“Yay for me,” Mairi said as she reached for her underwear.
???
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Agnes said to Keir as she came out of the bedroom.
Keir sat at their dining table, drinking coffee and eating the pastries Agnes had brought back from Glasgow. He really needed to get some decent food sometime soon. Something with a vitamin in it would be good. Since moving into Mairi’s flat, he’d only eaten junk.
“You back Mairi into a corner and she’s liable to make a really stupid decision,” Agnes said as she leaned against the kitchen counter. “That’s her MO. Dumb decisions made on the spur of the moment under duress.”
And didn’t he know it. He was hoping that one of those dumb decisions would be to give him a second chance.
“Need more coffee,” Mairi announced as she stomped into the room.
Agnes poured a mug and put it on the table beside Keir, while Mairi slumped into a chair. Her hair wasn’t so much tied up at the back of her head as it was captured there. It looked like it was working hard to break free and would take over the planet when it did. Mairi, meanwhile, was her usual morning ray of sunshine. She scowled at Keir while she reached for the pastries. She was wearing a pair of faded jeans and a pink t-shirt with the words You Speak, You Die—You Have Been Warned on it. Cheery. Keir hid his grin behind his coffee mug.
“What’s the big problem?” Mairi said around a mouthful of food.
Agnes stood beside the table, staring down at the two of them, and Keir felt like he was about to be given after-school detention. She folded her arms and tapped her toe while she frowned at them.
“The problem is,” she said, “that there are two TV crews set up in the street.”
“What?” Keir put down his mug, strode to the window, and pulled back the curtain.
Sure enough, there was a van emblazoned with the Scottish Television logo right in front of his garage, and another one with BBC Scotland written on it parked beside the local shop. There were folk with cameras and interviewers with mics talking to Mairi’s men, who appeared more than happy to tell them everything they knew. As Keir watched, the woman with Scottish Television tried to interview the Wookiee. It didn’t go well.
“What the hell are the TV people doing here?” Keir let the curtain drop and headed back to the table.
“They’re saying this is a real-life version of The Bachelorette,” Agnes said. “They want to cover the process of Mairi choosing a husband and film her announcement of the winner when she reaches a decision. In other words, they want to turn this fiasco into cheap reality TV.”
“I need a rope ladder,” Mairi said. “Keir, you must have a rope ladder in the garage.”
Keir and Agnes stared at her for a moment.
“Aye,” Keir said. “Because rope ladders are considered essential equipment for a mechanic.”
“You can’t run away,” Agnes said. “It won’t solve anything.”
“Are you kidding me?” Mairi said. “It will solve everything. Without me here, there will be no woman to fight over. That means the guys, and the TV crews, will go away. Then, once they’re gone, I’ll come home and start again.”
“Being an online girlfriend?” Keir asked, because he didn’t see that happening, now that her reputation had been shot to hell by the hacker.
“There’s nothing wrong with being an online girlfriend. It’s honest work.” She stuck her nose in the air.
“I wasn’t saying that. I was wondering how you’re going work like usual business when your website is stalled, and you have thirty clients who’ll either sign up again with you immediately or drive away your business because you broke their hearts. I’m no judge of good customer service, but running away from the guys who pay you, seems to be on the ill-advised end of the scale.”
Mairi blinked at him, then narrowed her eyes. “Why are you still here? Agnes is back. I don’t need a bodyguard anymore.”
Keir ignored that and took a sip of his coffee. If she thought he was leaving now, she was crazier than he’d ever imagined.
“He’s right,” Agnes said. “You can’t run away. For a start, you don’t have the money to live somewhere else for a long period of time, and we have no idea how long these guys will camp out here waiting for you to get back. Secondly, there are TV crews out there. Even if you run, your picture will be plastered all over Scotland, and with that hair, you don’t exactly blend with the crowd. As soon as somebody spots you, it will be all over social media that they’ve found the runaway bachelorette. And then these guys will pack up their caravans and come after you.”
“They have to give up at some point,” Mairi said, sounding painfully hopeful.
“You said yourself it could take months,” Agnes pointed out.
“Yes, but now I’m choosing denial.” Mairi reached for another pastry.
“Talk some sense into her,” Agnes told Keir.