You Belong with Me by Mhairi McFarlane

Author:Mhairi McFarlane
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2024-09-03T00:00:00+00:00

Edie sympathized, while wishing she hadn’t, either.

31

“Hat or no hat?” Elliot said, proffering the sort of knitted beanie he’d been in the first time Edie interviewed him, when she’d inwardly scoffed at his self-importance.

She laughed in recognition. “Remember when . . .”

“Remember when you called me a big-headed twat, made me remove it, and we got mobbed? Yes. Expect to hear that tale in a speech someday.”

This was pure Elliot: his flirting often hinted at a shared future. Edie tried in vain to fit together the casual adoration, this risk-taking with her expectations, with what Fraser had said. The exact opposite. His brother had prefaced his WhatsApps about Ines to Edie with: He’s not going to bother lying to me, is he? How those words had turned from comfort to poison.

“No hat,” Edie said, ruffling his shiny dark hair affectionately, as he stuffed it in his coat pocket. “I think it might draw attention indoors at night.”

Approximately fifteen minutes later, she bitterly regretted both the no-hat policy and her inability to learn from the past.

“How fast can you drink?” Edie whispered, knocking back a quarter of a white wine in one go.

They were in a reasonably lively bar near the hotel, and Edie could feel pennies dropping. It was odd how you developed a sixth sense for it.

The trouble was, Edie thought, Elliot was pleasant to look at. It happened in stages. First, they walked in and existing customers scanned the newcomers merely reflexively. Then eyes settled on the fact that Edie’s male companion was not only handsome but wore that special, indefinable aura of a polished-up, loaded person from another realm.

It wasn’t that Elliot was showy, if you set aside coats that cost four figures. He was just a bit too chiseled and pore-less to be a standard sight in a regional boozer on a Saturday night.

Once he was being inspected for his intrinsic aesthetic appeal, there came the dawning realization. Didn’t he have dragon-green eyes, at some other time? Wasn’t he in armor? Was his hair a bit longer? Did he possibly wield swords in the direction of computer-generated, fire-breathing magical creatures? Clunk. It’s that guy. You know, the guy from that thing. What? It can’t be. I’m telling you, it is. Look. Isn’t he from round here?

“We been made?” Elliot said, managing a deep swig of Estrella.

“We are in the process of being made, I think,” Edie said.

Elliot looked over her shoulder at the crowded room beyond. “Given the size of the place and the level of pissedness, it might be an idea to cut our losses.”

“Yeah.” Edie sighed, having figured as much.

They downed another gulp each and communicated wordlessly: straight to the door.

Edie glanced back as they escaped and could see a group of half a dozen or so by the bar staring in wonder at them, mercifully not waving phones.

They were seconds away from figuring out that the couple leaving their round undrunk was confirmation of their suspicions.

Outside, Elliot pulled his hat on. “Is there somewhere quieter?”

“It’s Saturday night,” Edie said.

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