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“Can I let you in on a little secret?” asked Lily. “You’re the first girlfriend of Nikolai’s I’ve met.”
Evie’s heart did a sloppy cartwheel. “He’s never brought them up here?”
“Nikolai isn’t like his brothers,” explained Lily. “They love coming up with their city friends, going on hikes and swimming in the sea. But Nick never has. I think he’s always preferred to keep his London life separate, away from the rustic living we enjoy here.”
Evie subtly studied the room with its antique chandeliers, Italian mosaic tile fireplace, and leather club chairs. Rustic wasn’t the word she’d use.
“He’s very much his mother’s son in that way,” said Lily. “I blame the acting. Always having things done for him, always being put on a pedestal—and from such a peedie age, too. Every year, though, I hope he’ll fall in love with our bonny island. Now if it happens, you’ll be the one I’ll thank.”
Evie sat up, the jingle of dog tags traveling down the hall. “Me?”
“Yes, Evie. You. I’m not one to meddle, but you’re the type of girl Nikolai needs—a kind, smart Orcadian lass with her feet on the ground.”
Lily’s compliment felt warm and supportive like one of her epic hugs, but a ripple of worry gnawed, too. If Nick liked to keep his London life separate as Lily professed, did that mean she was a secret? That their relationship was a secret?
What happens in Orkney, stays in Orkney?
Ross scampered around the doorjamb and made a beeline toward Evie, bumping his small white snout against her knee. She scratched him behind his peaked ears as his curved tail whirled happily.
“See?” Lily lowered her teacup. “Even Ross approves.”
“Approves of what?” Nick strolled into the room, his jogging attire (an expensive collaboration between Adidas and a designer Evie had never heard of) dappled with raindrops. He unzipped the jacket.
“Never you mind, Nikolai.” Lily smiled, clearly her famous grandson’s number one fan. “I’ve monopolized Evie for far too long. I know you don’t have much time together before university calls.” She quickly assembled two plates of strawberries, marshmallow biscuits, and slices of Evie’s store-bought cake. “Take this upstairs. Should be enough to hold you over till lunch.” She looked at Evie as Nick hung his jacket on the back of a chair. “You’ll stay, I hope?”
After an enthusiastic yes, a chin covered in slobbery kisses from Ross, and a trek upstairs, Evie entered Nick’s bedroom for the first time.
“The inner sanctum,” she joked, peeking beneath the plates in her hands as she stepped over a TV remote and several splayed fashion magazines on the hardwood floor.
“Excuse the mess,” said Nick, shifting a stack of clean socks and underwear off the unmade queen-size bed and onto a neighboring chair, already adorned with jeans and a wrinkled button-down. “Mum called this morning in crisis as per. I didn’t have time to tidy.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and tossed it on the crumpled duvet.
Evie gazed around the sizable but sparsely decorated room, the lack of personal possessions hinting at someone passing through. “Is she okay?” Glancing left, she was lured in by a messy hodgepodge of photos taped to the wall. No way! She gawped. Nick met Kate Moss?!
“Yeah, but I had to remind her for the millionth time…”
A rustle turned Evie’s head.
Nick’s t-shirt sailed over his damp hair. “…Mum, I am not your life coach.” Balling it up, he stooped and tugged down his designer track pants.
Oh my god. Evie ogled him shamelessly as he stepped free. He adjusted the elastic waistband of his gray boxer briefs and strolled across the room, discarding his sweaty clothes in the closet’s laundry basket. She’d seen Nick in his undies before at the beach, but they were baggy boxer shorts, the opposite of these gems, which hugged and displayed ev-er-y-thing. There was no shrinkage, no shielding hands this time. Yep, Nick’s definitely got a lot to work with!
Want twisted in her stomach as she suppressed her delighted grin. She walked to his desk and set down the treat-filled plates, careful not to disturb an open script and a crochet project in progress. He crochets? As she peered over her shoulder, Nick pulled up his jeans by the fireplace. She pouted playfully. Show’s over—for now.
“So you and Gran looked thick as thieves.”
Evie smiled. “I like her. She gets me.”
Nick dug through a hefty chest of drawers and removed a faded Wicked t-shirt. “I reckon she sees herself in you.”
“Really? I’ll take that as a compliment.”
He stuffed his arms through the tee first, then his head. “You should!”
Evie studied his time capsule of a room, its vaulted ceiling crossed by exposed wooden beams. Toy cars crowded his bookshelves, parked alongside a stack of old board games, an ancient television, and Horton the Elephant. The childhood mementos carried over to the fireplace’s mantle, too, where a crew of Equinox Ten action figures stood guard. She picked up a small boy dressed in a blue and silver space suit. “Look, it’s peedie Nick! Do you play with yourself a lot—?”
His phone woke up, the instrumental Green Day hit replaced by an old school ring. He leapt toward his bed. “Ahh, it’s Polly, my agent.”
Evie sat at his desk as Nick breathlessly answered with “Hiya!” Privacy out of the question, she bowed her head and dissected Nick’s cake slice with a fork, picking free all the hidden raisins.
