I brought my McLaren, my fucking pride and joy, and parked it on the street outside the pub. I like a large car to support my large frame, but this beauty’s fast and it will make it easier to lose her bodyguard.
She whistles. “This is yours?”
“Aye,” I say with pride. “You like it?”
“It’sgorgeous.”
I smile bashfully. “Thank you.” I open the passenger door for her and she climbs into the passenger seat. I trot around to my side.
“Wow, this is bloody brilliant,” she says.
I snort. “I feel like the king of the fucking road.”
“Where are we going to eat?”
“Soirée.”
She gasps. “No.Seriously? It takes ages to get a reservation there.”
I shrug. “I pulled a few strings.”
She’s quiet for a moment. “That isn’t code for breaking a few legs, is it?”
I laugh out loud, and it startles her. She jumps at the sound.
“No,” I assure her, shaking my head. “Absolutely not.”
Not that I wouldn’t. Not if I had to, for a good reason.
She breathes more easily. “Okay, good. I can abide many things, but violence…” She winces.
She’s a tree-hugging vegetarian, daughter of the most brutal mobster in Scotland. Of course she doesn’t like violence. I’ll have to remember that.
“So tell me, Mac. How many brothers and sisters do you have?”
“Two brothers.” It gets easier to say that over time. There was a time when I’d have answered three. “And two sisters.”
“My God, what a big family.”
“Aye. My mum’s got her work cut out for her. How about you?”
“Two older sisters and one younger brother.”
“So we’re both smack in the bullshit middle.”
She laughs. “Aye. Sentenced to hand-me-downs and oppressive parenting because they fear they’ll fuck us up like they did our older siblings.”
Jesus, there’s some truth to that.
“Yeah,” I say, shaking my head. “Agreed.”
“What’s your dad like?” She asks the question so unexpectedly, it takes me by surprise. Nobody ever wants me to talk about my dad, especially not someone who’s a rival. But right now, we're just two people on a date. At least if anything I've done has prepared us, that's all that we are.
“My dad was older when he had us, so he’s getting up there. Gray hair, difficulty hearing, and he’s got a terminal illness.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she says.
I shrug. Sadly, my father’s done little to ever earn sympathy. “Don’t be. He does fine.”
