Page 10 of Scotlander

She suddenly remembered that she was supposed to be peeing and grabbed a handful of toilet paper squares.

What really made the whole was-this-a-set-up thing click into a genuine possibility was the conversation they’d had about favourite films and television shows. Now, of all the things Willa loved in the world, film and television were at the top of the list. The number of days she’d had screaming matches with her mom about how vitally important it was to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer even though it was a sunny day knew no bounds. Gabe had given her a meaningful high five for that one. Her grin had grown ever wider as her No way! Me too!s finally peaked at a dog-whistle-pitched ‘I’m so in love with you right now!’ after they admitted to a shared love of inspirational sports dramas. Their eyes had caught and cinched in a way that lit a flame of possibility. One that sang to a future where they could be trapped on a desert island with their favourite boxsets and a truckload of moisturiser, and live happily ever after.

And then Gabe had asked, ‘But no Outlander?’

Willa’s smile dropped away at the memory. If there was one thing she could change about the past it was this. Had she known how sick Valentina really was, she would’ve dived into the entire Outlander universe like a giddy porpoise. All of those extra hours they could’ve shared together, lost on a principle.

‘I’m just . . . I’m not really a superfan kind of person,’ she’d said, making a hashtag symbol with her fingers and pulling a face. ‘TotesEmbarassing, am I right?’

He responded with a neutral shrug. ‘Sometimes being a superfan allows people to think their lives could be better.’

Her heart had crumpled in on itself. Of course it could. The insight, so crystal clear now that he’d said it, had sent Willa into a tailspin.

‘Obviously, yeah,’ she’d stumbled over herself to fix the gaffe. ‘I mean, I’m not judging. Loving a show and giving it your time and energy and sometimes all of your hard-earned vacation time is not something I dismiss lightly. After all, if there weren’t superfans, I probably wouldn’t have a job.’

Until that moment, she’d never connected Val’s love of Outlander to a means of escaping her life. Which, of course, was completely idiotic of Willa. Val had been a young mum in an eye-wateringly beautiful marriage, dying of cancer. Of course she wouldn’t have been happy about her reality. She gave Gabe a look that must’ve read something along the lines of Well, I’m A Complete Fucking Idiot chased up by an imploring Am I The World’s Worst Best Friend?

‘Hey.’ Gabe reached across to give her hand a squeeze and, as if he’d read her mind, said, ‘Don’t think you let her down because you didn’t love all of the same things. Valentina wasn’t like that.’

‘I know,’ she whispered, wishing like hell she believed it. ‘But why do you think she’s doing this? What’s going to be in Scotland that isn’t here?’

They sought answers in one another’s eyes for what felt like forever. And then, somehow, the energy shifted to something edged with . . . frisson? She was a bit rusty in that department and her natural I-can-read-you-like-a-book radars were drunk, so, on the off chance she was right, she’d decided to lean in and test the waters. Like a humiliation saviour, Brandi skipped up to their table, cut the move short, and asked if they wanted another round of Woo Woos. She and Gabe had grinned at one another – relieved? – and given Brandi the thumbs-up.

It was Gabe’s car service that had finally cleaved them from their booth.

Wondering why Gabriel hadn’t emerged from the Hooters after three hours when he’d been assured it would be a quick fifteen minutes max, his driver had rung the restaurant and asked after him only to overhear his boss demanding that the bartender change channels from ESPN to Amazon Prime using his account so he and Willa could do a boxset binge of Outlander whilst playing a drinking game he’d just made up involving use of the phrase, ‘Ya ken noo, Sassenach.’

Gabe knocked on the bathroom door, forcing her back into the here and now. A quick wipe, flush and hand wash later, she was outside blinking in the afternoon sun.

Slipping into the town car’s lush interior had a semi-sobering effect on the pair of them – as if it was too adult an environment to behave like the giggling idiots they’d been in Hooters.

After they’d both chugged down some of the water from the central armrest’s mini fridge (!!!), Gabe pulled the latest iPad out of his manbag. ‘Right. Agenda time. Who do we need to hit to get you ready for wheels up on Friday?’

‘Erm . . . no one?’ She elbowed him in the side causing him to sloosh a bit of water down his shirt. ‘I’m a lover not a fighter.’

‘Willa,’ Gabe dead-panned, pulling out a cloth handkerchief to dab at his shirt (and nipple), ‘it’s a turn of phrase. If you are completely serious about fulfilling my sister’s very weird last requests, you’ve got’ – he snapped his wrist out of his jacket sleeve – ‘approximately seventy-two hours to do it.’

As it happened, a tight deadline and a seemingly impossible To-Do List were among Willa’s favourite things. They quickly made a list on Gabe’s iPad.

1) Tell Martina she was going to take some of her nine weeks accrued vacation time.

2) Deal with fall out of Step One by doing two weeks’ work over the next three days.

3) Ask her neighbour to water her (mostly dead) plants.

And that was about it.

Gabriel looked at her through narrowed eyes, his long black lashes almost begging for her to reach out and touch them. He’d be perfect in a daytime soap. Or a night-time soap. Or being sudsed up with a bar of soap. Before her thoughts could take her anywhere closer to undressing him, he began to batter her with questions. ‘You don’t have family to tell? Friends to alert? Personal appointments to reschedule?’

She goldfished.

He frowned. ‘Willa? Where’s the life in your life?’

Uhhh . . .

‘Rude!’ She wagged a finger at him with what she hoped was a mischievous could-do-better-in-the-manners-department smile. She held up her hand and ticked off her fingers. ‘My family live in Oregon. Valentina was— Well. You know. And I pretty much work all of the time, so there’s not much room for extras.’ She crushed the rest of her fingers down to show how much of a time suck TiTs was.

‘And by extras you mean . . . a boyfriend?’