Hamish
The woman knows how to blow cold, doesn't she?
What was that, back in the car? I make a small venture and get an arctic wind.
All work and no play makes Hamish an antsy lad, so I've two choices now: party with my mates, or work out in the gym with Luis.
But I made the promise to Luis earlier today, so my decision's made. Harry invited me to come with him, Kamil, and Gatimu to a pub in Pasadena, a place I've been to a few times before. An old friend from Glasgow found his way there, and now he works the bar during league games as he fights his way up the ranks as an actor.
I helped him once with a one-line speaking role in a commercial about a sports drink, enough to keep his union card.
But first things first: Help Luis, then call my mum later tonight, when the time difference works. It's already seven p.m., so by the time we're done in the gym, it'll be nine here, then two hours at the pub and back, which is seven a.m. back home.
Perfect.
It's the off season, so I can have a few pints tonight, too. Going to need them, to unscramble my brain after the last few days of Amy.
Women should be simple. I'm simple. I like to use my body in ways that bring me joy, whether it be playing football, spending time with friends and family, or having a good shag. Simple.
Simple.
Amy's the opposite of simple.
She's everything I normally avoid in a woman. It's not that I don't like her. I do, very much. But complicated women bring a certain kind of pain with them. If I can't charm them, it’s better to move on.
That’s how I've spent my life. It pains me not to win someone over, but I know how to cut my losses. I make the best of it with the next object of my attentions.
Or affections.
That's the problem, though. I can't move on. I can't cut my losses with Amy. For whatever God-forsaken reason, I'm caught. She's alluring and headstrong. She throws out insults like a forward on the pitch, but does it without vulgarity.
Razor-sharp wit, a body that goes on forever, bright blue eyes the color of the sea, and hair that makes me imagine our ginger babies–gah, what the hell is wrong with me?
One woman? Babies?
I'm sick. Sick, sick, sick.
My phone alarm reminds me about Luis, so I chug a green protein drink that room service put in my fridge, grab another protein bar, throw on my workout clothes, and head down to the second-floor gym. There’s a crowd on the elevator, all women, dressed for a night on the town.
They make room for me.
They always do.
“Aren't you him?” one of them gushes. She’s a sweet woman with thick eyeliner and hair that starts dark at the roots, turning platinum at the ends that brush the top of her breasts.
“Him?” I ask politely, suppressing a grin.
“The hot soccer player I saw on Instagram? Arnie McCarthy?”
Plenty of people around the world botch my name, but Americans have a special talent for it.
I clear my throat and turn around to smile at her. “Hamish McCormick, at yer service.”
“Are you now, Hamish?” someone in the back purrs.
Oh, no. Are these jersey chasers, just dressed up for a night of clubbing? No one's wearing Dunsdill colors, so I assumed not.
I may have made a mistake.
“See, Holly?” One of them presses the screen of her phone to the other's nose. “The guy with the hot butt, from the locker room.”
I don't have to look to know which picture she's talking about.
“And the new one! Who's the redhead?” someone asks me, a hand on my elbow to get my attention.
I turn around, combing my hair with my fingertips.
“I am.”
“No, her. The one in the ass photo, and this one, too.”
She swipes her phone with a fingertip, the new image appearing. It's Amy and me on the pitch at the stadium, my arm around her shoulders, her hand visible around my waist. Amy's laughing, head tipped back, joy on her face as I look at her, grinning. The stadium light around us is perfect, achingly splendid. It's a picture of pure happiness, everything I want in the world in a single shot.
I'm transfixed.
“Where'd ye find that, pet?” I ask her, looking at the screen as she holds it a little too close to my nose.
“Um, everywhere, if you're a soccer fan. Is she your girlfriend?”
Discontent ripples among the women.
“She's ma–”
Ding!
The elevator stops, the doors open, and Luis steps in.
All chatter halts.
Luis is a young one, twenty-two and plucked from Chile to play for Dunsdill. He’s green around the edges as a player, but he's got great instincts, and with training, he'll be phenomenal in a few years, passing me by like I'm a turtle.
But there's one area he's already got down: his game with women.
“Ladies,” he says in lightly accented English. “Good evening.”
If there are any knickers in the elevator car that didn't melt when I entered, they do now.
“Oh, my God, Holly. I never understood why you were so into soccer, but I get it now,” someone murmurs. “Day-um.”
“Where are you two going, and how do we get to come along?” Holly asks me, her friends perking up. “Going to a party?”
“Dressed like this?” I ask, gesturing toward my compression shorts and shirt. Her eyes comb over me.
“I like your outfit,” she whispers.
“We're working out. Lifting. Anyone who wants to join us in the gym is welcome,” I say, voice getting louder.
“Replace the word gym with bed, and I'm there,” Holly whispers, her friends tittering. As the elevator descends, I begin to smell the alcohol beneath all the perfume.
Ah. Explains so much.
One of the women grabs Luis's hand and scribbles her number in ink on his wrist, my own forearm subjected to the same treatment. Competition kicks in and I wonder how many numbers he'll have versus me by the time we exit.
Not that it matters, I think to myself, a vision of Amy flashing through my mind.
“What the hell?” I mutter.
DING!
I give Luis a shove and we exit. One of the hens calls out, “But I wasn't done writing!” and Luis and I laugh, though he pulls out his phone and takes a picture of one of the numbers on the back of his left hand.
“It'll sweat off,” he explains, as if I don't understand.
Three of the women cluster at the elevator doors, keeping them from closing, but their friends pull them back in, and the argument itself tells me they're not looking to bed us.
Well. Most of them aren't.
A blast of ice-cold air from the gym hits me hard in the face as Luis keys us in. Like many hotel gyms, it's small, but the free weights section is decent. My opinion of the place goes up when I see sandbags, kettlebells, and–
Amy.
On a treadmill, running at a pace of maybe six miles per hour.
Sweat is soaking her hairline and the space between her beautiful breasts, the bounce bounce bounce making my neck bop in rhythm before I've made it halfway across the room.
At the rate this is going, soon it'll be my pelvis.
“Subtle,” Luis murmurs as he heads for a large exercise ball, placing his palms firmly in the middle of it and firing off a set of warm-up push-ups.
In her own world, Amy's watching something on her phone, earbuds in. A quick glance shows me she's covered three miles already, and the video she's watching is an ExpertCourse talk, one of those video courses for smart people who want to maximize their time and get smarter. Looks boring, with graphs and serious people, a woman forming a steeple with her hands.
But Amy's concentration is so focused, she doesn't look up.
Away from her home, out of her suit, she looks like a nice hen with an intense gaze and a sweet smile at something happening on the screen. A wee bit younger than me, and with just the right kind of body, she's appealing.
More than appealing.
She notices me, pulling out one earbud and pausing her video but not slowing her pace. A withering look comes over her face as she sees the four phone numbers scribbled on my arms and hands.
“Nice,” she says.
I walk over to the hand sanitizer station, squirt some into my palm, and rub the pen marks off my skin.
She snorts. “You forgot the one on your thigh.”
I twist around and sure enough, she's right. On the back, covered by my leg hair, there it is. A dab of the liquid does it.
Erased.
“Why'd you do that?” Luis calls out, laughing, but he ignores whatever response I might be forming, studying his phone. I'm guessing he's already planning a hookup with one of the hens who wrote her number on him.
“Yeah,” Amy asks. “Why?”
“I told ye, I'm no’ sleeping wi’ anyone–”
Else.
I almost said else.
“Anyone....?”
“Who is just bedding ballers fer a scorecard. I told ye I wouldna sleep wi' any of them. A promise is a promise.”
“Pfft. As if I believe you.”
“Ye should. It's all yer fault.”
At that, she slows the treadmill down to a stop. She turns to me, taking her other earbud out and holding it in her hand.
“My fault?”
“Aye.”
Each breath I take makes my blood pump harder, her sweaty, pink face and heaving chest making it hard to concentrate.
Not that I have a mind. I'm nothing but body right now.
A body that needs her.
“How is it my fault you're not sleeping with anyone?” she asks in a soft voice, eyes still capturing mine.
“Ye tell me.”
The intensity between us is a taste, an appetizer, a tantalizing glimpse of what could be if we just bridge the gap and give it a try. I'm here, willing and eager, but Amy's a fortress in feminine form. Her drawbridge is lowered the tiniest of bits now, and I see behind the walls, the connection a spark that ignites me.
There's so much more to her. To us. I'm drawn to potential in people. Love to mentor, tutor, help. The potential between us is extraordinary, and it's killing me not to explore it.
As our gaze deepens, I see a future of endless possibility.
Until a veil seems to drop over her as her gaze shifts away from mine.
“Right. Because it's my job to make sure you don't sleep with anyone.”
“Aye, right. Sure. That's why,” I say, the words coming out like I'm speaking through a reverse megaphone.
Her eyes drop down and she gives me a shaky smile, the polite kind a person gives when they're not sure what to say. Luis ends the moment neatly by tossing a medicine ball straight at my gut.
Thank you, brother.
As Amy resumes her run, I get a great view of her arse, her legs picking up the pace.
And for the next hour, I go into grunt mode–that's what Harry calls it. The goal is to reach the point where you can't talk any longer. Only grunt.
Amy's six-mile-an-hour pace takes her through a long stretch, about eight miles, before she slows it to five, then four and a half, but by fourteen miles covered, I'm impressed. I've plenty of stamina, but long-distance running is not my thing.
Quick and dirty is.
The quicker and dirtier, the better.
“Hamish!” Luis pipes up as I drop the football I'm toeing, and it hits the back of his calf. We're down to the two of us, Amy, and a grey-haired man using a StairMaster like he's climbing to heaven, watching some American show that looks like it might be about people who run a junkyard.
“What?”
“Show me how you do that.”
I kick the ball up over my head, and kick it back over without looking behind or turning.
“This?” I repeat my move with my toe, ankle, and the curl of my entire joint.
“Yes!”
“How?”
“How should you show me?”
“Nae. I mean, why? Why d'ye want to know? Yer footwork is already strong.”
“Because it's elegant. It's not the specific motion. It's your concentration. Your readiness for anything. You flex and move like the ball is a piece of you.”
The beaming smile he gives me makes me know I'm doing the right thing, mentoring him. Wanting to learn something for the pure joy of it is one of life's highest callings.
It's how I became a professional footballer. I got lucky. The most joyful part of my life is also prized by society.
How many people are so fortunate?
“Aye, mate, it's elegant all right. Guid word. Ye go into the state.”
He nods.
As I show him, using an economy of movement to keep the ball never more than a few inches from my foot, the twists and pivots rooted in muscle memory from years of moving so much, he catches on. He’s obviously no stranger to the body-mind epiphany of watching, imitating, then integrating.
“It's no' just a skill, it's a game I play wi' the ball. We're friends, ye see, goofin’ around. The goal is to be the ball's partner. Gets the defenders going the wrong way, too.”
“That's–the ball is your friend? Amigo?”
“Aye. Took me a few years to learn to do it. When the ball trusts ye, there’s nae need fer yer eyes on it.”
“You're talking about the football like it's alive.”
“Isn't it, Luis?”
Amy's watching, too, in the mirror in front of her treadmill, her ExpertCourse abandoned, our play the sole focus of her attention.
She's absorbed.
I become enthralled, watching her watch me.
Until Luis throws the ball at my head.
“Hey,” he grunts. “Time to lift.”
“Aye.” We move to the free weights, where I do a series of lunges without weights, then add fifteens. Do a series, then add twenties. Do a series, then add twenty-five. It goes on like this, the sequence memorized, Luis working with a kettlebell in a squat.
“Don't you get bored?” the old guy from the StairMaster asks, shaking me out of my zone.
“Nah. It's a routine.”
“Your mind goes somewhere else?”
“Hmph. Hadna thought of it that way. More that it gets a chance to rest,” I reply, continuing the diagonal toe lunges I was doing before he began to speak.
“I remember being in shape like you,” he says wistfully. This happens in public gyms, more when I come alone than with mates, but it happens.
“When I'm yer age, I hope to be able to climb the stair machines like I'm a firefighter goin’ for the fiftieth floor. Ye've good stamina.”
I've said exactly what he needed, the man's face transforming. “I was a volunteer firefighter. How'd you guess?”
“I didna. Just saw how ye kept going. Only a man with years of determination and experience under his belt could do that.”
He waves me off as if I'm being silly, but the big grin is still on his face as he exits.
Amy slows her treadmill down to a walk, the display showing she's run fourteen miles. Half marathon plus.
She's a powerhouse, too.
As the treadmill halts, she gulps down her water, neck and chest soaked, eyes flitting to watch me in the mirror. I'm not imagining anything. Her feelings for me are shifting.
My comment in the car was what she needed, too.
I wonder if I make you feel.
Amy gives Luis and me a quick wave and leaves, a glance at the clock telling me I have about another twenty minutes of workout. Luis and I spot each other as we work our way through the heavier weights and finally, after two hours, we're done.
Well, I am.
“I'm old, Luis,” I groan as he grabs eighties and a balance ball, ready to do more presses.
“Yes,” he says simply.
“Oof.” I press a hand over my heart, pretending to be offended.
“What? It's true. You are old. I know you're going for forty, but that's only three years away, right?”
I glare at him. “I'm thirty-two, Luis.”
“Oh. Thought you were older.”
“Because of ma play?”
“Your footwork is the best, Hamish. But you're a slow runner.”
“That's no’ because of age. Always been slow for longer distances. Had to compensate wi' better footwork. But short sprints? I'm yer man.”
“You succeeded in compensating. You're really going for forty? Very few guys have done it.”
“I take that as a challenge.”
One of the women from the elevator appears at the door, giving Luis a nervous half wave.
“And I see ye've found yerself a challenge, too.”
He shrugs, but his eyes light up. “She made it easy–she wrote her number on me. The challenging part remains to be seen.”
“Wi’ enough practice, ye can figure out sex,” I assure him, his laughter ringing in the room. I move past the woman, who does a double take but makes a beeline for Luis.
Instead of the elevator, I take the stairs, the final, punishing flights good for my legs. My hotel room feels too small as I enter. I take a fast shower, the water pressure strong, one part of me at attention.
For Amy.
When I come out of the toilet, I find my phone blowing up.
We’re going to MacGruber's, Harry texts. You said you’d meet us.
Did you die? Another text comes in. Mum. It's morning and another day has passed without a call. I'm having the death certificate prepared.
Mum works early mornings in a bakery, up at the arsecrack of dawn. She works until six, then goes home to get the family ready for school, back to the bakery once they're all gone.
There's a contract I need you to sign, says a text from Amy. Can I come over?
Yes, I type quickly.
I look down at the wood in my pants and decide that jeans are a much better option than joggers, which would show Amy just how she makes me feel.
Or how I can make her feel.
Tap tap tap
My shirt's half on, jeans about my hips but unbuttoned, so I quickly make myself presentable, stuffing things where they need to go, and answer the door.
She's wearing a pink hoodie sweatshirt that says, “5 Reasons Why Cats Are Better Than Men” on the front, gray joggers like the ones I almost put on, and soft little slippers like ballerinas wear.
Comfortable.
Casual.
At ease.
“Here,” she says, thrusting a thick manila folder at my middle, making me fold slightly as I grab the papers. “You have seven contracts in there, one I need to fax tonight.”
“Fax? Whatever happened to DocuSign?” I ask, motioning for her to come in. She does, with surprising ease. Her hair is wet, pulled up high on the back of her head, and she's not wearing a stitch of makeup on her face.
Radiant. She's radiant, and while I'd like to say she's relaxed, too, she's anything but.
“Yes, fax! Why don't they make me chisel it into rock, right? I found a workaround. In a pinch, I can use the hotel desk fax, but there's an electronic way I can scan with my mini-scanner, then upload to a website that has virtual fax numbers. I made an account, and–”
“Ye need a night out among friends.”
My abrupt change of topic startles her.
“What?”
“Ye heard me. Ye’re waaaaay too wound up. Running fourteen miles didna calm ye down?”
“You noticed how many miles I ran?”
“I did. Ye're a disciplined woman. Like me. But all work and na play makes Amy a workaholic.”
She shakes her head with a sad, tight smile. “I have no friends here in L.A.”
“Ye've got me.”
“You're not my friend. You're my responsibility.”
“I'm offended, Amy. Ye told me we were friends before. I think that's the harshest thing ye've ever said to me.”
“What? It's true. You are my responsibility.”
“No’ that. The friend part.”
“You're offended I said we're not friends?”
“Aye. Because it's wrong.”
“You don't get to dictate who I'm friends with. Just because you don't make the cut doesn't mean you can steamroll your way in.”
“Ye're miserable, Amy. That's no’ a way to go through life.”
“I'm going through my life just fine, Hamish. Don't impose your standards on me.”
“I'm extending a hand of friendship, askin’ ye to go out and have fun. How is that imposing?”
“You are so relentlessly cheerful!”
“Thank ye!”
“That's not meant to be a compliment. The relentless part is infuriating.”
“How?”
“How what?”
“How's it infuriatin’? Don't ye want other people to be happy?”
“Of course.”
“Then being cheerful is good. Relentlessly cheerful is even better. Orders of magnitude better.”
“What about the serious stuff?”
My phone goes off, incoming call. It's right next to Amy on the bureau.
“Mum,” she reads. “Here.” She hands me my phone.
“I'm ignoring her.”
“Why? It’s your mother.”
“Because she'll just cry and tell me I've abandoned the family and moved to the colonies.”
“How long has it been since you talked to her?”
“A week or so.”
“It's what – six there now?”
“Something like that.”
Amy frowns, hits Accept, and thrusts the phone at me.
“Jesus, woman, what're ye doin’?” I call out as Mum's shocked face appears on the screen.
“I'm calling ma firstborn baby, Hamish! Who it seems has risen from the dead, because he must have been dead to ignore all his mum’s texts and calls for sae long!”
Amy snorts.
“I wasna talking to ye, Mum,” I say as the picture comes in clear. Mum's in the kitchen back home, Darren behind her, slurping down a tea.
“Then who?”
“Me,” Amy says simply, waving into the phone.
Mum's eyes bug out. “Oh ma God, Fergus, HAMISH HAS A GIRL!”
“And how is that new, Fiona? We've seen his arse with a girl all too many times. The boy's on video having sex!”
“A LIVE one. Right here, on the phone!”
“I just need those contracts later, after you're finished talking with your family,” Amy whispers to me, in full view of FaceTime. I grab her wrist to stop her from leaving.
I need all the reinforcements I can get.
“Contracts?” Mum pipes up. “Make a new deal, Hamish?”
“Aye. A guid one, too.”
“Come here, pet,” Da says, and I know he's not talking to me. Amy points to herself with a questioning look.
He nods.
She moves closer and gives another little wave. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Da says in a perfect imitation of her American accent. “What's yer name?”
“Amy.”
“Ye have a last name, or were ye hatched from a clone factory?”
“Da,” I growl at him. “Amy is Declan's sister-in-law.”
“Oh! That Amy! The one ye've mentioned!” Mum says, earning me quite the look from Amy. It’s a curious, amused, and—if I do say so myself–pleased look.
“You talk about me with your parents?” she asks, as if they weren't both bug-eyed on the screen.
“I mentioned ye. Ye know–the weddin’.”
“Shannon and Declan's wedding was seven years ago.”
“He's talked about ye since then,” Mum jumps in.
“Is this the one whose entire job is to mind yer willie?” Darren asks casually from the background, shoving his looped tie over his head.
I wish I were there to turn it into a noose.
“Ah!” Da brightens. “That one! The uptight, priggish woman who canna handle a joke!”
The air in the hotel room changes.
“Uptight? Priggish? Can't handle a joke?” Amy repeats, giving me a look designed to flay my skin and tie me to a rock in the hot desert sun with it..
“Well, I–”
“I most certainly can handle a joke. I work with a six-foot-six one every day.”
My entire family loses their collective mind.
“Oh, no! Hamish got himself a smart one!” Mum screams.
“What the hell are we supposed to do with ye?” Da chokes out.
“What do you mean?” Amy asks, confused, but at least she's no longer angry at me.
I hope.
“Ye speak in full sentences, lassie. Yer words make sense. Hamish just brought home bobbleheaded hoors before. We’re no’ sure what to do wi’ a smart one.”
“The last woman he brought home rooted for the Hibs!”
All the eyes in the room narrow.
“What're the Hibs?” Amy whispers out of the corner of her mouth. I'm not sure which is worse: that she doesn't know or letting Mum and Da know she doesn't know.
“Shhh. They’re about to ask how ye vote in America and yer opinion on Brexit. If ye know what’s good fer ye, ye’ll come wi' me,” I say to her, loud enough for them all to hear.
“Where are we going?”
“Yeah–where are ye goin'?” one of the teenagers on the screen demands.
“We’re out o' whisky,” I say, which is technically true. There's none in the room, which counts. “Amy and I are goin’ out to the shop to get more.”
Suspicious looks convert to cheers.
“Now yer just deflectin,' Hamish,” Mum says. “I know ye’re no' really oot o' whisky, because ye dinna drink it when ye’re workin’. Amy!” she calls out, Mum's hand waving her closer.
Amy gives me a questioning look, but I shrug as if to say, I can't do anything about her.
“You drank whisky on the plane out here,” Amy whispers.
“Shhh. Dinna tell Mum. I'll never hear the end of it.”
“See?” Amy hisses at me. “Our mothers are twins.”
“Hamish?”
“Aye, Mum?”
“We need to start plannin' the weddin’.”
Chaos erupts on the other side. My numpty brothers clasp their heads in their hands, turning red with laughter, and my little sister, Bridget, screams, “I want a pretty dress!” Da reaches for the remote control and turns off the television in the background.
“Mum! Have ye gone daft? Weddin’?” I shout into the screen.
“Oh, no, Mrs. McCormick,” Amy interrupts. “We're not together.” She gestures between us. “We're just work colleagues.”
“Hamish doesna have female work colleagues, pet,” Da says in a growly, amused voice. “He has three kinds o' women in his life: groupies, flight attendants, and daughters of men he doesna like.”
“HEY!” I bark into the screen.
“Am I wrong?” Da challenges.
“I also have a mum,” I concede.
“Awww, thank ye, Hamish, fer rememberin’ me. Thought ye forgot me when ye moved to America.”
“I dinna live here!”
“Besides,” Mum cuts in, clearly used to male antics, “I can tell by the way ye look at each other, ye’re in love.”
“LOVE!” Amy and I shout at the same time.
“Aye,” she says, pleased with herself. “A mother's intuition. I can tell, even if ye dinna ken it yet.”
“Ma intuition tells me Amy and Hamish need that whisky,” Da growls. “And the kids need to get off to school.”
“I canna find ma school shirt!” Bridget shouts, the sound as bad on FaceTime as it is at home.
Mum gives us air kisses and Da, without another word, abruptly ends the call.
“Welcome to the original version of the McCormick family. Ma grandpa produced a very different kind here in America. Billionaires, the lot o' em. The ones back in the ancestral land are naught but idjits,” I say, truly disgusted by that whole conversation from tongue to tail.
“I think your parents are very sweet,” Amy says, but she has a troubled look on her face. “Your mother...”
“Is like Marie. Aye?”
“You see it, too?”
“Why d'ye think it's so easy fer me to be around yer mother? I meant it when I said yer house reminds me of ma own home.”
She laughs but looks up at me. “Are you really going out for whisky?”
I look down at my body. Barefoot, jeans, a long-sleeved, plain t-shirt.
“Aye.”
Her mouth twists like she's considering it. I poke her shoulder, plucking the pink cotton.
“What are the five reasons cats are better than men?”
“Huh?”
“Yer hoodie.”
She turns around and I read them off.
“Number One: Cats don’t care if you eat the entire pie in your underwear.”
“Right.”
“Number Two: Cats will kill spiders and mice for you without whining.” I pause. “That’s actually a good one.”
“Are you going to read or editorialize?”
“Number Three: Cats don’t mansplain.”
“You know what mansplaining is,” she says, not asking a question.
“Well,” I respond, “actually…”
“Are you done yet?”
“Number Four: Cats don’t care how many books you buy.”
“Or lipsticks, or running shoes, or…”
“Number Five: Cats never leave the toilet seat up.”
“See?” she says. “Cats are better than men.”
“I can think of a great many things men can do that cats canna do.”
“Like play football?”
“And more. Ye’re on a straight path to bein’ a lonely cat lady, Amy. Ye work nonstop, ye wear cat merchandise, ye have an angry cat at home...”
“What's wrong with loving cats?”
“Nothing. I love pussies, maself.”
Wrong joke. Wrong, wrong joke.
She makes an angry face, but something in her eyes heats up.
“Let me try again: Please come out wi' me and ma mates. Have a little fun.”
“I have work to do.”
“I need to do an intervention on ye, Amy.”
“Intervention?”
“That's it, pet. Ye’re coming to MacGruber's Pub wi' me. No arguin’.”
“I can't go to a pub!”
“Ma friend from Glasgow works there. Came to America to find his way as an actor.”
“Let me guess: his mother considers him dead, too.”
“Naw. Ian actually calls his mom every other day, like clockwork. Ma own mum wilna let me hear the end of it.”
To my surprise, she tilts her head, smiles, and says, “Fine. You wore me down. Let me change really quickly and I'll meet you in the lobby.”
“I'll call an Uber,” I tell her, surprised it worked.
And wondering what the hell I'm doing.