In Canada, Evie was by the technical term a ‘dispensing optician,’ more commonly shortened to ‘optician.’ Here in Scotland, it turned out that the term ‘optician’ more commonly referred to the optometrist, which was where the mix up had occurred. Evie had introduced herself as the office’s optician, and the patient had proceeded to seek medical council on the care for their progressing eye disease. When she had tried to explain that the doctor would address these questions and concerns, the confusion multiplied exponentially.
Instead of helping, Connie stepped in and set to embarrassing Evie by describing that she was not only a newly acquired acquisition to the office but also that she was a foreigner. The older woman had accepted this explanation with a disdainful arch of a brow that left Evie seeing red.
Like a teasing schoolboy, Connie had been very pleased with himself. Though he wasn’t smiling now that she insisted he help her find a frame.
The tray was at the top of Evie’s stack, and when she went to hand it to the Scot, she felt a warm hand against her hip before she backed onto Connie’s toes. The damn ghost was right behind her already!
Evie was startled forward again, letting out a pathetic eep.
Connie was quick to apologize, his hand still out as a bumper between them. He pointed at the tray, before slowly reaching over her shoulder to take it.
“Oh, of course. Sorry.” Evie stammered, squishing up against the desk. She wanted to sneak out, but there wasn’t the room to do so until he had grabbed the tray and left.
Evie self-consciously tucked her hair back behind an ear and scuttled away. She was flustered and unnerved by the way her heart had skipped a beat from the simple press of his hand. Like an electrical impulse, the touch had triggered all those hot recollections from their dalliance together to rise, unbidden, into her mind. She shivered involuntarily and cursed her wayward mind. Then her body for being so damned inflamed by them. Evie didn’t have to look in one of the many mirrors available in the store to know that she was scarlet from chest to ears. The sudden hot-flash that overtook her was self-explanatory.
She ran to the dispensing tables to collect a wayward tray, and when she returned, the Scot was already behind the desk again, with the frame. He had moved on to help with another work order and was standing by the printer, taking up real estate. Connie read the printout with a smarmy smirk on his face and a sad sort of humour in his eyes. The man was so large that she did not dare try to return to the desk with him behind it. He noticed her awkwardly standing there and glanced up, raising a questioning brow.
When their eyes met, Evie felt her professional-smile give way to something broader and brighter.
The man’s light-coloured orbs tracked her face, perhaps trying to ascertain her intent when they suddenly dipped lower. The loitering was brief, yet Evie couldn’t help feeling flattered. She bit her lip as she considered that the Scot must not be able to help himself.
Oh no, no-no-no, Evie, she chastised, mustering her willpower by reminding herself, you’ve sworn Mr. Tall Dark and Handsome off, remember? He’s married for crying out loud! Do not fall for those curls, or those eyes, or that…cute little dimple…
Thankfully, Connie had the decency to look away. He made a rambled point about the printout.
“The old man wasna havering,” he said, with a sadistic chuckle. He gestured at the sheet and explained, “His wee grandson is clyping. Left a scalding review online. Mara is gonna throw a maddie!”
Evie had no idea what exactly he meant, but it was apparent from the context that Mara would not be pleased. He danced away into her office, leaving the paper on her desk. The girl was not sure why Connie would be pleased that someone was ranting about the poor service they received in the dispensary on social media—unless he was feuding with his wife.
That little voice at the back of her head gave her brain a well-deserved kick, ah-ah-ah! Stop getting hopeful. You can’t even think about continuing to see this guy.
Evie needed to shut it out, and the best way to do that was to keep herself busy. She went about her work with the orders. They had managed to make five sales, and the door wasn’t closed yet. It would be her best day of sales to date and probably the best the dispensary had had in two weeks. Finally, something she could be proud of.
The paperwork took Evie about an hour to finish, and by the time she had everything squared away, she had only another thirty minutes before she could shut the store down and start cleaning up. She tidied the front desk, and Connie reemerged from the back lab with a dry mop in tow.
Evie did a double-take. Another job? Why was he in such a helping mood all of a sudden?
She tried not to stare as he worked his way through the store until he was at the desk. Evie darted out from behind so he could get in to sweep when her phone vibrated twice on the desktop.
The girl would usually have kept her phone stowed away in her purse, so it wasn’t a distraction, but since starting here, she had so much dead-time between tasks and patients that she had started keeping it at the desk with her. She had forgotten that the thing was there until it had buzzed with the text.
Evie was guilty instantly. Her heart raced as she watched her boss stop to inspect the notification badge on her mobile’s screen, worried about his response to her indiscretion. His head bobbed up to peer at her curiously. There was mischief once more in those variscite eyes as he tilted his head to the side and asked, “Got some plans for the evenin’, do ya?”
Evie gave an acquiescent nod.
“Wings, is it?” he curiously pushed on.
Evie nodded again. “I guess so. I’m tagging along with my roommate and her friends.”
“Ah,” he said, moving away from her phone to continue with his sweep of the vinyl floors. The phone buzzed a second, and soon after, a third time, making Connie comment, “Rockstar Roy had said that ya had moved on.”
Evie froze. Did that mean that he had taken the time to check in on her whereabouts? Evie shook off the butterflies in her gut that accompanied the thought, knowing that it did not matter much anyway. Off-limits, Evie!
“Saturday night is the best excuse for wings,” Connie said conversationally as he swept towards the back of the store. He kept talking, his head down as he worked, “I personally could eat wings any night of the week.”
Evie smiled at that, while she shut down the computers and tidied up the dispensing tables, and even though she had just chastised herself for allowing the man to infiltrate her mind again, a part of her was nagging to keep the conversation flowing.
So, in as nonchalant a way as was possible, she asked Connie, “We are going to a place called Wingers. Do they live up to the name?”
“Oh, aye. You can’t go wrong there,” Connie replied promptly as he disappeared to put the dry-mop away. She heard the water running, and then a few minutes later, the man reappeared with a mop and bucket, beginning his route all over again. He really was in a helping mood.
Connie rejoined the conversation like he had never left. “I’m headed there myself to grab a pint with an old mate who’s popped down from Skye.”
“Oh,” Evie blurted. The word slipped out of her mouth so quickly she didn’t have time to catch it. Once out, she knew it sounded as unpleasantly surprised to the man as it had to her own ears. Her mind raced to recover and then she was suggesting, “how nice. Maybe I will see you there then.”
Crap. Shit! What am I doing?! I went from sounding unpleasantly shocked to unpleasantly needy in 0.6 seconds. A new world record, she mercilessly berated.
Evie turned away and desperately searched for something to busy herself with in that general direction—away! She spotted the bead pan that needed to be turned off for the night and practically ran to it. She put away tools and supplies at the workstation in robotic movements that resembled a fast-forwarded VHS, sporadic and scrambled.
The redhead knew the anxiety that drove her was visible in her actions—how could it not be? She was like a wind-up doll screwed t
oo tight and let loose. So, she gulped a big breath and tried to slow down.
It was after closing time now, and she headed back to the reception desk to finalize the daily totals and cash out the terminal. When she chanced a glance up, finally feeling calm enough to do it without blushing, she noticed that Connie wasn’t even there. He had disappeared again.
This latest Houdini act was concrete evidence that the man was a professional ghost. She smiled as her mind conjured imagery—Connie with a king-sized white sheet draped over his head, two holes cut out to see, rattling chains and moaning in a very poor rendition of a spectre. She stifled a snorted giggle, as she finished entering the totals and printed off the paperwork to be added to the budget binder. The machine spit the sheets out at her, and when she turned to pull the hole punch out of the cupboard, her ghost reappeared.
Evie gasped in shock and then cursed under her breath, admonishing the man in a fluster, “You have got to stop doing that!” to which he responded with a deep, hearty chuckle, quite cocky.
“Doing what?” he asked innocently.
There was no mistaking the devilry in that look, and although she was astonished, she had just reprimanded her boss—the man who signs your paycheck for crying out loud, Evie—she still found the resolve to hold her ground.
“That,” she snapped, poignantly, waving at his person, “appearing out of nowhere.”
“Oh, aye, right!” he crowed, so very thrilled with this newest revelation. He planted his hands on his hips—his superhero pose—and announced boastfully, “scaring the piss out of ya.”
“Yes,” she replied, her words so sardonic they practically oozed acid, as she attempted copying his Scottish lilt, “scarrrin’ ta piss outta me.”
This only served to deepen his mirth into a dark chuckle, that was both dangerously flirtatious and incredibly irksome. At least he had the propriety of hiding his bemused grin behind a hand. Oh, this man made her burn and boil—one minute hot and bothered, the next steaming from both ears—and the cocksure Scot thought it was all hilarious!
“Not bad, lass, but don’ forget to tap your r’s.”
“Tap the r’s?” she questioned, completely confused by this piece of criticism—and impressed as hell to have been graded, ‘not bad.’ With her guard down now, she stupidly allowed the first thought that came to roll right on out of her mouth, “Don’t you roll the r?”
“Och, no!” he chided her, gesturing at her dismissively. He let her brush past him, so she could finish punching holes in the paper she had to stow away in the binder, as he lectured her on how to properly tap her r’s. “We don’ roll. We aren’t pirates. We don’ say whirrrl! We tap the r, give the word an extra syllable after the r.” he emphasized this lesson with further demonstration, “Whir’l.”
If she had not found what he was saying so interesting, she might not have stopped her task to test the technique. But unfortunately, she did. “Whir’l,” she mimicked, exaggerating the word as she experimented with it.
The Scot held his index finger, as he appraised her second attempt, “Better,”
Evie tried the word again, only to realize—very belatedly—that she was smiling like a fawning fangirl again. She was a fangirl—but it was a fictional doctor that had her heart there.
Thankfully her phone saved her. It vibrated a fourth time, and Evie was reminded that she was expected at a particular time, as well as the fact that she still didn’t know the location. The anxiety of being late was like a cold splash of water. She rushed to finish filing the papers.
“A Serena is askin’ if ya know yer way there…” Connie called to her.
The presumptuous Scot was leaned over the reception desk, reading her phone. She had to bite back a scolding remark from scathing her boss.
“I don’t actually,” she answered instead, as she shoved the binder back into its place in the cupboard.
Evie ignored the phone and her boss, heading to the staff room to grab her things. He was probably trying to get a rise out of her. She wasn’t going to rise to the occasion.
“I think that’s it for cleanup. I cashed out, and the orders are all taken care of. I’m going to grab my stuff and then lock up.” She announced as she slipped on her coat.
When she approached, he turned and flicked off the lights, turning back to hand her the mobile.
“I’m headed out as well, so get the alar’m, and I will get the door.”
Evie obliged, and the two of them stepped out and locked the store. Her fingers were clicking the address into her map app, as she said a quick good-bye. Connie chuckled, and his large hand pushed her phone down so that she would look up at him. “We are headin to the same place, so you can stop yer tap-tappin’,” he said, not leaving much room for her to protest.
Damn him and his common sense…and chivalry, Evie thought, stuffing the phone into her purse.
The Scot started walking away backwards, so he could beckon her with his smirk to follow. She couldn’t help but smile back. It stretched across her face even though Evie resisted it as best she could. Once there, it couldn’t be taken back.
Evie caught up to him, keeping a respectable distance between them. Now, she was late, and in dangerous company.
6
They walked a few blocks without saying a word. When Connie let her know they were close, he failed to inform her that ‘close’ meant ‘just a short bus ride south.’ They sat side by side on the top floor of the bus, but she kept her hands in her lap, and he didn’t spout a history lesson as they went. He didn’t say anything until it was time to get off. They stood under the blue and white neon sign of the pub, glaring bright in the dusky light, and things got extremely awkward.
“Well then,” he said, his eyes looking anywhere but at her, “after you?”
Evie wanted to thank Connie for helping her navigate her way to the pub, but the words were sticky in her throat. Instead, she gave him a pleasant closed mouth smile and a weak nod before leaving him on the sidewalk.
Inside, the place was packed. Bodies of every description and age were jammed into the pub. As Evie began to shuffle her way through the throng, she was suddenly aware of how a sardine felt. Evie tried to scout for Serena and her friends, but the tiny girl was nowhere to be seen amongst the much taller people moving between the booths and the bar. A live band was just gearing up for the night, as others clamored to be heard over everyone else, so calling out for her was useless. Just as she was about to give up and start checking every table, a familiar hand grasped her shoulder.
This time she didn’t jump or startle as she felt the brush of his dark curls on her cheeks. Connie leaned in, pointing a hand in the direction of a flailing arm, commenting, “I think yer headed that way,”
Evie gave him a smile again—still unable to get any words out—and they parted ways. She came to a booth, where Serena was standing up on the seat. In an exuberant leap, her flatmate hopped over a man and came down, throwing her arms around Evie’s neck in a tight snuggle. The redhead was still not accustomed to how freely Serena deposited her hugs.
In a loud whisper, the petite girl inquired, “Crivvens, is that who I think it is?”
Serena pulled back, and Evie gave her a reluctant smirk, yes. The other girl leaned back in, and Evie ducked lower towards her, so she didn’t have to stand on her tiptoes. “You came together?”
Evie gave an exaggerated shrug of her shoulders, “It turned out we were both meeting someone here.”
“Och, aye, right!” she sardonically laughed, slapping Evie’s shoulder playfully. Serena hitched a thumb back, as she explained, “Well, forget about him. I want ya ta meet this ‘ere bloke. He’s real easy on the eyes and charmin’ as hell.”
Evie’s mouth pulled down into an overemphasized frown to demonstrate her apprehension. She really hated being set up with a guy tonight, but Serena wouldn’t accept no for an answer. Evie was forced to slip in—over the said guy’s lap—hauled in by the tiny girl’s surprisingly firm grip. She sa
t between them, pretending to act all cordial, as craft beer and wings were ordered and distributed by a waiter. The redhead tried to escape making casual conversation, with her impromptu blind date, Harry. Instead, she focused on enjoying the fantastically messy and mouthwatering wings.
Serena wasn’t exaggerating. Harry was easy on the eyes—but she really couldn’t be less interested. He was polite and sweet, but he had nothing on the wings. The wings were ooey-gooey, roasted until tender, and sticky with that sweet hot twang of chipotle pepper and honey that made your tongue demand more. It was hard to talk with the guy when she was eating without making a slopping mess of herself. Serena was a terrible match-maker if she had expected sparks to fly while they ate messy finger food that didn’t even come out of the kitchen with extra plates or cutlery.
Evie had taken her jacket off and the soft blazer, her skin flushed by the shared heat of the cramped confines and the spicy wings. She was glad then that she had opted to wear the looser fitting chiffon top. It was sleeveless and had a thick crisscross pattern in the back, maximizing comfort and airflow, which was a god-send in the cramped heat of the pub.
Two pints in, Harry, who had slowly leaned in closer and now had one arm draped lazily over the top of the tufted booth seat around her, couldn’t keep his eyes off her neckline, whose zippered hem was done up suitably for the office. After another pint, he was brazened enough to reach in and tug the zipper lower. Evie wasn’t pleased, but she let the man off with just a warning look for that misdemeanour.
Serena’s friend was far more entertaining. Becca was a transplant from Finland. She had been a tour guide at the Museum of Scotland, her first stay in the country, and she was telling some pretty flavorful stories about hilarious customer incidents. Everything from a kid on a school tour who had managed to get a finger stuck up his nose to a father who puked after helping his frightened girl work a giant human hamster wheel. She was so refreshing. This was her third stay in Scotland on a temporary visa, and she had taken two terms in America.
Seeing Colour Page 9
