A lorry overtakes, spraying my windscreen with gutter water. I flick the wipers up.
‘You alright?’ Theo asks. ‘Sounds like you’re rowing across the Firth of Forth.’
‘Peachy. Just plotting how to spin MacRae’s sudden aptitude for children’s literature.’
‘Pfft. Mums will lap it up. Did he really do voices?’
‘Like a panto actor.’
A Tesla swerves in front of me and noses in without warning. I slam the horn, swerving into the next lane. My whole ribcage jolts like it’s trying to eject me.
Theo clicks her tongue. ‘Drive carefully. I just started working for you, I haven’t had enough time to begin despising you in order to rejoice at your funeral. See you in a jiffy!’
The traffic light ahead turns amber. I floor it, engine snarling through the intersection. I crank the AC, so the cold air bites my collarbones. That doesn’t help. Memory ambushes me: Brodie’s calloused thumb touching mine when I handed him the book. Static shock, or some biological glitch.
Roundabout ahead. I take the third exit too fast, tyres screeching.
The rest of the drive takes me forty minutes, which I spend mostly on calls.
And thinking about him in the library.
‘PR win,’ I remind myself, pulling into the car park behind the café where I’m meeting Theo for lunch. ‘This is a PR win.’
It wasn’t supposed to make me question my professional detachment. But as I grab my purse and step out of the car, I can’t shake the image of Brodie MacRae gently telling wide-eyed kids not to be like Gordon the goat.
Who evenisthis man?
And why, for the love of god, can’t I stop thinking about his thighs and hands and arms?
The café hums with midday chatter and Edinburgh’s lunch crowd. Theo waves from a corner table, her dark ponytail swinging.
‘You’re late. But better late than dead,’ she says and slides a flat white toward me. ‘I ordered for you. You look like you’ve had a morning. Sit. Caffeinate.’
I drop into the chair and dump my handbag on the floor.
Her blue eyes glint over her cup. ‘MacRae’s reel is already at ten thousand views.’ She spins her phone toward me, showing Brodie with children clingingto him like baby monkeys. ‘Comments are ninety per cent thirst, ten per cent mums asking if he does birthday parties. The rest is filtered by keywords.’
I snatch up my coffee. ‘Perfect. Exactly what we wanted.’
‘What’s perfect is your face right now.’ Theo’s freckled nose crinkles as she smiles. ‘You look like you just saw a big surly bear cuddling a baby bunny.’
I rake my fork through a kale Caesar salad. ‘Stop grinning.’
Theo licks hollandaise off her thumb. ‘You’re the one who sent me that video. A man built like a Norse god of war doing puppet voices. I nearly spat oat milk all over my laptop.’
‘Children respond to animated storytelling. It’s basic psychology.’
‘And their mums respond to biceps the size of their babies’ heads. Did you see the one in the lilac cardigan? Looked ready to climb him like a—’
‘Stop it right there.’ My phone clatters onto the reclaimed wood table. ‘This is about damage control.’
Theo’s straw slurps loudly through her iced matcha. ‘You’re blushing.’
‘I’m overheating. They crank the radiators in here like we’re in Greenland. It’s August. What kind of arsehole needs a radiator in August?’
‘It was a bit nippy this morning. Tell me again how he did the bunny voice.’
I shred a piece of chicken. ‘It’s irrelevant. What matters is the result.’
