The Highland Fling(48)

“What the hell are you doing?” she snaps. “Get down.”

I put my hand up. “Just need to clarify some things.” Copying her, I turn to the pub’s patrons and call out, “Ahoy!” A few people laugh and cheer. I give a small wave before clearing my throat as well. “Aye, it’s true, I had dead codfish mouth when she spelled me with her witchy ways.”

“They were not witchy!” Bonnie shouts.

“But I tightened my mouth tight because, according to local lore, women with long blonde hair and ice-blue eyes could be the Serpent Queen. And I saw it”—I lean forward, getting into the story—“one evening, I saw her lick her lips . . .”

“Serpent tongue,” Lyall says from the side.

“Derived from a basilisk,” Baird calls out from the back.

“Exactly. The elusive serpent tongue. The myth is true, lads—she’s upon us. Slithery, scaly, ready to pop off your boabies, and I’d be damned if I let it touch my tongue. Kiss of death.”

“And then off to the Boaby Stone,” Lyall adds.

I point at him. “Precisely. Beware, lads . . . and lasses, for that matter. The Serpent Queen is among us, and she’s ravenous for her next victim.” I hold up my pint. “Slangevar.”

“Slangevar!” everyone says. With that, they take another sip of their drinks and go back to their conversations.

I hop down and sit back on my bench, looking expectantly at Bonnie. She runs her tongue over her teeth and doesn’t flinch, or even blink. Just stares.

“Aren’t you pleasant company?” she finally says.

I down the rest of my beer and grin. “I think so.”



“Oh, I so have you.”

“No, you don’t,” I scoff.

“Yes, I do.” Bonnie taps the side of her head. “I’m three steps ahead of you, son.”

“That’s what you said the last three times you lost.”

“I mean it this time.” She rubs her hands together and reaches for a glass. She takes a sip and then moves it across the three men’s morris board we borrowed from the pub.

After a rousing stare-down from Bonnie while I finished off the nachos, we glanced over at Dakota and Isla to see how they were doing, and it was as if they were the only ones on the planet. Talking intimately close, hands reaching out across the table to push hair out of their faces, intention in their eyes, never a lull in conversation. Nothing fazed them. Bonnie and I could have both whipped off our clothes and performed a naked jig, and they wouldn’t have noticed.

So, I offered a pub game to Bonnie—one I know I excel at—and she jumped on it.

Three men’s morris, the Scottish way.

Like tic-tac-toe on a wooden grid, but the pieces we move are pint glasses. Every time we move them, we take a sip . . . a small one. Whoever loses has to chug one pint.

Bonnie is swaying to the music filtering from the pub, and she’s starting to show signs of being drunk. It’s kind of funny, because the more she drinks, the more she develops a fake bravado, like she can take on the world and do it one handed.

“Oh, you are going down, Grumpyshire.”

I move my glass and take a sip.

“Aha!” she yells. “Bam. Drink up, sucker.”

She moves her glass, and I stare down at the board.

“Uh, you didn’t win.”

“Yes, I did.” She motions to the line of glasses. “One, two, three. In a row. Suck it.”

“That’s my glass.” I point to the one in the corner.

“No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is. I’ve been drinking out of it this entire time.”

“Then you’ve been moving my glass.” She gasps and reels back, a hand to her chest. “Oh my God, sabotage!” She points at me. “Sabotage. Right here, in broad daylight.”

Technically not broad daylight. It’s nine at night and the sun is still up, but I’m not about to argue with her.

“I’m not sabotaging you—that’s my glass.”

“You know damn well it’s not. You’re just trying to mess with my drunk mind. Well, I’m not taking it. I won—drink up.”

“It’s my glass.”

“God.” She shakes her head. “I knew you’d be a sore loser, but really, Rowan, acting like I’m cheating? Isn’t that beneath you?” She leans over the table, her cleavage in full display. “Drink up, lad.”

I gulp, telling my eyes to look up, but hell . . . I must be feeling my drink too, because I can’t seem to stop looking at her boobs.

“And while you drink, learn some manners. It isn’t polite to stare at a lady’s bosom.”

“Call it a ‘bosom’ and I won’t stare at it,” I say, picking up a glass and chugging. That’s a lie—I’ll still stare.



“I don’t understand what we’re doing here.”

“I think we roll the dice,” I say, studying the backgammon board.

“What are the dice for?”

“Uh . . .” I scratch the side of my head. “To tell us how many spaces to move.”

“Where are the spaces?”

I squint at the board some more. “Can’t be sure. I think it’s missing pieces.”