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“I am?!”
He scrunched his nose. “A little, yeah.”
Squirming, Evie broke eye contact. “I’m SO sorry. Didn’t mean to. I’ve never met a famous person before. It’s a bit…weird.” She pulled her hoodie’s cuffs over her hands and fixated on the floor, missing Nick’s smile.
“Yeah, can be. Hey, don’t worry about it.” He motioned across the room. “So that’s pretty wicked, eh?”
She peered up tentatively.
“That bloke…” Nick raised his chin toward the wall and a poster of a man scaling the red sandstone of the Old Man of Hoy, a towering sea stack jutting out of the Atlantic Ocean. “Way up high, climbing that thing like bloody Spider-Man.”
Evie followed his gaze, the furrow between her brows easing. Nick’s affection for outdoor pursuits had been mentioned in the latest issue of TV Tales magazine. She let out a buoyant breath, for what was Orkney but a remote paradise framed by endless sky, jagged cliffs, and open sea? Much of her childhood had been spent recklessly hopping stone dykes, leaping off barn roofs, and digging through rock pools, the wilds of the island providing an enviable back yard. And then when the long summer days drew in and she ambled home, Orkney accompanied Evie inside. Handpicked flowers in her grasp, sandy seashells in her pocket, the rich earth clinging to her shoes. Evie could talk about that stuff for hours.
Scratching his temple, Nick zeroed in on her necklace. “You were telling me about your name?”
Evie lit up. As someone with a long family history tied to the islands, Nick would appreciate this. “Oh right! It originates from an Old Norse word, efja. It means eddy.”
“Eddie?” His voice rose playfully. “Like the guy’s name?”
Evie laughed and twirled her hoodie’s drawstring around her finger. “No, silly! It’s an oceanography term. You know, science?”
“Uh, not if I can help it.”
“Oh. Well, an eddy is a strong circular current—”
“Yeah, I know what an eddy is,” Nick snapped. “I’m not that thick.”
Whoa! Where did that come from? Someone’s touchy.
Evie’s stomach soured. “I didn’t say you were,” she replied cautiously. “You were the one who asked about my name…” As she wrenched the cord tighter, the tip of her finger throbbed, growing scarlet.
Nick’s eyes darted to the whispering girls in the doorway.
“The parish is called Evie ’cause it overlooks the eddy in Aikerness Bay. My parents liked the name and its relevance to the island.” She shook her head and glanced away, unwinding the hoodie string from her finger.
He bowed his head. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be a dick.” He toyed with something steel, black-dialed, and probably eye-wateringly expensive on his left wrist. “It’s just…I’m used to people assuming all sorts of shit about me.”
Evie studied the sixteen-year-old closely. The cool snake tattoo of Jake’s wasn’t winding around Nick’s arm or anywhere else, and his left knee bounced feverishly, betraying the cocky, confident persona celebrated in glossy magazines and gossip websites. This version of Nick wasn’t what Evie expected. And why so fidgety?
“It grates after a while. Most kids don’t have The National Mail writing articles about them failing their science and math tests,” he huffed. “And I only failed ’cause—” Catching Evie’s sympathetic nod, he clammed up, his need to explain seemingly overruled by a surge of second thoughts.
A flush of guilt coursed through her. Assuming things about Nick was one of her and Fiona’s favorite pastimes. “That’s awful. No one should ever assume—or invade your privacy.”
“Most journos think I’m public property because I’m on telly. Some of the stories they write are pretty twisted.”
Evie always thought fame would be cool and exciting. Meeting fellow celebrities, going to glamorous parties. Any downside had never occurred to her. “So, being famous sucks?”
“Sometimes.” Head down, Nick stuck his fingers inside the strap of his watch and dragged it around his wrist. “People can be weird. Some touch you without asking. Others follow you. But the perks are brill. Most fans are fun, and who doesn’t love posing for photo shoots and appearing in magazines? It’s a trip. I score loads of free stuff, too.”
“And the best tables in restaurants?”
The corners of his mouth curled upward. “Sounds like a cliché, but yeah, it happens.”
“So the good cancels out the bad then?”
The muscle in Nick’s jaw tensed and his knee bounced faster. “Hmm, let’s just say, if you’d asked me six months ago, I would’ve said yes.”
What happened? Evie’s brow gathered then released, her eyes widening.
