jolly lad or whatever it was she’d had in mind when she started all this.
It was even worse for the fact that Cormac was a perfectly sociable chap, if a little shy. Not the life and soul, maybe, but he was funny and easygoing and the girls usually liked him, and of course Jake would lead the way. Cormac did think how much Jake would be enjoying himself, telling outrageous stories about people who’d gotten things stuck up their bums, giving cheeky backhanded compliments to Kalitha, and generally being at home everywhere, and he felt completely out of his depth and more and more tongue-tied and awkward than ever. His beer, when it came, was a horrible sweet lager that felt sticky on his teeth, but he drank it determinedly and glanced at his watch so he could work out how soon he could politely leave.
Chapter 34
Jake caught up with Lissa as she left Joan’s surgery, exchanging one bundle of notes for another.
“Hi!” he said, and she stared at him as if she couldn’t remember who he was (this was not at all the case; she was just still getting used to people recognizing her in the street, which never, ever happened in London).
“Oh, hello,” she said, flustered. She held her shopping bag closer to herself in case he wanted to see what kind of groceries she had. She’d never realized how exposing it was, living in a very small village. Mrs. Murray had already remarked more than once on how many Kit Kats she seemed to buy at any one period and she was definitely contemplating getting her Kit Kats online, if she could resist the temptation to buy a box of eighty at a time, which she wasn’t sure she could, and that couldn’t end anywhere good.
“Jake,” said Jake.
“Yeah . . . I know. Ambulance, right?”
He nodded. “Yup.”
“Busy shift?”
“In fact, no,” he said. “Young boy fell out of a boat on Loch Ness, but he was fine by the time they picked him up.”
“Does that happen a lot?”
“More than you’d think. We nearly lost a couple o’ bairns last year.” He shivered to think about it.
“Do they get eaten by the monster?”
“Yes,” he said, totally deadpan. “Monster-related injuries make up about thirty, forty percent of my job most days. It’s okay, we have a venom antidote.”
She smiled for the first time he’d seen, and he saw her lovely teeth.
“So, you know it’s the shows?” he said nervously. He wasn’t asking her out, obviously. He wasn’t asking her out at all. He was just letting her know it was on, which wasn’t the same thing at all, nothing like.
He flashed back to the conversation he’d had the previous night with Cormac.
“You should go see her,” Cormac had said.
Jake was still a little sore about being cold-shouldered the last time. “Mebbe,” he’d said.
“I think she’s a bit lonely,” said Cormac.
“Oh, do you? And how do you know?”
“I don’t. We exchange medical notes.”
“You’re practically having a relationship. I’m surprised your mum hasn’t been over.”
“I’m not,” said Cormac.
“Is she still in a mood with you?”
“She is.”
“Highland women,” said Jake, not for the first time.
“What . . . what does she look like?” asked Cormac tentatively, not even entirely sure why he was asking.
“Oi oi,” said Jake, and Cormac instantly cursed.
“Not like that!” he said quickly. “It’s just a bit weird not to know who’s living in your house.”
“Well, get on Facebook then, like normals.”
Cormac screwed up his face. “I am on it, remember? It’s just my mum sending me pictures of armadillos and my old army pals sharing really, really dodgy stuff. Ugh.”
“Well then. You’ll never know if she’s a frog monster or not.”
“Don’t say frog monster,” said Cormac. “Also, is she a frog monster?”
Jake’s voice went quiet for a while. Then he started up again, and it had an uncharacteristically dreamy tone to it Cormac hadn’t heard before and certainly not when he was talking about Ginty MacGuire.
“Well,” Jake said eventually, “you know Meghan Markle.”
“Mm-hmm?”
“Nothing at all like her,” clarified Jake. “I mean, not really. I mean, she’s curvier, aye, and, well, no she doesn’t look . . . but she’s got these freckles. And they’re . . . they’re dead cute. And all this hair! She’s just got loads and loads of hair and it’s all ringletty and it’s everywhere and . . . anyway . . . Anyway. No, I havenae seen her.”
“Jake Inglis! You think she’s cute!”
“I do not.”
“Well, there you go! She’s lonely. You can ask her