I’m too frazzled to roll my eyes. “I wasn’t expecting it.”

“But did you want it?” asks Steph. “When he asked you, what was your first thought?”

I blow a strand of hair off my face, wishing all my nerves didn’t feel so wound up. “I thought…please let him be serious. Please don’t let this be a cruel joke.”

“Well, Kayla,” she says, staring at me with knowing eyes. “You have to go.”

“But I can’t just go. It’s not that easy.”

“Okay, let’s ignore your work and mom situation at the moment. And by the way, your mom will be totally fine. I’ll even go check on her if your brothers don’t get their act together.” I give her a grateful smile. “So ignore all that. Is there anything else that would prevent you from going? And I don’t mean externally, like being afraid of jetlag or hating Scottish food or anything like that. I mean inside. Your compass.”

I scrape my teeth over my lip. “I don’t know him,” I say softly. “I met him three weeks ago. I’ve only been intimate with him for one week. You don’t just go off with someone you don’t know to another country. On a whim.”

“Why the fuck not?” Steph asks, giving me a strange look. “You think he’s going to murder you and leave you in a dumpster somewhere?”

“Well, no.”

“Do you trust him?”

My mouth opens but nothing comes out. I have to shrug. “I guess. I mean…can you trust someone you’ve just met?”

“You can do whatever you want,” she says. “Do you trust him?”

I take in a deep breath and look over at Nicola who is watching me curiously. “With my heart?”

Steph tilts her head at me. “Is that what you’re worried about? That you’re going to go there, fall in love, and have to leave him?”

Ouch. One question and my chest feels like a hollowed out tree. “Well, I’m fucking worried about it now!” I tell her, sitting up. I exhale loudly and rub my hands over my face. “I’m worried…I’m worried about that, yeah. I fucking am. But I’m also worried that I’ll be disappointed. That I’ll get to know him and he won’t be the person I think he is.”

“And who do you think he is?”

I give them a soft smile. “I think he’s everything.”

Steph nods and gets up off the couch, heading into the kitchen.

Nicola bites her lip, smiling. “No one has ever been your everything, Kayla. You know you have to go. You’ll kick yourself if you don’t. You don’t want to live with regrets, believe me.”

Steph comes back with the bottle of wine I was chugging out of earlier and three wine glasses. “We should all be wined out at this point, but I don’t care.” She pours the rest of the wine into the glasses, really nothing more than a splash, and hands one to me.

“We can’t really celebrate anything yet,” I remind her, even though I’m raising my glass anyway.

“We’re celebrating your decision. It’s rare to get a chance like this. You’re taking it, regardless of what the outcome is, and that’s something.” She and Nicola clink their glasses against mine. “Last time we toasted to fucking. This time we’re toasting to…well, more of that. But we’re toasting to you, Kayla. Follow your heart.”

“Cheesy,” I mumble before taking a sip of wine. Cheesy but appropriate. “Do you really mean you’ll check in on my mom?” I ask her.

She puts her hand on my shoulder for a moment, looking me in the eye. “I promise I will.”

“I still don’t know how she’ll feel about it,” I admit.

“She’ll be happy if you’re happy. That’s all moms ever want for us. Well, most of the time. I’m sure my mom wants me to also have a baby soon.”

I look at her in surprise. “She’s starting on you already? You just got married.”

Steph smiles and looks away, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Yeah, well. I can’t say I disagree with her. We’ve already started trying.”

I glance at Nicola to see if she knows this, but she looks just as surprised as I feel.

“Really?” Nicola squeaks. “That’s amazing. Oh, I’m so happy for you.”

I scrunch up my nose. “Really, Steph? You’re joining the mom club with Nicola?”

“It’s not so bad,” Nicola chides me. “You might change your mind one day.”

I glare at her. “You know how much I hate it when people say that.”

She shoots me an evil grin. “Oh, I know. That’s why I like to say it.”

“As I said,” Steph goes on. “We’re trying. Nothing exciting to report except lots of sex, and I know you’re all tired of hearing about that. But what’s exciting is this. You, Kayla. You better start packing.”

It feels like a million bolts of lightning strike me at once. Packing? To go follow Lachlan to Scotland. To live with him for three weeks. To see him play rugby, to watch him with Lionel, to help out with the rescues, to be in another country. To have endless sex for weeks. The prospect is so exciting, so frightening, I feel like I might shatter all across my living room.

“Come on.” Steph slaps me on the shoulder. “We’ll help while we wait for Linden to pick us up.”

My room is a mess, and packing for an impromptu trip across the pond is extremely overwhelming. Is the weather the same as in San Francisco? Is the city casual or upscale? Should I bring any of my vibrators (the answer is yes)?

Luckily Steph and Nicola are here to keep me organized and on track, and every few minutes I feel like jumping up and down for joy. I’m doing this. I’m actually doing this—the wildest, craziest thing I have ever done. And even though the future is uncertain and I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, I have this feeling that it’s going to happen. That feeling is what scares me the most. Because shit. I know, I know  if I go with Lachlan, I will fall head over heels in love with him. I’m already halfway there.

When Linden shows up at my door, it’s time for them to go, and I’m pretty much fully packed. Our goodbyes are kind of sad because I won’t be seeing them for three weeks.

“Say hi to my aunt and uncle,” Linden says, pulling me into a hug that actually feels genuine for once.

“Do you think he’ll be introducing me to the parents?” I ask.

Linden smiles dryly. “Kayla, if he’s invited you to Edinburgh with him, then he’s serious. So, yes. You’ll meet his parents and everyone else—his brother Brigs too, I’m sure. Damn. I’m really fucking jealous.” He looks at Steph. “Want to go to Scotland?”

She shakes her head. “I’m quite happy staying here. But you can live vicariously through Kayla.”

He grimaces. “I’m not too sure about that if she’s going to be shagging my cousin the entire time.”

“You know me,” I say with a shrug, and hug Steph and Nicola, saying my goodbyes. Nicola gets all teary-eyed and I have to smack her  upside the head and tell her to stop that. Steph is a bit more subdued, more overjoyed for me than anything else.

Once they leave, I pick up my phone with shaking hands and call my mom.

“Hey sweetheart,” she says to me. “How was your trip to Napa? Did you have any good wine?”

“All the wine was good,” I tell her, leaning against the kitchen counter. For some reason my legs are shaking, and not in the way they were when Lachlan and I first had sex here. God, that was good fucking sex.

“And the hotel?” my mother asks, and I have to shake my head to get those sex thoughts out of my head. “Tell me about the hotel. I remember your father and I used to go to Napa all the time when he first came over from Iceland. We would always stay at the same place right in town. So pretty.”

I inhale deeply. Talking about my father isn’t making this easy on me. “The hotel was very nice. Had its own vineyard. We’ll go one day. A mother-daughter trip.”

“That would be very lovely. If I’m feeling better, of course.”

Ugh. It’s like I have one foot in Scotland already and I’m reminded of why my other foot needs to be here.

“Kayla?” she asks, and I realize I’ve been silent.

“Yeah.” I clear my throat. “Listen, Mom. Something happened…and I need to talk to you about it. I need your advice.”