Secrets at the Loch (Loch Lannick #5) - Hannah Ellis Page 0,81
reply. “I’m going to collect glasses,” she called to her mum and Leana before walking around the bar.
As she walked past, Nick slipped a finger into the pocket of her jeans and pulled her towards him.
“Don’t,” she said quietly.
“Why not?” He moved his face closer to hers.
“You know why?”
“You’re being ridiculous. I could just kiss you and you won’t need to tell anyone about us. They’ll see for themselves, and they can say whatever they want about it.”
“Stop it,” she hissed, pulling away from him. She could feel his eyes on her as she walked around the room picking up empty glasses and trying to avoid getting drawn into conversations.
Nick dropped his gaze to the papers in front of him when Lexie returned. He radiated tension, and Lexie felt a pang of guilt for causing him more stress.
He avoided eye contact while she served customers and barely looked at her when he read out the questions. At least until the penultimate question, when he shot her a quick glance before reading it out.
“The summit of which mountain sits 1,345 metres above sea level?”
Lexie leaned close to Leana, who’d taken over writing down the answers. “Ben Nevis,” she whispered in her ear.
“Is it?” Leana asked.
“Yes.”
“How do you know that?”
“I hiked up it once.” She turned and flashed Nick a quick smile.
“I’d say that’s right,” Mary agreed, looking over Leana’s shoulder as she recorded the answer.
“It’s definitely right,” Lexie said, exchanging a knowing look with her mum, who’d heard all about Lexie’s adventure on Ben Nevis.
“Final question,” Nick said into the microphone. “This one’s multiple choice. To the nearest thousand miles, how long is the Great Wall of China. Is it a) eleven thousand, b) thirteen thousand or c) fifteen thousand.”
“Oh God.” Lexie sighed. “I had no idea it was thousands of miles long. I’d have said a couple of hundred!”
“I have no idea,” Mary said, shaking her head.
“I’d guess at eleven,” Leana murmured with a hand in front of her mouth.
“Don’t look at me,” Angus said from across the bar.
“I’d say thirteen,” Lexie said.
Leana searched her face as though trying to judge if it was a blind guess or an educated one. “Really?”
“I don’t know,” Lexie said, amused. “I just think with multiple choice you’re always best to choose the middle option if you don’t know.”
“I think Lexie might be right,” Angus said before taking a drink of his pint.
Lexie glanced at Nick, but his gaze was fixed across the pub and his expression gave nothing away. “Write it down,” she said, giving Leana a nudge. “I think it’s our best guess.”
After a ten-minute break, Nick began working his way through the answers. There was a lot of chatter around the pub as he read them out.
“You might have started some feuds tonight,” Angus said to Nick at one point. He chuckled into his pint as a round of ‘I told you so’s’ rang around the room when Nick announced Russia as being the largest country in the world. Apparently the question had caused some contention.
“I’m sure you all got the final question correct,” Nick said. “The answer is, of course, thirteen thousand miles.”
Lexie let out a quick whoop at having got the answer right.
“Are there bonus points for knowing the exact length?” Meghan called across the room, looking a bit tipsy – as did the rest of her team. “The Great Wall of China is 13,170 miles long.”
“That is correct,” Nick said, sounding thoroughly impressed. “A bonus point to that team!”
A cheer went up from Elspeth and Meghan while the rest of the pub let out a collective groan.
“That’s not fair,” Lexie insisted. “You never said there were bonus points for spouting boring bits of information.”
“It wasn’t boring, and I have the exact length in brackets under the answer.” When he held up his paper to show her, she glared at him, feeling irrationally annoyed.
“Did anyone get all the answers right?” he asked, turning away from her to address the pub at large. He proceeded to count back from the maximum number of points until a cheer erupted from Meghan and the rest of her team. They all seemed pretty drunk. Lexie found their exuberance about winning annoying.
“You should definitely make the quiz a weekly event,” Elspeth said as they came up to the bar to claim their prize. She draped an arm around Meghan’s shoulders. “And we get Meghan on our team every week.”
“It was a team effort!” Logan said loudly.
“Aye, thanks for getting that one question for us,”