Page 19

Hamish

Amy’s condo building has a postage stamp of a patio out back. And I’m currently treating it like Wembley.

My leg throbs.

My brace is finally off, but the scar stings when I twist too hard, and doing burpees on concrete is arguably a crime against my own tendons.

But I’m still doing them.

Sort of.

Fine. I’m pretending to do a burpee, then collapsing dramatically into a sit-up and calling it cross-training. Brandi said I have to wait at least four months post-op to even try for a burpee, but I'm advanced. A professional athlete in peak condition. Able to perform far better than average.

Of course I can do this sooner than the range.

The range is based on the middle of the crowd. I'm an outlier. A footie outlier who will do a burpee before four months, by God.

I’m also sweaty, shirtless, and thoroughly enjoying myself, in spite of the nagging knee that tries to escape once in a while. It's an errant child who just doesn't wanna.

But I'll make it behave.

Amy appears with a bottle of water, fully aware I’ve just grunted my way through what can only be described as the saddest set of lunges Boston’s ever seen. The old ladies from Marie's yoga classes can lunge better, and I should know. I've seen them take a peek at my bollocks under a kilt.

Surely, I can do better.

Amy’s been going through one of my duffel bags, one I left here after my last away match in Spain, before the universe cracked my knee like a walnut.

She offered to help me sort through it, tossing out ancient protein bars, stray socks, and, unfortunately, a used shin guard that smells like Satan’s laundry.

And then she pulls out something that makes me freeze mid-push-up.

“Oh, my God,” she says slowly. “Is this my scrunchie? I wondered what happened to it! I have been looking for this one forever ! It's my favorite.” The hair thingie is emerald green and made of the softest fabric.

So soft.

So nice.

So–

“Dinna sniff it!” I pop up way too fast. Ouch.

Amy pauses, the cloth halfway to her face. She gives me a very skeptical look under her lashes.

"What do you mean? Why would that be your first reaction?"

"Nae reason," I lie. "It's just been buried in an athletic bag all these months. It has bacteria that can spelunk up your nose so far, ye’ll never get it out."

She’s already smelling it, damn it. If you tell Amy not to do something, you might as well tell her to do it.

“Too late,” she says, frowning at it. “It smells like sex.”

My face goes numb and I lose my words.

She turns to look at me. “Hamish?”

I don’t answer.

I have never not answered a question in my life. I’m highly social. Chatty, even. I over-share. I once told her that I prefer to put on my pants just as they come out of the dryer when I visit America, because the warm fabric is a bollocks hug.

But right now?

I go silent.

Amy steps closer, scrunchie held between two fingers like she’s presenting forensic evidence on a crime show. I half expect her to find a Sharpie and write "Exhibit A" on the damn thing.

“Why does it smell like sex, Hamish?”

Still quiet.

“Is this… mine?” she asks again.

I nod once.

“You took it?”

I nod again.

“For your hair?”

I shake my head.

She narrows her eyes. “For your hair or… someone else's hair?”

"It's a bit more complicated than that." Sweat breaks out all over my chest again.

"Scrunchies are designed to be used on hair, Hamish. It's a simple question."

"It was, well... it touched hair." My short-and-curlies start tingling.

"What the hell does that mean?"

I lift a brow. “Amy.” I open my mouth. I close my mouth. I try to form a sentence that doesn't sound like there should be a police file on me.

I fail.

"You're freaking me out. Where's Mr. Chill? You look like the next words out of your mouth are going to be 'I want a lawyer.'"

She’s onto something. But I can't tell her the truth. It’s too embarrassing. Made sense when I was on the road, but now, after three months of living together, her being so wonderful to me and taking such good care of me, it feels stupid. Puerile.

Rank .

Then her eyes go to my crotch, then the scrunchie, and back to my crotch. She gets it.

“Oh. OH, MY GOD. Hair. It touched hair . Did–did you wank with this?”

Oh, sure. Finally, she absorbs a little Scottish slang, and that's the word we're starting with?

I cover my face. “Woman, can ye no’ just throw me off a cliff instead?”

“You did! You used my scrunchie as a… what? A sex prop?”

“Aye.”

"How? Like, you pulled your hair back into a tiny ponytail while you whacked off?"

I just stare at her. There is no good answer here.

"You–you sniffed it while you jacked off to dreams of me?"

Now she's just getting me hard.

I can't even squirm as my erection is turning into a baton, because she'll think the scrunchie is getting me off and that I have a hair-tie fetish. Which, for the record, I do not.

I have an Amy fetish.

"It's–it's no’ what ye think." I wince, because I know how bad this sounds.

“I don't flick the bean to your hair accessories, Hamish, so I cannot play Twenty Questions and guess the answer."

Great. Now I'm imagining Amy masturbating, naked with her legs spread nice and wide, a big bottle of lube and a sex toy on the bed next to her. The baton in my joggers is turning into a cricket bat.

"What. Do. You. Use. My. Scrunchie. For. You. Pervert?"

I clear my throat and avoid eye contact. “It's better than a travel sock!”

"A travel sock?"

I nod toward my todger.

She follows my gaze and gasps, “Oh, my God!”

“Dinna judge me!”

“I’m not judging you!” she yells, holding the hair tie aloft like a ceremonial ribbon. “I just… I’m processing!” She swallows. "And deciding never to wash your socks again."

I finally stand, stretch out my leg, and limp over to her, sweaty and shirtless and deeply, irrevocably doomed. Her hand doesn't flinch when I take it, so there's that.

“I took it from your bathroom after one of our overnights. Back before we were official. I’d wrap it round ma hand. Or... shaft. Depending on mood.”

“It was more than once?” she squeaks.

“It smelled like you,” I murmur, quieter now. “Your shampoo, your skin. Sex. But mostly... you . And when I was stuck on a bus at three a.m. in Turkey, or couldna sleep in Newcastle, that smell reminded me I was no’ alone in the world.”

She stares at me. Then sniffs it again.

“Still smells like sex,” she says. "And it's definitely not as soft as it used to be." In her hands, it bends stiffly, like cardboard. That soft fabric is very absorbent.

She's probably holding a good two hundred grams of Hamish McCormick protein shake right there.

“Like good sex?”

“The best.” She presses it to her nose. Her cheeks are red, but she’s smiling.“Do you… still use it?”

I grin. “No need. I’m here wi’ ye now.”

“You are such a romantic pervert. Masturbating with my scrunchie!”

“I prefer ‘emotionally evolved horndog.’”

“God, I love you,” she says, snorting.

And I swear on my healing leg, I have never loved being a pervert more.

We’re both dressed now, which feels like a tragedy.

Amy looks like a combination of sin and spreadsheets in her black leggings and a hoodie that says Fueled by Caffeine and Dragons. Her hair’s in a high ponytail, no makeup, barefoot, and somehow she looks more devastating than when she wears lace and makes me forget how vowels work.

I’m wearing a t-shirt that says Rehab is Sexy– which I did not buy–and joggers that I definitely did .

My leg’s in a smaller brace now, though I still hobble like an old pirate who lost his ship and his dignity somewhere in the Bay of Biscay.

While the brace is smaller, I also have knee wraps that could double as Gone With the Wind corsets for Scarlett O’Hara.

We’re on her couch, her feet tucked under my thigh, my laptop abandoned on the coffee table next to a protein bar and her half-finished mug of English tea.

The “future talk” is happening.

No one warned me that the future might involve spreadsheets, budgeting apps, and therapy-speak like communication infrastructure and situational context.

“I keep thinking about what we want next,” Amy says. “Like… when does life stop being something we dream about and start being something we decide?”

“Ye mean like… dinner?”

She raises an eyebrow. “Dinner would be a metaphor.”

“Oh. Aye. Right.” I clear my throat. “So then is dessert?—?”

“Don’t distract me with sex talk.”

“Didna say sex. Could be cheesecake.”

“You meant sex.”

She’s not wrong. I always mean sex.

She leans forward. “I’m serious. I love our life now. But we’re still a little bit in limbo. You’re healing, I’m rethinking what I want in my career, we’re planning–or not planning–a wedding, and we haven’t really talked about where we want to be .”

I shift, trying to look thoughtful and not like a man whose knee is sending Morse code for ice pack now please.

And whose cock is tapping out and entirely different message.

“Aye. We should talk it through.”

“Kids?”

I nod. “Definitely. We’ve always said that.”

“Right. But… timing. Like, do we want to start trying soonish or wait? You’ve still got travel coming, assuming…” She looks at my knee and her voice trails off.

“Assuming what?”

“Assuming you can get back into shape and on the pitch again.”

“That’s no’ assumption. It’s ironclad guarantee!”

“Right. Okay, then. I’m figuring out if I want to leave my job. If we do this, I want to be home with our kid.”

“Kids. Plural.”

“Let’s start with one.”

“That’s what Cousin Andrew said, and he split the bullseye with their first. Got two at once wi’ the twins.”

Her look is adorable. She ignores my words and continues: “Not glued to a crisis PR call while they’re covered in applesauce and LEGO toys.

I mean, I don’t want to be a stay-at-home mom, though.

Nothing against them,” she continues. “I was raised by one. I just think I’ll need some time working, and some time at home. ”

“Why not go freelance? Be a PR consultant? Then ye could control yer time better.”