500 Miles from You (Scottish Bookshop #3)(71)
“This is amazing,” he said. Then found his thoughts, once again, straying north and wondering if the hot dog stall was there and if Lissa was enjoying herself. He resisted the urge to check his phone; this was awful. He was behaving like some kind of bounder.
“So, wounds, huh?” he found himself saying as Yazzie picked unhappily at the delicious food.
“Did you always want to be a nurse?” she asked him.
Cormac half smiled to himself. “Ach, not quite,” he said. “Everyone in my family joined the army, so I joined up too. Became a medic.”
“Ooh,” said Yazzie. “That’s interesting.”
Cormac shrugged. “A bit too interesting at times,” he said.
“Did you get shot at?”
Cormac blinked. He almost answered the question and then reined it back. But why . . . why? Why did he suddenly feel almost ready to tell someone . . . but then had held back? This was ridiculous.
It was the newness, he decided. Everything being new. He could see, for the first time, the benefits of the big city: shaking off who you were, where you were from, what you came with, the baggage. That you were free to start over, to ditch everything, to feel lighter. He nearly told Yazzie, but something stopped him. He shrugged. The people in the queue were doing exactly what they had done, stared ferociously at people who had already managed to sit and get fed, and he felt the weight of their hungry eyes on him.
“Nah, it was fine,” he said briefly. “Shall we head out?”
That was the problem with the food: it had come served in little wicker baskets, each a perfect box of steaming heaven—but the buns had come quickly, and they’d eaten them even faster, and now the waitress was eyeing them up and making it very clear that if they were sitting and not actually stuffing their faces, they were costing her money, and would they mind terribly moving straightaway?
Cormac paid the eye-watering bill, and they hadn’t even gotten up from their seats before the next couple of hipsters were on top of them, photographing and uploading selfies to Instagram before they’d even sat down.
It was still light when they hit the noisy streets.
“We could go somewhere else?” said Yazzie, but neither of them knew where to go and all the bars and pubs were stuffed to the gills, spilling all their clients out onto the pavement. A warm Saturday evening in central London was not in any way conducive to quiet chatting, even if he could think of anything he wanted to say to her.
Yazzie was growing increasingly irritated and very ready to go back and complain to all her friends about how that Scottish boy might be hot, but oh my God, he was the most boring man in the universe and a total waste of time.
She wouldn’t sleep with him again, she vowed to herself. This was going nowhere, and she wanted a boyfriend, not someone who lived on the next floor with benefits.
On the other hand, the sleeping with bit had been pretty good. Better than pretty good.
No. Definitely not.
“Um, I’m not sure where . . .” said Cormac, looking at a street crowded with young Londoners on a night out.
“Actually,” said Yazzie, “I’m working tomorrow, I’d better get an early night.”
It was irritatingly insulting how quickly he agreed with her.
Chapter 55
Jake came out of the bushes looking slightly greenish but more or less recovered.
“Gum?” he offered her, and Lissa smiled and politely refused. They walked on in silence. Lissa wanted another shot on the rides, but she felt under the circumstances it wouldn’t be very tactful.
Instead Jake insisted on going to a ridiculous shooting arcade and attempting to hit enough traveling ducks with a toy rifle to win her a huge tiger, despite her protesting she really didn’t want a huge tiger and probably wouldn’t have anywhere to put it.
They couldn’t agree on that, but also hitting the ducks proved—particularly if you were feeling a little wobbly to begin with—rather more difficult than Jake had anticipated, and he kept missing. Unfortunately, once he’d started, he was not the type of man who, like Cormac, would simply have raised his hands and laughed about it; instead he gave the carny more and more money, while Lissa stood at the side faintly embarrassed, and Jake’s ears got redder and redder, and the anger made him even shakier on the trigger and the entire thing went from fun to awkward rather quickly, particularly when a small group of boys appeared from nowhere to laugh at him.
“Aye, gies it another one, mister! You’re a really good protector of ducks, aye!” shouted one.
“Aye, he’s one of those environmentalists,” said another. “Protecting species everywhere.”
Jake cursed at them and looked ready to lose his cool altogether, until at last, after paying out far more than the cheap nylon toy could possibly have cost in the first place, he retrieved the white tiger and handed it over, looking bashful.
“Well,” said Lissa, trying not to smile too much in case it looked as if she were laughing at him. “Thank you, I suppose.”
“S-so listen,” said Jake, stuttering slightly. “There’s a wee barbecue happening down by the loch. You fancy it? There’s a nice bonfire and that . . . um . . . music, I think . . .”
Just then Ginty and her friends appeared out of nowhere. Lissa still had only a vague idea of who she was. She was looking absolutely impressive, that much was clearly true, in a pair of skintight black leggings, enormous wedge heels, an off-the-shoulder cropped pink top that showed off her nice round shoulders and vast bosoms, and more hair than Lissa had ever seen on a human person. It tumbled down her back in great blond waves, all the way to her bottom. There seemed to be no end to it; it looked like at least four people’s hair. Coupled with the breasts (natural) and lips (much less so), in the normally dressed-down life of the village and the beginning chill of even the sunniest of Highland evenings, she stood out like a rare orchid. It wasn’t a look Lissa could have ever worn herself, but she couldn’t help but be impressed at the commitment it took. Ginty’s huge pneumatic lips were polished to a high sheen, and her eyebrows were perfectly shaded brown geometric shapes that looked carved into her forehead.