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My phone beeps loudly in my pocket, making me jump. I glance down at the display, wondering, as always, if it might be a message from Jett, telling me he still loves me, and wants me back.
“Council tax due tomorrow,”says the reminder I typed in myself a couple of weeks ago.
Shit. The council tax. I wonder if Ian will give me an advance on my wages so I can pay it?
“Can ye no’ have a word wi’ him, and get him to sling his hook?” Jimmy says, when I finally refocus. “It’ll be lambing season soon. I dinnae want Edna and the other lassies havin’ their heads turned by a’ this Hollywood nonsense.”
“Lexie and Jett Carter aren’t together now, Jimmy,” says Mo, appearing from the kitchen, and referring to Jett by his full name, as befits a man who’s been nominated for two Oscars, and is frequently described as “the hottest actor on the planet” — and not just by me. “She already told ye that. Jett Carter dumped her, mind?”
“Soshewas the one who had to slingherhook,” chortles Ian, as if he’s said something hilarious.
“There must be something she can do,” says Jimmy, looking at me suspiciously from under his bushy eyebrows. “Otherwise, what’s the point o’ her?”
I draw myself up to my full height — which isn’t all that impressive, really, given that I’m only 5’4” — ready to retort, but Mo gets in first.
“Now, Jimmy, ye ken what we’ve said about being nice to the staff,” she says firmly. “That was why the last lassie left. We’re lucky Lexie here was able to fill in at such short notice. Nobody else would do it, thanks to you.”
I smile weakly and go back to polishing the glasses.
Be nice.
I know Mo was talking to Jimmy, but her words ring in my ears all the same.
I have to be nice if I want to keep this job; and I have to keep the job if I want to be able to pay the council tax bill — and theelectricity, and the gas, and maybe start eating something other than beans on toast every night for dinner.
Be good, Lexie. You have to be good.
But I told myself thatlastyear, too; back when I’d run away from Heather Bay, trying to start over in California. Back when I met Jett.
But now I’m back where I started: I ran from Heather Bay to L.A., and then from L.A. back to Heather Bay. Towards Jett, then away from him again. Full circle. Absolutely no change. Maybe there never will be. Maybe people like me aren’t meant to change. Maybe we justcan’t. Maybe there’s something so broken about us that we can never be fixed, no matter how hard we try.
And Ididtry: I really did.
I tried so hard to be good, but look where it got me? To a skanky old bar in the hometown where everyone’s hellbent on casting me as the villain, no matter what I do.
My hands tighten around the glass I’m holding. For a second, I think about throwing it against the wall, watching it smash. That would bebad, sure… but satisfying.
Then, from the TV that’s hanging on the wall opposite the bar, I hear Jett’s name again.
“… landed at a private airfield close to Inverness,” says a woman on the screen, who’s standing outside what I’m guessing is the airfield, although the fence around it is so high it could be anywhere, really. “The Hollywood star is in Scotland to work on Justin Duval’sMacbeth, which is due to start filming later this month in locations around the Highlands.”
The reporter looks like this is the best thing that’s ever happened to her. It probably is, actually. God knows, Jett was the best thing that ever happened tome.
And now he’s here. In the Highlands. Which means it’s impossible not to think about it — abouthim— any longer. I am going tohaveto think about it. I’m going to have to thinkabout what I’ll say if I bump into him: which isn’t particularly likely, I suppose. He’s an A-list movie star. I’m a barmaid. And, okay, that’s exactly how things were thefirsttime I bumped into him, but that doesn’t mean it’ll happen again, does it? Lightning doesn’t strike twice; and neither does true love — if that’s even what it was. What happened between me and Jett was a one-off; one of those never-to-be-repeated, could-not-make-it-up moments that you spend the rest of your life thinking about. Regretting. Re-living. Wishing you could have it back again, even for a second.
But now it’s done. Over. And Jett being on the same continent as me — maybe even in the samepostcode, depending on where he’s staying — isn’t going to change that.
It really isn’t.
I’m saying that to convince myself as much as anyone else, you understand, because Ihaveto believe it. I can’t let myself think there’s even the slightest chance of Jett and me getting back together. Because there isn’t. And when I look back up at the TV screen in the corner, that fact is confirmed.
“With him,” says the reporter, looking like she might be about to cry with excitement, “is his rumored girlfriend Violet King, who’ll play Lady Macbeth, alongside Jett.”
Her grinning image disappears and is replaced by photos of Jett and Violet, which have been put side-by-side in a way that suggests they might have been together when the photos were taken, even though I know for a fact that they weren’t, because, in the one of Jett, I can see my own hand on his arm, the rest of my body having been cut out of the picture, as if it never existed.
Ouch.
Jett and Violet definitely weren’t together when that photo was taken. Theyaretogether now, though, if this news report is to be believed; and it’s notThe Heather Bay Gazettethis time, so I can’t see any reason why it shouldn’t be.
