Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 102731 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 514(@200wpm)___ 411(@250wpm)___ 342(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102731 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 514(@200wpm)___ 411(@250wpm)___ 342(@300wpm)
“Let him say that.”
Fyfe’s expression said he wanted to melt into the soil beneath our feet.
“He’s dating Carianne.” I gave Eilidh a chiding look because Carianne was my friend.
“And where is Carianne?” Eilidh asked, all sass.
“Her parents don’t trust me.” Fyfe scowled as he put the last peg in his tent. “I’m going to get firewood.”
“I’ll come with.” Eilidh followed him.
“Eilidh—”
I grabbed Lewis’s arm, stopping him. “Leave her. She really doesn’t bother Fyfe.”
“Until the day she really doesn’t bother him.” Michael waggled his brows.
Lewis scowled. “What does that mean?”
Lana smacked Michael across the shoulder. “Hush, you.”
“What?” He shrugged. “I’m just saying. Eils is cute. And in a few years’ time, a couple of years won’t matter.”
“She’s my wee sister.” Lewis had gone worryingly blank-faced. “The first bloke who tries to go there dies.”
Michael nodded. “I get it, bro.”
And he did. Michael’s wee sister, Willow, was a lot younger than us, but the sentiment was the same.
“What do you think she sees in Fyfe?” Lana whispered. “He’s kind of a geek, no?”
Irritation thrummed through me. “Eh, he’s smart, he’s nice, he’s good-looking … need I go on?”
Lewis nudged me. “Should I be worried?”
I rolled my eyes at his teasing. “Never.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to insult him.” Lana shrugged. “I just don’t get why she’s so obsessed with him. I’d get it if it was Michael.”
“Of course you would.” Michael winked, and I rolled my eyes at his cheesiness.
Lewis, however, stared off into the woods where Eilidh and Fyfe had disappeared. “She’s had a crush on him since she was eleven. We’d taken off on our bikes and I told her she couldn’t come with us. She followed us, anyway, and I got really pissed off and shouted at her like I never had before.” Guilt flashed across his face. “She burst into tears and ran away. Fyfe told me I was a dick, and he went after her. Two wee shits in Eilidh’s year had found her and were pushing her around. Fyfe knocked them on their arses, and they took off just as I got there. Fyfe was her hero that day, and she hasn’t stopped flirting with him since.”
I laughed because it was so Eilidh.
“Well, maybe when she’s rich and famous, he’ll fancy her back.” Lana grinned, and I assumed she referred to the fact that Eilidh had started summer courses at a prestigious conservatoire in Glasgow and had also gotten a minor role on a Scottish TV show. It worried Lewis that Eilidh wanted to act, but she was headstrong and determined, even at fourteen.
“Fyfe isn’t about that stuff.” Lewis dismissed. “And he isn’t about Eilidh. She’s just a kid to him. So can we drop it?”
“Back to the last subject,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. “The only reason Lewis and I were allowed to go camping together is because our parents knew we’d never get up to anything with Eilidh around.”
“Well, that was naive.” Eilidh suddenly appeared out of the woods with Fyfe. “Because I brought earplugs.”
Laughter exploded around the campsite, and just like that, Lewis’s big brother protectiveness was forgotten.
Despite Eilidh’s joking, there was no way I intended to lose my virginity in a tent surrounded by our friends and Lewis’s sister. Eilidh had finagled her way into Fyfe’s tent because she decided last minute she didn’t want to sleep alone. Fyfe was so unbothered by this, as if she was his little sister, that Lewis “allowed” it. I’d been about to suggest she sleep with us, when, as if she had a sixth sense, Eilidh had shot me a half-pleading, half-murderous look.
She lived in vain if she thought Fyfe was going to see her as anything but a kid, but I kept my mouth shut.
By the time we went to bed, my eyelids were heavy and Lewis’s words had grown rough and slow, which was always a good indicator he was tired. It was no surprise that the last thing I remembered was drifting to sleep, sprawled across his chest, within seconds of getting into our sleeping bags. Even though the days had been warm this summer, the nights could still get chilly. But Lewis was like a furnace, and he kept me toasty.
The nightmare came out of nowhere. Or at least that’s how it seemed. I was lost in it, the bad dream made up of memories mixed with fear. Suddenly cutting through it was Lewis. He was calling for me.
Saying my name over and over.
Then the feeling of being shaken finally yanked me from the sharp claws of my dreams.
I blinked, terrified and confused, as the nightmare faded and I found myself staring into Lewis’s face.
“Callie?” He was holding me, his expression creased with concern.
Light flooded our tent and my eyes dropped to the battery-operated lamp we’d charged earlier. Lewis must have switched it on.