“Oh my freaking God!” she shrieked.
I winced along with the rest of my friends and about half the passengers in the carriage. “What?”
Her head dipped to her tablet and she tapped away at the screen. Two seconds later she shrieked again.
“Jesus,” Beck groaned, slapping a hand protectively over his ear.
“What the hell is going on?” I asked, suddenly worried she was going to get us kicked off the train.
Claudia just grinned at me like a kid. “We’re on the Harry Potter viaduct that the Hogwarts Express takes!”
That wasn’t at all what I’d been expecting, but the info had me almost slamming my head against the glass to see outside. My eyes took in the familiar scenery and I smiled, “This is so cool.”
“Very,” Lowe agreed, smiling along with me.
“Oh my God!” Claudia threw her hands out, her eyes wide and deadly serious. “Are they taking us to Hogwarts?”
We stared at her, processing her question in silence for a moment.
Laughter burst forth from us along with everyone in the vicinity who’d heard her. Realizing the improbability of her query, Claud blushed and a chuckling Beck put his arm around her and drew her into his side so he could kiss her forehead. “I get stupid when I’m excited,” she mumbled, her lips curling up at the corner so we knew she was taking our teasing laughter in good fun.
By the time we pulled into Fort William, I’d almost forgotten the ache in my chest. But as we stepped onto the platform, breathing in the crisp, cold air, my eyes collided with Jake’s and just like that, the ache was back again.
Claudia had given us a rundown on Fort William prior to our arrival. By the time we stepped into the town, we knew it was the largest in the Highlands, only smaller than the city of Inverness. We knew it was near the famous Ben Nevis, and we knew that it was settled on the shores of Loch Linnhe and Loch Eil. Despite being the largest town in the Highlands, it was still pretty freaking small, but I guess I wouldn’t care about that if I lived in such beautiful surroundings.
The town center was quaint with cobbled streets and, a little like Edinburgh, really old buildings sitting next to more modern ones. When we got two taxis at the station to take us to the lodge, we discovered that our lodge was really just a house in among the homes built into the mountain, rising up away from the town center. Despite the snow-capped tops of the mountains around us, there was no snow on the roads as we wound our way through little suburbia.
To be honest, we weren’t too disappointed when we discovered the “lodge” on a street next to residential homes. The view was unrivaled. Inside the main entrance, one set of stairs led up and another led down. Upstairs held the kitchen, a bathroom, two bedrooms, and a huge sitting room, and at the end of that room, patio doors led onto a balcony. Because we were so high up, we had a fantastic view of Fort William and the glistening loch below.
There were five bedrooms outfitted with twin beds. Beck and Jake took one of the upstairs rooms and Lowe and Matt took the other. Denver and Rowena got a bedroom each downstairs and Claudia and I took the bedroom with the French doors that lead out onto a private terraced garden. We had mountains all around us and no neighbors above. It was so unbelievably peaceful, I just wanted to lock myself out there and the rest of my friends inside.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the plan. Despite the five-hour train ride, Claudia let us have only two hours to freshen up before she called a couple of taxis to take us back down the hill into town for a pub dinner and drinks.
Wrapped up in my winter gear, I headed out with Claudia at my side and kept her there when our taxi driver dropped us off at a recommended pub. Inside, the heat from the roaring fire in the huge brickwork fireplace hit my cheeks and helped me relax. As did the fact that when we were seated at a table, Claudia was on my left, Lowe was on my right, and Rowena was opposite me. This made it much easier to avoid Jake.
After a while the excitement of being somewhere new and scenic set in and we were all laughing and joking, swapping Christmas break stories and bemoaning our academic fate when we returned to Edinburgh.
We were just finishing up dinner when my phone beeped. I pulled it out of my pocket to discover a text from a classmate asking me if I’d done the reading for our first week of classes. I smirked at her zeal and quickly text back that I hadn’t.
“So you do know how to answer that thing after all,” Jake observed somewhat caustically.
Our group stopped talking as I stuffed the phone back in my pocket, my face blank as I met Jake’s stare. I was embarrassed he’d brought up our estrangement in front of everyone, even though it was obvious to them all. Still, I didn’t want to ruin this trip for them and definitely not for Claudia because Jake had decided to corner me. The thing about cornering a confused, emotional woman is that she tends to unleash the claws in defense.
“Depends on who is trying to get in touch with me.”
He raised his eyebrows at my answer and shook his head in hurt disbelief, looking away from me as he took a long gulp of his lager.
I ignored the choking feeling around my throat and slumped back against my chair.
“What was it, anyway?” Lowe asked me quietly as conversation between my friends picked up again. “Hot date?”
“With a reading list? Yes.”
His eyes smiled as he dragged his teeth over his lip ring. My eyes dropped to it and he grinned. “Are you staring at my mouth?”
I glanced away, reaching for my pint. “You’re the one who drew attention to it.”
He laughed and I smiled up into his flirting gaze, ignoring the glower blasting my way from Jake’s direction.
An hour later Jake was so wasted, Beck and Claudia took him back to the lodge. Guilt grabbed hold of me as I watched Beck help an inebriated Jake out of the pub. Inebriated Jake was a sad Jake, and I knew I was the cause of his sadness. It took every ounce of willpower I had to stay seated and not help him back to the lodge.
This evidence that he still cared perhaps a little too much was more proof that there was a huge possibility Jake had broken it off with Melissa because he could no longer be “just friends” with me, either.
Holy hell. What a clusterfuck.
I felt warm, strong fingers thread through mine and I looked up into Lowe’s face.
“Don’t,” he told me quietly. “You’re not doing anything wrong here, Charley. You’re just trying to protect yourself and I don’t blame you.”
His assurance made me feel better and I relaxed into him, still holding his hand. We threw back a couple more beers so we were definitely buzzed a few hours later when the pub owner came over to throw us out because he was closing.