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My mother and Fiona sit hunched forward, hands zip tied behind their backs, looking like twin disasters from both ends of the fashion and fury spectrum.

Fiona’s jacket is inside out. Mom’s purse is somehow around her neck.

“Is that a feather boa?” I whisper.

Chief Luview doesn’t blink. “They started at the Love You Forever Inn. Marched up to the front desk and demanded to see Hamish McCormick and Amy Jacoby.”

I swallow. “We aren't registered under our real names.”

“No. You were listed under Mr. and Mrs. Jones, which apparently triggered Fiona McCormick into declaring someone had kidnapped her son’s brain and replaced it with artificial intelligence.”

“Aye, well,” Hamish mutters, “she's no’ entirely wrong…”

Fiona growls and makes a derisive sound.

“Ye replied ta ma text wi', ‘ As a large language model, I am not capable of emotion .’”

Hamish winces. “Aye. That was... the AI.”

The chief continues. “When that got them nowhere, they went on to Love You Flowers. They asked Stella if the shop had ‘seen a gorgeous Scottish man with a limp and a bleached blonde who answers to Traitor.’”

I shoot Fiona a well-deserved dirty look. She has the decency to look guilty.

Or she has to pee. Not sure which.

“Oh, sweet baby Cupid.” Hamish pinches the bridge of his nose and exhales loudly.

“Then they tried Love You Books,” the chief goes on, “where Fiona offered to trade one ‘gritty true crime paperback and a tin of loose tea’ for your current GPS location.”

We groan in unison.

He clears his throat. “Then came the final act: They drove around town aimlessly until they spotted Love You Harder . Seems they mistook it for a gym.”

"Never heard of it," Hamish says, tilting his head. " Is it a gym?"

"It's an adult erotic novelty store and rents rooms by the hour."

Hamish gasps. "I knew I loved this town." I whack his arm as hard as possible and consider pulling a Blavek to his groin, but that would punish me , too.

“They walked in and loudly demanded you both ‘reveal yourselves.’”

I wince. “In a... place like that?”

“The owner intervened. But when they refused to leave and shouted–and I quote– 'we get the boy and girl we deserve'–"

Hamish and I gasp in unison.

"–she called the police. The head of security at Wedding Protectors, Archie MacDougall, showed up and tried to defuse the situation, but failed. They staged a sit-in.”

“Oh, God.”

"Marie Jacoby then duct-taped herself to a Realgasm Robot."

"I was exercising my First Amendment rights," she retorts.

"To what, Mom? The right to make a fool of yourself?"

“And she also spent over $800 on high-end vibrators.”

That is actually the least surprising detail of all.

Chief Luview reaches for his pad of paper and pen, slipping them in his front coat pocket. “Look. They’re not under arrest. Technically. But they’ve been warned."

"Then why the zip ties?"

"They wouldn't leave." He gets an unsettled look on his face. "And Mrs. Jacoby seemed really, really into it."

"Mom!"

Fiona lunges forward, as much as the zip ties will allow. “Ye did this, Hamish! Ye forced our hand! We had ta find ye! Ye shut me out and ye lied. Dinna lie ta me. If ye hate me so much, say it to ma face!”

Hamish sighs. “I dinna hate ye, Mum. I love ye. But every time ye try ta keep me closer, yer really pushing me away.”

Mom leans over. “Are ye married yet? Did we stop ye in time?”

I stare at them.

Then I stare at Hamish.

Then I stare at the chief, who just nods like this is his third mother-based meltdown this week.

“Your move, groom,” I say softly.

Hamish steps forward, looking at his mother.

“Are ye done?”

Fiona sniffs. “Maybe.”

“Then let’s talk. Really talk. Adult to adult."

"But–"

"ADULT to ADULT, Mum. And if ye canna be an adult, then adult ta child, but yer the child.”

"Hamish!" she gasps, but he stays firm.

"But nae in the police car. An’ definitely nae with yer purse around Marie’s neck and... whatever that is hummin' inside it.”

The chief opens the backdoor of the cruiser and helps the moms out, still zip tied. My mom has a hangdog expression, like she knows she's about to hear an earful. And she should. Carol and Shannon have yelled at her plenty for this kind of behavior, so she expects it.

Fiona, on the other hand, has her chin turned up, her jaw tight, like she's itching for a fight. Hamish is the oldest, so the poor guy has to do all the hard work forging a path through a thick, dense expectations forest.

Just then, Dad and Fergus step out of Bilbee’s, still chuckling over something, until they see the cruiser.

And the two women standing beside it.

Arms behind their backs in zip ties.

The sound they make is somewhere between a gasp and a bark. Dad stops in his tracks like he’s seen a ghost, but a friendly, happy ghost, the kind you smile and point at. Fergus stumbles back half a step, blinking rapidly, like his vision might be playing tricks on him.

Then Dad lets out a wheeze. “Is—oh, my God. That’s Marie. ”

Fergus squints. “And Fiona, ” he breathes. “Oh, bloody hell. They've been arrested! Our wives are criminals. We’re marrit ta convicts!”

And then they both just… lose it.

Full-on, can’t-catch-their-breath, cry-laughing.

Dad leans against the porch rail like his knees have given out. “I’ve seen your mom mad. I’ve seen her furious, and sometimes I’ve been the reason. But I have never seen her zip tied outside a police cruiser.”

Fergus points, barely able to speak. “This is poetry.”

Mom doesn’t say anything. Her mouth is a tight line, eyes narrowed like she’s debating whether she can strangle Dad with a look, or if she should just hook her bound wrists around his neck and do it that way.

Next to her, Fiona looks like she’s already halfway into a cage match.

“You left us , ” Mom throws at Dad. “ Abandoned us. Then you warned the kids. Whose side are you on? We were texting our hearts out and getting ‘ As a large language model, I do not experience emotion’ as a reply. They thought they could fool us. And you helped them!”

Dad tries to answer but wheezes instead.

Fiona snaps toward Fergus. “An’ you! Yer lucky I’m restrained. Which, by the way, never happens. ”

“Aye,” Fergus chokes, laughing. “But when it does, it’s usually at home, wi’ better lighting.”

Hamish groans. “Da, no.”

My own dad looks at Fergus, then Fiona, then Mom. Huh. The parents have a lot more in common than we ever imagined.

Also: ewwww .

Chief Luview–calm, completely unbothered, as if this happens every week in his town–gives our dads an abbreviated summary.

“They made a scene at the Inn. Then at Love You Flowers. Then Love You Books. Finally wound up at Love You Harder, assumed it was a gym, and refused to leave until they could ‘get the boy and girl they deserved.’”

Fergus’s eyes widen. “Please tell me ma wife didna shout that in a sex shop.”

"And just how d'ye ken it's a sex shop, Fergus?" Fiona snaps.

Fergus stays quiet.

“She did,” the chief replies. “Loudly. And Marie spent over eight hundred dollars while staging a sit-in.”

Mom stiffens. “They were clearance items. I was supporting a small business. Stimulating the local economy.”

“Stimulating something ,” I mumble, covering my face.

Pulling a multi-tool from his belt, the chief cuts the zip ties. “Please don’t make me do this again.”

"For once," I mutter as Hamish puts his arm around me, "I win."

"Win me?"

"Win with Shannon and Carol, because this has to be the wildest wedding in the family. Mom didn't get arrested and handcuffed during theirs ."

"Ye sure, pet? Could be keepin' secrets."

I laugh through my nose, then get serious as we all head back into the bar, Chief Luview and all.

"Hamish, they figured it out–they tracked us down. Now what?"

"Now we see what they have to say for themselves. And we stick to our boundaries, but make room for them in our hearts as well, aye?"

When we re-enter Bilbee’s, it somehow feels like a sitcom set where the laugh track’s on standby. Everyone inside freezes for a beat, eyes scanning Fiona, Mom, Hamish, and me, before the low murmur of pub chatter resumes. I swear I see a guy at the bar elbow his friend and mouth, "That's them."

The chief follows us in, posture ramrod straight. He heads toward the bar, where Rider, ever unfazed, eyes him and lifts a mug.

“Coffee or soda, Luke?” Now we know his name. We should definitely be on a first name basis. Once a man arrests your moms in a sex toy store doubling as a brothel, it's only fitting.

“Coffee,” Luke replies. “I’m on late shift. I need to stay alert in case someone decides to storm Love You India next.”

“Right. You’ll want to see that cumin ,” Rider jokes. Luke groans.

Rider chuckles and disappears behind the bar.

Matt and Nessa are still tucked at their corner of the big wooden table, a mostly empty tray of onion rings between them. Nessa stands as we approach, brushing down her blouse and looking slightly frazzled for the first time since this all started.

“Oh, good,” she says, voice tight as she eyes Fiona and Mom. “We’re expanding. I couldn’t get a call or text from Archie or I’d have gone there and - ”

I squeeze her shoulder. “It’s fine. You did everything you could.”

We rearrange chairs like we’re playing an aggressive game of Tetris, and suddenly there’s one long, chaotic table filled with wedding fugitives, law enforcement, a Wedding Protector, a bodybuilding minister, smug dads, and the Zip Tie Moms themselves, all seated in uneasy proximity.

Archie bursts in next, looking like he’s jogged across half the town to get here. His hair is windswept, collar askew, earpiece barely hanging on.

“Luke,” he hisses, hustling to the other side of the table. “We need a debriefing.”

Luke talks to him in confidential, clipped, quiet tones. Archie nods, pale and sweaty, like someone just handed him a live grenade with instructions in Abenaki. He keeps glancing toward Fiona and Mom as if they might detonate.