The Play

“What?” I say. “It’s true. And you both would agree, if you didn’t have your own vaginas snatched up by those kilt-lifters.”

“Would you stop saying vagina?” Nicola says. “The word is ceasing to have meaning.”

“Yeah, for me.”

“Hmmmm. If Kayla ceased to have a greedy vagina, would she even exist at all?” Steph muses with a twinkle in her eye.

“Whatever,” I tell them, taking a large gulp of a Napa zinfandel. “My life will be easier this way. You’ll see.”

Nicola’s phone rattles on the table and she peers at it. “Bram’s on his way.”

I groan, putting my chin in my hand and letting it slide over my face. “Ugh, why? I thought we said it was a girls’ night. The last thing I want to see is you two making eyes at each other and your stupid i

“Linden’s coming too,” Steph says sheepishly.

I give her a hard look.

“Sorry,” she says, not really sorry at all. “But if it makes you feel better, Linden and I are boring and married, so that whole swoony, making eyes stuff is over.”

“Oh, please,” I say while Nicola makes a similar sound of disbelief. “You’re even worse than Bram and Nicola, because you’ve got a case of the smug marrieds. Remember Bridget Jones? I’m Bridget. And you’re…the rest of them.”

Nicola nods. “It’s true.” Then she looks to me brightly. “So you just need to meet your Hugh Grant.”

I glare at her. “She doesn’t end up with Hugh Grant!”

Nicola frowns in confusion.

“Oh, like you’d even want a Mark Darcy,” Steph supplies. “Besides, Linden and Bram aren’t coming alone.”

Oh god. Something cold washes over me.

“What? Who are they with?” I ask slowly. If it’s a guy, I’m going to be very upset, particularly if he’s a single guy.

Another glance. I can practically hear the giggles in their heads.

“Their cousin, Lachlan,” Steph says.

Lachlan McGregor. As if there aren’t enough damn McGregors in the city already, let alone the world. I haven’t met Lachlan yet, score another point for staying at home, but Steph and Nicola haven’t shut up about him from the few times they’ve met. He’s a rugby player, he’s so mysterious, he’s so built, blah, blah, fucking blah. All the stuff that I never needed to know because that sort of shit is my sexual kryptonite, especially in this city where a rough and wild man is a needle in a very metrosexual haystack.

“Why would you do that to me?” I cry out, patting down my messy top knot. “I came here in my pajamas. I don’t have any makeup on, my hair isn’t even brushed. Jesus, are my teeth even clean? Do I stink?” I quickly sniff my pits and then breathe into my hands. Mmmm. Eau du Wino.

“Do that to you?” Steph repeats. “I didn’t know he was coming until an hour ago. Hell, I didn’t know they’d be stopping by at all.”

“Argh,” I say, ru

“Well, I do work here,” Nicola points out. “And Linden’s best friend James runs the place. And, well, so what if Lachlan’s here? You don’t have to sleep with him.”

I reach for Steph’s lilac Balenciaga bag, a present from Linden that I’ve always wanted to steal, and rummage through it for a compact and some makeup since I didn’t bring a single thing with me, not even money since we usually drink for free at the Lion.

“Of course I don’t have to sleep with him. But I don’t need the temptation. And what if he’s still around when my vow wears off? I could get my own Scottish dick before he jets back to the homeland.”

“I thought you were against Scottish dick,” Steph says.

“I’m against McGregor dick. And didn’t you say that Lachlan isn’t his real cousin anyway. He’s adopted?”

She nods. “Well, let me make this easy on you, hon. Even if you were your usual cock-gobbling she-devil, I don’t think he’d be interested.”

I pause. “Hey, cock-gobbling is my word. Don’t be stealing my shit. And also, why, is he gay?” One of my brothers, Toshio, is gay, and I wonder if I can set the two of them up.

“I don’t think so,” Steph says. She looks at Nicola. “Actually, I think Bram said he had a date with some Justine woman.”

Nicola scowls. “Yeah. Same Justine that Bram went out with, remember?”

“You said it wasn’t really a date though—that his dad set them up,” I point out.

“Yeah.” She pouts at the memory anyway. She and Bram had a pretty tumultuous start together. In fact, they pretty much hated each other. Then she had to get all sappy and fall in love with more than his dick.

“Okay, so he has a girlfriend,” I say to Steph. “You could have just said so.”

“I think it was just a date or two, I don’t know,” Steph says. “Regardless, he’s kind of hard to get to know.”

“Yeah, really,” Nicola says, nodding vehemently. “I think he’s said two words to me and he’s over at our place a lot.”

“I don’t need a guy to talk in order to fuck him. Which I’m not. Because of my vow and shit.”

Nicola gives me an eyebrow raise and holds it for ten seconds. Such talent.

“You’d miss the dirty talk too much,” Steph says with a grin, and I know she’s thinking about her husband and his filthy mouth.

“Hey,” I say, thumbing my chest. “I talk dirty enough for the both of us.”

“You definitely do with us, anyway,” Nicola says.

I snort, pulling out Steph’s compact and peering at my face. Even without makeup I know I don’t look that bad. From my mother’s side I got high cheekbones, her dark eyes, and long, black lashes that don’t need any mascara. From my father, I got full lips and freckles. But still, I could look a lot better. My cheeks are blotchy from the alcohol, my thick mess of hair is unruly, and I’m dressed like a bag lady.

And you’re all the better for it, I remind myself. Untalkative Scottish peen is the last thing you need.

“Yeah, you’re right,” I say.

“Huh?”

I look at Steph blankly. “Oh, sorry. I was talking to myself. I do that. You know this.”

“There they are,” Nicola says. I can hear the stupid grin in her voice.

I sigh and look back to the front door of the bar. Beneath the low lighting, amid the wood finishing, green and brass décor, and the rigged jukebox that only plays James’ music, steps in Bram, Linden, and Lachlan McGregor. The Scottish trifecta of hot guys.

But even as that thought hits my brain, I blink, my eyes trained on Lachlan because I’m finally taking him in for the first time. I realize that “hot guy” is an understatement. While Linden and Bram are stupidly good-looking in their charming, handsome ways, Lachlan is a whole other beast.

Because, he basically is a beast.

Lachlan is a good half a foot taller than Bram—and that says a lot already because Bram is pretty tall—and nearly twice as wide. Like a redwood tree, he goes up and up and he’s solid and probably unmoveable, and I already have this urge to run across the bar and slam into him, just to see how immense he is. I have a feeling I would bounce right off of him. I mean, his physique seems lifted from a superhero comic, from his thick arms that are covered in masses of dark tattoos, and his expansive, firm chest, to his mountainous shoulders and v-shaped torso. Even dressed in a plain moss-green t-shirt and dark jeans, he looks larger than life.

And I can’t stop staring. I don’t even care because everyone else in the bar is staring at the Scottish trifecta, even though I manage to glide my fingers over my mouth to make sure I’m not actually drooling. He’s probably the most stu

While Bram nods his head in our direction and Linden waves, Lachlan’s eyes scan the crowd intently, almost like he’s a cop searching the place for suspects. Or a criminal looking for opportunity. There’s a hint of electric danger in his searching gaze, and for a moment I wonder what it would be like to be looked at the same way. I’d probably burst into flames.