Page 101 of The Goat in the Bedroom
It is, my strawberry girl. It so is.
WHITE HEATHER FOR LUCK
GRYFF
Igrinned, settling deeper into my seat on the plane waiting to take off for Edinburgh. Three weeks since that night in my room when she'd finally said she loved me, and I still couldn't quite believe it was real. That Artemis Fraser was mine. That I could call her babe and she'd call me an idiot but in that fond way that meant she loved me.
Artie and Tempest were at the airport in New York getting ready to board their connecting flight. It was going to be a long overnight without her in my arms.
“I gotta go,” she said. “Tempest is gesturing wildly about something involving the duty-free shop.”
“She's going to buy something ridiculous, isn't she?”
“There's apparently a stuffed Loch Ness monster that she claims Flynn needs.”
“He does need that.”
“You're both ridiculous.”
“You love ridiculous.”
“I love you,” she said softly, and my chest went tight the way it did every time.
“I love you too. Text me when you land?”
“Obviously. Try not to let Flynn get you both in trouble on the plane.”
In a few hours, I'd be in Scotland. Meeting James Fraser not as Artie's roommate or friend, but as her boyfriend. The man she loved.
No pressure or anything.
When we landed, the girls were actually waiting at the hotel for us, having spent the morning having something called cream tea, which looked like little biscuits with blobs of sticky cream and strawberry jelly on them with fancy, fragile-looking teacups.
We had a whole day in Edinburgh to help us adjust to the time change, and Artie had a whole itinerary planned for us. It was going to be a blast. Aside from Sloane and her camera crew follow along with us everywhere.
We did our best to ignore them from the castle, a huge hill called Arthur's Seat, and another castle called Holyrood Palace. The only time I let them get close was at the palace's abbey ruins. We did need to give them something.
“Did you guys see that?” I pointed to the entrance to the ruins. “I swear I just saw a unicorn.”
The girls giggled and Flynn joined in. “Wait. Didn't you see the dragon following it in? That unicorn better watch out.”
Sloane and Harry were loving every minute of this. Which hopefully meant she wouldn't be pissed when we ditched her later for dinner. “No way. The unicorn will poke it in the ass with its magical horn.”
“Dragons breathe fire, dude. The unicorn is the one that's toast. Literally.”
“But what if they were in love and that's why the dragon is following the unicorn around like a sweet golden retriever of a monster?” Tempest asked, ever the romance novelist.
“Now that would be a romance I'd read,” Artie said. “The unicorn is Scotland's national animal.”
“Oh, I have one. It's calledDefy Meand I've read it at least a dozen times. I brought it to read on the plane, but you can borrow it for the flight home.”
“Ooh,” I stuck my face between them. “Is it dirty, spicy, smutty?”
Flynn flicked his eyebrows up and grinned. “It is. Trust me. I have benefited greatly from Tempest's romance market research.”
Sloane looked horrified and the four of us practically fell down laughing.
That evening we were headed to a pub for dinner, and I was nervous. Not about weird things like haggis and warm beer. We were meeting up with Artie's dad. I had met him briefly when we came to Colorado for Artie’s high school graduation but there is difference meeting your friend’s dad and meeting your girlfriend’s father who happened to be a sports legend on his own turf. That was a whole different level.
