “Not that your actual picture would look bad. It would look incredible.”
She smiles, and my heart slows. “Fair point. Let’s get to where we’re going, then.”
The stereo is playing one of Skye’s mixes. I turn it up, and we both sing along at top volume to Rolling Stone’s “Wild Horses.”
On the way to the Airbnb, I get a text from Jake. I try to hide my smirk as I look at the picture he sent, but I do a terrible job of it.
“What are you smiling at on your phone?”
I shake my head, trying to physically wipe the smile away. “Nothing.”
“Oh, come on.”
“No, really, it’s—”
“I will turn this car around.”
I laugh. “Remember when you were asking me about fan mail?”
Skye’s cheeks turn bright pink. “Was I?”
“Well, I saved a couple, and Jake found them for me. Well, actually Jake’s sister.”
Skye lets out a heavy breath. “Oh no.”
I nod. “Oh yes!”
“No. No. No.”
“Let me read you my favorite.”
“You really don’t need to.”
“Dear Miles,
My name is Skye, and I live in Scotland.
Have you ever been here? It’s beautiful.
You should definitely come. I love your movies, and I feel like even though we’ve never met, we have a real connection.
Like something they write songs about, like that Beatles song “Across the Universe.” It feels like that, except if we met, I feel like it would change my world.
Both our worlds. Anyway, if you’re ever in Scotland, look me up. Skye.”
Skye has gone completely still. I reach over and squeeze her leg. “You weren’t wrong.”
“It’s so embarrassing.”
“It’s sweet.”
She shakes her head. “Do you remember what you sent back?”
A lump forms in my throat, making it hard to swallow. When she sent this, I was at the height of all the Undercover Quarterback fame. It had definitely gone to my head.
“I think I sent a headshot.”
“Uh-huh. Do you remember what you signed?”
I close my eyes, wishing I had been more clever, or more humble, or more real. “Coo-Coo-Ca-Choo Babe.”
“I still have it.”
“No! Shit. I was stupid. In my defense, I was only nineteen.”
She nods but doesn’t take her eyes off the road.
I place a hand on her thigh. “Well, it meant something to me.”
“Can we never, ever talk about it ever again?”
“Ever?”
“Miles.”
“Okay.” I zip my lips and put away my phone.
After another two hours, a quick stop for lunch, another stop for groceries, and some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen, we arrive at our tiny cabin.
It is in a large field overlooking a massive loch, with virtually no other houses nearby.
The cabin itself is modern, with sleek lines, navy siding, massive windows, and a bright-yellow door.
It’s a jarring contrast to the landscape that looks like hobbits may come tramping over the hill at any moment.
Inside is just as modern. High ceilings, a loft where the bed is, a kitchen that looks straight out of a Crate and Barrel catalogue, a wood-burning stove, and a wall of pure glass overlooking the loch.
I start putting away the groceries.
“I’m going to change into something a little more comfortable,” Skye says with a sultry voice that brings flashes of last night back to me.
“Need any help?” I ask with a wink.
She gives me a slow smile but shakes her head before trotting upstairs.
I open a bottle of wine, bringing it over to the coffee table, along with two glasses and a loaf of crispy olive bread. As I light the wood stove, the sun sets out the window, golden streaks reflecting on the dark water.
There’s a funky old five-disc changer in the corner of the room. I fiddle with the nobs until it starts to play a Lily Allen album.
“What loch is this?” I ask.
Skye calls down from the loft. “Loch Bracadale.”
“Maybe we’ll spot a Nessie.”
She walks into the room in a black silk nightgown with lace trim tickling her pale calves, her turquoise cardigan falling off one shoulder, and her hair in soft waves around her face.
“Wow.”
She smiles and grabs one of the glasses of wine, tucking herself into the couch. “Nessie only lives in Loch Ness. Hence the name.”
I grab my glass and join her on the couch. “Right, but there must be other sightings in other lochs.”
She lays her legs on my lap, and I run my hand on her silky shins.
“Aye, there are. I’ve never heard of one here. This loch feeds out into the open ocean, so if we were to see any monster, it would probably be a selkie.”
“A selkie?”
She sips her wine, and I continue to run my hand over the soft skin of her leg. “Have you never seen…oh, what was that movie?” She taps a finger on the side of her glass. “Secret of Roan Inish.”
I shake my head, smiling. “Must have missed that one.”
“Well, a man fell in love with a creature from the sea. They were married for years and had children. She was a shapeshifter—a seal—but she could live as a woman if she liked. The woman loved her children with all her heart, but she still missed the sea. Her husband knew this, so he hid her seal skin. Most of the time, she was a loving wife and mother. But some days she would wail and beg him to let her return to her watery home.”
One day, her son found her seal skin and returned it to her. She slipped it on and disappeared into the water.”
“Did she ever come back?” I ask, looking out at the dark water for any odd ripples.
Skye shakes her head. “Sometimes, I felt like my mother was a selkie. Like her singer persona was the real her—her seal skin—and she was suffocating as a housewife.”
“But if that were true, she could’ve returned to the sea, so to speak, at any time.”
Skye shrugs.
“And you told me she was happy for the most part. What makes you think she was sad about giving up her music?”
“She seemed happy. Sometimes late at night, though, I would walk by the library, and she would be sitting alone, listening to her old records, just staring into the fire.”
“Did you ever talk to her about it?”
Skye shrugs. “I tried. Sort of. I wrote a blog post about it a long time ago when I had a blog. God, I must’ve been sixteen.” She cringes. “I had so many opinions. I think Mom may have read it, even.”
The song changes to “Somewhere Only We Know” and Skye changes the subject just as swiftly. She bolts off the couch and turns it up. “I love this song.”
I join her, part of me wishing we could’ve kept talking, sharing. But she looks so adorable standing there in her nightgown. I let it go and hold out my hand. “May I have this dance?”
She curtsies, holding out her nightgown with both hands, and then slips her fair hand in mine.
I trained in ballroom dancing for a film, so I know what I’m doing, somewhat.
I lead us in a sweeping fairytale–style waltz, the sky out the window darkening into a deep blue, stars just starting to prickle the horizon.
And I know, without a doubt, I will replay this moment in my mind until the reel fades.
I lean down and kiss her. The music forgotten, our bodies still.
She deepens the kiss, reaching up on tiptoe, bringing her hands to my neck.
I move mine to her hips, the silky fabric slick under my touch.
I reach her ass and squeeze, lifting her up.
She wraps her legs around my waist, and I walk us toward the stairs.
“Too far,” she breathes out. Instead, I walk her right in front of the woodstove and lay her down on the soft carpet. The glow from the fire catches on all her curves. The sharp angle of her cheek, the swoop of her collarbone, the ample swell of her breast.
She props herself up on her elbows. “Miles, everything okay?”
I smile, laying down beside her, running my hand along her gown all the way to the hem, then slowly pulling it up. “It’s perfect. You’re perfect.”