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His eyes glistened with tears.
“Oh, Spencer, are you okay?”
“I’m all right!” His voice went a little too high and his watery grin wasn’t all that convincing. “Just the little problem of my fiancée leaving me right before the trip. Three years together and then—”
He threw his hands in the air. “Gone. But she’s doing well, don’t worry. I just found out she’s moved in with someone else. So, you know, a week on from our break up, she’s having no troubles.”
“I’m so sorry.” That put my experience with Sean into perspective. Guilt cascaded through me that I’d ever thought myself wronged in some way.
“I’m tempted to go back to nonstop crying the way I did the first week after she left, so I’m probably not the best man for a fun night at the pub.”
“I know what that’s like.”
Although…did I? When I broke things off with Sean, I binged Star Trek movies the whole weekend, but I didn’t shed a tear. Okay, I cried when Spock died, I wasn’t heartless. But I didn’t cry over Sean. I’d cried more on this trip than I had over my last break up. I wasn’t sure if that said more about that relationship or me.
“Anyway,” Spencer said. “I thought a walk might be good.”
“With Bea and Rupert?”
“Not a chance. Bea talks to me nonstop about the benefits of marriage and companionship.” He blew a raspberry. “The woman can’t read the room.”
At least she was consistent.
“I really am sorry how things turned out. You deserve better than that.”
He gave a stout little nod and a brave smile. “Enjoy the pub.”
With that, he walked out the lodge doors into the night.
“Poor guy,” Duncan said softly.
“I guess that explains his unhappiness.”
We trailed him down the front steps. Spencer slouched away, putting as much distance between him and us—and probably everyone else in this country—as quickly as he could.
“Yet you’re always trying to win him over,” Duncan said. “Why is that?”
I shrugged, watching Spencer turn down the side street behind the lodge. “I guess I just hate the idea of anyone being so miserable here. We’re in the most beautiful place on earth, and none of it seems to be reaching him.”
I understood why now. He’d probably planned the trip with his ex-fiancée. Everything I found so exhilarating just twisted the knife for him.
My concern for Spencer’s heartbreak dimmed a touch in light of the pleasure that shone on Duncan’s face.
“You think it’s the most beautiful place on earth?”
“I really do.”
He took my hand and raised it, pressing a kiss to my palm. “You do know how to capture the heart of a Scotsman.”
twenty-three
Arnav,Carlos, and Harlow sat together at a large table, drinking ales and laughing up a storm. It looked like most of the tourists and college students who had lined the village streets by day now crowded inside the pub. A small band played music in one corner, and drunken youths from the nearby hostel danced between tables.
“What’ll you have?” Duncan asked me.
“Whatever you’re having.”
He raised an eyebrow.
