“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, running my fingers under my eyes, checking for puffiness. “I should have known they would. They practically live here.”
“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.