Page 114 of The Puck Stops Here
Fin sat at her uncle’s dining table running through the photos on his laptop, a beer and a bowl of nibbles on the go, while Astrid cooked them dinner.
They always reviewed the photos together, but today she needed Fin more for his company than his expertise, his warm Scottish brogue and down-to-earth nature a welcome distraction from the noise in her head.
She’d half expected Blake to walk out after she’d left. Half expected a message from one of the others saying the shoot was a no-go. But he hadn’t. He’d stuck it out. How? Why? Who knew, but the look on Blake’s face when she’d?—
‘Earth to Astrid?’
She blinked away the torment in Blake’s blue eyes, zoning in on the pot of Bolognese she was stirring. ‘Sorry’ – she looked up – ‘what did I miss?’
Fin gave her a bemused smile, flicking his red mop out of his face. ‘Quite a lot today, I’d say.’
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to bail on you.’
‘I’m not talking about the shoot. I’m talking about the last hour. You’ve been somewhere else the entire time. What happened to ordering in pizza and having you sit on my shoulder while I run through the shots?’
It’s what they’d usually do. But not this time. This time she’d been too afraid of what she’d see. What she’d feel.
‘I’m almost done cooking.’
‘I’m almost done too.’
‘You are?’
He nodded. ‘I’ve done a sweep and created a shortlist, but that Blake… he’s the real deal, eh?’
‘Huh?’
‘All that attitude. I’m glad I got some pre shots. You might want to use one of them because the second he changed his clothes, everything changed.’
‘He got changed?’
‘Aye, he came out all in black and his mood with it.’
Oh God.
‘That bad?’
‘Depends what you’re going for – the family maker or the heartbreaker.’
She gave an awkward laugh. ‘Neither! We want the boys-next-door-done-good look.’
‘Yeah, thought so.’ He leaned back over his laptop, finger scrolling. ‘There might be something we can do to take the edge off the twin shots.’
Take theedgeoff?
That didn’t sound good. She released the spoon and hurried on over, took one look at the photo grid and swallowed. Hard.
Aiden was all charm, his well-versed grin on display, his stance relaxed. While Blake… Blake looked ready to commit fratricide. Arms folded, jaw clenched, he glared at Aiden to his right, but that mouth… she lifted her fingers to her own that thrummed with the echo of his.
‘I reckon we can play around with the shadows, do something with it.’
She nodded.
‘And failing that, we can overlay one of the earlier shots.’
Pre-her. Pre-kiss. Pre-epic-fuckup.
She started to walk away, her heart in her mouth, her guilt with it.
