Page 201 of Beautiful Scars

“Oh my gosh, we have tomato sauce,” Meisie says, giving me the stink eye. “Now put it back in the fridge please.”

Josh grabs the bottle and hands it to me over the counter. “How is that fair? You get to take your teabags.” He says it like an accusation. I enjoy the odd cuppa these days—you have to with Auntie Sarah forcing them down your throat—but it has to be Tetley.

I laugh at him. “Don’t bring me into this...You little shit.”

The last bit gets added on as soon as he’s out of earshot.

“I heard that,” Madison says from the breakfast bar, barely looking up from her phone.

I smirk at her. She’s old enough now that we don’t bother with the fu—dges and the sh—ugars around her.

“Is this...? Seriously?” I look up and see Meisie brandishing a weapon. “A BB gun?” She spins around and narrows her eyes at me, like I have something to do with it.

Jordan takes her second of distraction to grab it back out of her hand. “It’s only a tattie gun, Mum. Look.”

I almost snort out my coffee. Right enough, the boy produces a potato from his bag with at least twenty holes already cut out of it. He might have had the good sense to at least pack a fresh one.

Jordan stabs the end of the gun into the potato and pulls it out, aiming it right at his brother’s head.

“Fire that thing in the house and I will fit you a new arse, boy.” I stab my finger at him and he grins.

I’ve never laid a hand on any of them, obviously, but like any good Scottish parent I have roughly a thousand different ways to tell them that I will.

“Can we go outside?”

It’s hooring with rain out there, but that’s never stopped them. “Aye. But for the love of Christ, get a fresh potato. And don’t even think about putting them back in your bag.”

Meisie stands with her hands on her hips, shaking her head as she watches them run off.

“Do you want a coffee?” I offer.

She comes into the kitchen and sits down next to Madison. “I want something stronger.”

I chuckle but make her a coffee anyway. It’s only two hours until bedtime.

“What are you packing?” I ask Maddie.

She shrugs. She does a lot of shrugging. Meisie says it’s a phase. “Just my phone.”

I put Meisie’s coffee down in front of her and rest my hands on the counter. “Why don’t we just leave the phone?”

I hate the phone. I really, really hate the phone. In fact, if it was up to me she wouldn’t have a phone until she was at least thirty. Which is ironic considering Meisie’s not even there yet.

“Because how will I make TikToks? Or send SnapChats? Or talk to the group chat?”

Why does she need to do any of those things?

Madison will be a Princess Fiona, but even worse than Meisie ever was. You don’t even follow this Fiona. You don’t like her posts. You have no chance. Ever. Think Princess Fiona in a dragon-guarded tower, surrounded by Takeshi’s fucking Castle with machine gun turrets and German Shepherd’s patrolling the perimeter? Throw in a few AK47s, too. And barbed wire. And an electrified fence. Which, coincidentally, are only a few of the security features our hotel advertises to tourists.

“How do you even know these people are who they say they are?”

Maddie rolls her eyes. “Ehhh...maybe because I see them in school every day?”

I shake my head. “All it takes is one person to put up a photo of a Justin Beiber look-alike, and you and your wee friends are now talking to a complete stranger.”

She lets out a sigh and starts shaking her head. “Justin Beiber isold, Dad. And who the hell even falls for that trick, anyway?”

Your mother, that’s who.