Amy
Someone clears their throat. I realize the line for the exit is moving and we're blocking the aisle. Besides, my neck hurts from being cooped up for more than six hours, and Hamish being so tall doesn't help.
Arguing with someone bigger than you sucks, especially while standing. It's a built-in advantage to be that tall. Power differentials matter, and size and height are natural advantages.
As we leave, Kenzee reaches for Hamish's arm. He bends neatly to hear her, laughs softly, and takes the piece of paper she offers, slipping it easily into his pocket with a wink toward her that makes something flare up and simultaneously die in me.
My job is to stop him from doing this.
And as the scent of jet fuel and warm asphalt hits me at the threshold between the plane and the ramp to the gate, it hits me.
My first success.
If my job were a video game, I'd have survived level one.
Achievement unlocked.
Without a word, we head toward baggage claim. A driver will meet us after we've retrieved our bags, my itinerary clear. While Hamish dozed, I went over all my notes. Our travel has been arranged.
My job is to deliver the goods.
The six-foot-plus, ginger-haired goods.
As we move past a restroom, Hamish peels off from me with a nod toward the door. I wait for him, balancing my laptop case on top of my rolling carry-on. A whiff of warm chocolate makes me turn to find a donut cart behind me, right next to a vegan smoothie business.
L.A. Sooooo L.A.
Uh, I think? I've never been here before.
Hamish returns and we walk with purpose to the luggage area, where our bags are already riding around on the carousel. Something's beeping loudly, which my brain interprets as the baggage system itself.
Hamish already found his, a medium-sized black leather bag that matches his carry-on. Mine is a beige monstrosity Mom lent me, battered and dirty along the piping, but perfectly fine for my first official business trip.
Until I get home and can buy my own travel bag with my first paycheck.
The box of products fit in the middle of the big bag, my own clothes and personal items all arranged around it.
“What's that noise?” Hamish asks, looking around. My bag is headed slowly toward us, and the sound's slowly getting louder.
“That humming?”
“And beeping.”
“That's weird,” I say.
Hamish moves to grab my bag, holding it aloft like it weighs nothing. I know it weighs exactly 59.8 pounds, because they weighed it when I checked it in Boston, packing it right up to the sixty pound limit.
How strong is this man?
“It's ye. Yer beepin' and buzzin,' Amy.” Plunking the bag down a few feet from the carousel, he cocks one eyebrow and gives me an amused look.
“Must be my toothbrush,” I mutter as he chuckles.
“Yer teeth must be as big as a walrus’s, then, pet. That's no toothbrush. What kind of vibrator did ye bring?” He tips his chin down and looks at me from under his eyelashes. “Big enough to remind ye o' me?”
His voice carries, of course, and now a few bystanders are watching.
The sounds from the suitcase are loud and, worse, out of sync. If I had OCD–which I do not!–I'd be less concerned with the sounds themselves and more focused on how they aren’t aligned.
“I'll bet it's those stupid product samples Maartensi made me bring,” I snap.
“Ye need to open the bag and turn yer vibrator off, Amy. Don't want to burn out the batteries. Then ye'd have to resort to touching an actual todger. Wouldna want ye to experience the horror o' that.”
“Shut up! I did not bring a vibrator with me on a business trip!”
“Naw? I see. So ye did plan to touch an actual flesh boaby.”
“What? You're not making any sense!”
“If ye didna bring a toy, then ye’ll hafta touch a boy.” He frowns. “Or a girl? Are ye gay and I didna pick up on that? I have verra guid radar for it.”
“I am not talking about my sex life with you in the middle of an airport while my bag filled with your product samples is embarrassing me!” I glare at him. “And no, I'm not gay.”
“Ace?”
“What?”
“Asexual?”
“NO! Why does everyone think that?”
“Everyone?”
“Mom and Dad asked me if I was asexual a while ago.”
He jolts. Now there are five people openly gawking at us. Or at least, at my bag, which is doing a so-so imitation of R2D2.
“They did? Why?”
“Because I don't date. Never had a serious boyfriend.”
“Ye dated the twee boy.”
“Twee boy?”
“Aye. The one at yer graduation. Davis.”
“Oh. Right. Him. Look, even under the best of circumstances, I wouldn't talk about my love life with you, but right now is absolutely not the best time for this conversation.” Out of the corner of my eye, I see the situation go from bad to oh, hell, no.
Because a police officer is walking toward us now, eyes hard, focused on my bag.
I grab my phone and send a fast text to my mother.
Did you leave a vibrator in that suitcase you lent me? I type.
Instant reply from Mom:
No. Why, honey? Do you need one?
“Excuse me? What's the problem here? Someone reported a suspicious bag.” The police officer's name tag says Gutierrez. He has super-short hair, a deep tan, and dark eyes that look at Hamish and me like we're three seconds from being taken in and questioned.
“Hello, Officer. I think my electric toothbrush is dying, or something else in my bag,” I say with a giggle I hate.
“Let's open her up and see what's going on.”
“Open the bag?” I ask dumbly.
“That's what I said, Ms.–?”
“Jacoby,” I whisper, realizing all of my underwear, tampons, and personal care products are in there. I bought really nice professional clothes and shoes for this trip, but the underwear is all my old stuff. Granny stuff.
Mortifying to be exposed in public.
“Ms. Jacoby, open the bag.”
Hamish's warm, heavy hand is on my shoulder suddenly, his other hand reaching out to offer a shake to the cop, who looks at it like it's a weapon. Slowly, Hamish moves the hand to my bag. He tips it on its side and crouches to unzip it.
Mom taught us all how to pack a bag to the max. When that zipper opens, it pops like a can of biscuits.
Out pour my oldest, most stretched-out cotton panties, the ones that look like someone took a throw pillow, stretched a t-shirt over it, and tore some small holes along the elastic.
The zip bag with my electric toothbrush in it isn't buzzing.
But something else most definitely is.
Officer Gutierrez unceremoniously starts dumping my stuff onto the gross airport floor, my objections lodging in my throat as I realize nothing I say will help. Box after box of product samples get thrown into a pile, until he touches one and snatches his hand back like he's been stung.
“What's that?” he demands, pointing to the nondescript gray box.
“It's a product sample,” I reply.
“For what?”
“I don't know.”
“Why don't you know? You sell these products and don't know what they are?”
I thumb toward Hamish, hating the shake in my voice. “They're his. For him, I mean.”
“Did you not see the sign when you checked in? The one that says Do Not Agree to Carry Items for Strangers?”
“No, no, Officer, I work with him. We're on a business trip. These are products that companies have asked him to endorse. My boss sent them with me to go over and decide whether Hamish should sign the contracts.”
The cop frowns and looks up–way up–at Hamish. “You're famous?”
His face goes comically blank. “Some places, but I dinna know how famous I am here.”
“You're Scottish.”
“Aye.”
“What do you do that they want you to endorse products?”
“Play football.”
The guy frowns, eyeing Hamish with deep suspicion. “Which team do you play for?”
“AFC Dunsdill.”
“Never heard of it. That's not an NFL franchise. Do you coach a college team?”
A vein on Hamish's temple starts to stand out, a tiny detail that makes me focus, calming down and centering. Of the two of us, I'm the more reasonable one, and as Hamish takes a deep breath before saying something to the cop, I realize I'm going to need all my reason here.
Every last drop.
“European football, sir,” I jump in. “Soccer. He's a famous soccer player.”
“Hey. Wait. You're the sex tape guy, aren't you?” Without making eye contact, the officer begins opening the gray box.
Which is, indeed, buzzing.
But it's not a vibrator.
It's a... razor?
“Taint Ready,” he says slowly.
“It's not?” I ask. “It sounds ready.”
“No–that's what the package says. Taint Ready.” The thing looks like an electric shaver combined with an underarm deodorant. The cop shakes it once, but the buzzing doesn't stop.
I reach slowly for the instruction manual, but he glares at me. Hamish notices the glare and moves closer to me, protective and increasingly angry.
Great. I have to manage my own embarrassment, the landscape around us in case some jackass decides to make a viral video, and bring the tone down with the police.
And now I have to add de-escalating Hamish.
“Is this–does this thing shave your taint and... put deodorant on it?” the cop asks, turning it over like it's a diamond he's evaluating.
“Excuse me?”
A stack of trifold color brochures with little foil packs glued to them comes spilling out of the suitcase as he paws through it. There appear to be at least seven different herbal supplements, all with ginseng, all promising powerful erections.
Every damn one of them.
“The Refractor?” the officer says, holding up a tiny bottle that he shakes like a maraca. “Clinically proven to help you achieve that goal of six times a night.”
“Six times a night?” I snort. “Why would anyone want to have sex six times in the same night?”
Hamish opens his mouth, then wisely shuts it.
Instead of looking at me, the officer eyes Hamish, his gaze narrowing. “You take this stuff?”
“God, nae. If I took that, ma todger would swell up like a helium balloon and I'd hover along the ceiling like a sick vampire.”
“Your imagery is not helping anyone,” I hiss at him.
“What else is in here?” the cop mutters, more to himself than us. People are walking past, looking once then picking up their pace. The last thing anyone wants is to be detained in an airport.
You know. Like us, right now.
A coloring book appears among the stacks of paper, half the normal size, with the words galley proof stamped across the top.
“Footballers Do Kama Sutra,” the cop says loudly. The cover has Hamish on it–or, rather, a manga-style version of Hamish–doing something obscene to a soccer ball.
We all tilt our heads to the right, looking at it.
As he flips through the pages, we see that quite a few popular footballers have been depicted in various sexual positions.
“You posed for this?” Officer Gutierrez asks Hamish, who flinches.
“Nah. That's someone's imagination hard at work.”
“And the people who made this are asking you to endorse it?”
“Aye. They are. But that'll be a nae.” Hamish peers intently at the cover. “Ma legs are nae so scrawny as that. I'd be embarrassed to have people thinking so.”
“THAT is what would embarrass you about that coloring book? THAT?” I choke out.
For the next minute or so, my suitcase is mined by the cop, who pulls out several kinds of butt floss (not thongs... actual butt floss, in different, uh, flavors) and various brochures for high-end sports cars, watches, and more beer brands than I knew existed.
And then there are the vibrators, all based on Hamish's position:
Striker.
“Are you selling sex toys?” the cop asks bluntly, moving himself slightly so he's between me and Hamish, which only makes Hamish move more aggressively.
There is a river of testosterone flowing between them, and the heat from Hamish's anger may be melting the snow caps.
“And what if she is? They're legal,” Hamish challenges.
“No!” I gasp. “I'm not selling sex toys!” My words are loud enough to turn heads.
And gain the attention of another airport cop, a woman with long hair in a braid, wearing the same flak jacket as Officer Gutierrez. As she approaches, I see she's muttering into a walkie-talkie and sizing up Hamish.
Who is puffing up.
“We have people waiting fer us,” Hamish says, expecting the cop to back off.
He doesn't. “What's the rush? After your photo shoot for Taint Ready, you need to do a Fresh Balls promo?”
“I play football, no’ pocket pool.”
The female officer snickers as she joins in pawing through my stuff, finding a small pink case and opening it.
“Is that yer diaphragm?' Hamish whispers. “I havna been wi' a woman who used one o’ those. Now I'm more curious about ye, Amy.”
“Sorry to disappoint, Hamish, but that's my retainer.”
The female officer holds it up with her bare fingers, touching the plastic mold, making me cringe.
“That's no' a reliable form o’ birth control.” He frowns. “Feels terrible during a blow job, too.”
“This is not a good time to talk about blow jobs!”
“Is there really ever a bad time to talk about blow jobs?” he asks, mystified.
For whatever reason, that's the moment I lose my temper.
Not when he tried to screw a flight attendant in an airplane restroom.
Not when he booty-called me at 3 a.m. on the night before my sister's wedding to his cousin.
Not when he threw his body–and an old Patriots picnic blanket–over me to save me from being attacked by a wild turkey in my parents' back yard.
Not when he showed up unexpectedly at my MBA graduation and kissed me so hard, I heard angels.
Nope. Not any of those times.
Now. Now, I lose it.
“QUIT TALKING ABOUT YOUR PENIS!” I scream.
Do you know how far an echo travels inside an airport?
I do now.
“I thought we were talking about taints,” Officer Gutierrez says snidely.
“What's a taint?” the female officer asks him, earning a snort from both men.
“Look, officers,” Hamish says genially, as if I haven't been trying to talk my way through this. As if I'm the unreasonable one. As if he's in charge. “Those embarrassing items are mine.”
“These?” Gutierrez holds up my grey granny panties.
Hamish's palms go up in protest. “Ach, nae. I dinna even ken what to say about those. But ma lady friend here works fer me, and–”
“I DO NOT WORK FOR YOU!”
“Yer ma handler, right?” he challenges.
“What parts of you does she handle?” the female officer asks, Gutierrez giving her an admiring look.
Great. Now I'm nothing but a scoreboard for police officers to rack up burn points.
“And,” Hamish says, drawing out the word to shut me up, “anything in there that's clearly a new product is ma responsibility. I'm in high demand these days as a spokesperson for brands.”
“Who are you, exactly?” the female asks.
I now see her name on her name tag is Moran.
“Hamish McCormick.” He dips his head and I swear to God, if he kisses her hand, I'll take the Taint Ready razor and turn his into Taint There No More.
She shrugs. Gutierrez says, “Thanksgiving-sex-tape-scandal guy. The soccer player who slept with his team owner's daughter.”
“You're the guy they call McWhoremick!”
“Aye, though I prefer ma own given name. It's Hamish McCormick, Officer Moran.”
He pronounces it the wrong way, like moron, and she instantly stiffens with anger.
“It's More-ann.”
“Aye. Just what I enjoy, when I'm wi' a woman named Ann.”
I grab his shirt and tug as hard as I can. He doesn't move, so I bluntly–and loudly–say, “This is why you need a handler, you overwhelmingly disgusting, inappropriate, vulgar manbaby.”
“Because I paid her a compliment?”
“You consider that a compliment?”
The officer gives him a dead-eye look and shakes her head.
“Ma apologies, then, if I've offended.”
“The only offensive thing here, buddy, is this.” Gutierrez holds up Taint Ready again. “Who cares that much about... you know...”
Officer Moran lets out a long-suffering sigh. She's my new friend now.
“Look,” she mutters, shoving my stuff into a pile in my suitcase, not bothering to close it. “It's obvious none of this is a bomb.”
Gutierrez holds up a red and pink box that says The Bomb: Feel the Explosive Power.
It's a butt plug.
“I beg to differ,” he says.
“None of this is dangerous. It's just stupid,” she replies. “Can't detain someone for stupidity.”
Gutierrez arches one eyebrow. I don't want to know what that means.
“Then we're free to go?” I venture.
The officers shake their heads at us, which is confusing, because that means no, right? We're not free to go?
One of their walkie-talkies squawks. Whatever's being said, they listen intently, the words impossible for me to understand, and then they look at us. “Go on,” they both say, slightly out of sync but in agreement.
“Thank you,” I gush, overwhelmed by feelings of fury and relief.
“That's it? 'Go on'?” Hamish harumphs, his body standing straighter, like a warrior attuned to a threat. “Ye paw through ma lady friend's bag in public and humiliate her for no reason because ye canna tell the difference between a bomb and a personal care product, and now ye leave it all in a pile wi' her period knickers on top like a flag o' surrender, and ye just saunter off to go treat others so poorly? This is how it works in America?”
Cold dread fills my stomach. We were so close.
“You're snatching defeat from the jaws of victory,” I hiss. “Like that red card for breaking Colin MacDonnerson’s knee in your expo game.”
“YOU TAKE THAT BACK,” he thunders. “We were both going for the ball!”
Oh. Hey. Looky here. Turns out I'm not the only one who has nerves that can be poked.
The officers are openly snickering at this point. I grab the lid of my bag and shove it down hard, the contents so wildly disarranged, there's no hope of closing it easily.
“I need your body,” I order Hamish.
“Now? Here? After ye insult ma feet?”
“It's not your feet I need, Hamish.”
“Yer mad, woman. Ye turn me down over and over and when ye finally want to bed me, it's here?”
“I need you to sit on my suitcase so I can close it. You don't need your penis to do that.”
“Nah. Ma penis is capable of a great many things, but that's no’ on the list.”
He moves me away, centers his beautiful ass over my suitcase, and drops all his weight onto it. Reaching around to the zipper, he closes it neatly.
“I'm revising the contract. No talking about your penis anymore,” I huff.
“Ye brought it up, pet. In fact, ye screamed it.” He gives me a side-eye glance. “Yer a screamer, are ye? In bed, too?”
“OH MY GOD, HAMISH!”
“Aye. There's ma preview.”
I push him off my bag as he laughs, then turn it upright and pull it toward the limo area, where a driver is holding a sign with our names on it.
I don't say a word to Hamish the entire way to our hotel.
He manages the same.
It's quite the feat.