Page 8 of Mistletoe Wishes and Dragon Kisses

Chuckling despite the situation, Chris snorted, “You’re such an asshole, Mick. Ya’ know that, right?”

“I do,” his brother chuckled even harder. “And it’s taken years of practice to get this good, but that does not mean that I’m wrong. Big Daddy and Mother Archer are shovelin' shit for the rest of forever. They have pooper scoopers the size of snow shovels and are excavating dirty kitty litter twenty–four–seven–three–sixty–five, so it would be a good opening line."

“You do have a point.”

“Lookie there,” Mick teased. “You can still laugh.”

“Ha!”

"Yep! Just like that, Bro, and that laughter will get you through this. Vi, Elle and all the other ladies say Glo has the best sense of humor of all of them. She's gonna understand. You know she is, but the longer you…”

"The longer I wait, the harder it's gonna be. She’s gonna worry about why it took me so long. She’ gonna think it’s becauseI doubt that she was made for me, and I was made for her. Then she’s gonna have more doubts, and then her doubts are gonna have doubts, and when Glo doubts something, she…”

“…gets a little wand happy, even though she doesn’t need one,” they barked with laughter.

As the levity finally died down, Chris had to admit–even only to himself and Ríoghnán, aka Rí, the Dragon King with whom he shared his soul–that he did feel better. If nothing else, Mick made him laugh, and that always helped him think straight.

Maybe his older brother was right. Maybe makin’ Glo laugh would help him get his foot in the door. Of course, he would still have to explain why it had taken him four years to come and find her.

There was no doubt in his mind that he had to be honest–blatantly honest. No matter how humbling and embarrassing it was, he had to tell her the truth.

First of all, he would tell her that for every minute of every day for all the many decades he’d been on the Isle of Skye, and wherever else he and his brothers had been. He would make sure that she knew he hadn’t wanted to go away without saying goodbye and hadn’t spoken to his Uncle Diar for months. The joke would come in when he told her about how on his third night in the old Archer Homestead that he had shaved some of his uncle’s beard off and bleached the other side a bright yellow.

While she was laughing, because he knew she would love what he’d done, he would admit that he’d made the trip to Purdy Petals precisely forty–seven times over the last four years. He would tell her that at least half of those times he’d sat at the end of her very long driveway with the motor of his fire engine red Harley Davidson Fat Boy idling while he and Rí argued over what he should do. He would admit that he’d only won every single dispute by trapping the old Dragon King in the back of his mind and refusing to let him out. Then he had turned themotorcycle around and taken the long way back to Nowhere, metaphorically kicking himself in the ass for being such a dipshit.

Then he would confess that the longer he’d waited, the more scared he’d gotten. He would tell her the whole truth and nothing but the truth. He would admit that he never thought he was good enough for her, and no matter how many times the Dragon King with whom he shared his soul and his three brothers told him how stupid he was and that he and Gloria were made for each other, he couldn’t shake the feeling that she deserved better.

He wouldn’t mention that he’d been on a couple of missions with his Uncle Diar, Uncle Bryan, and his Granddad Cayden, or that he’d been there every time her cousins were in trouble. None of that mattered. After all, those battles and the following rescues hadn’t taken four years, and that was the point, wasn’t it? He was the idiot for waiting four very, very,verylong years.

“Yo, Bro, you there,” Mick happily called to him.

Snaping out of his thoughts, Chris instantly chuckled, “Yeah, I’m here. Just thinkin’.”

“Oh, shit,” Mick laughed out loud. “Are you hurt?”

“Ha. Ha. Ha.”

“Alright, my work here is done, and I need to get goin’,” his happily chuckled. “It’s my night to cook dinner.”

“Damn, Son! Vi has you all domesticated and shit.”

"And I've never been happier. Oh! And I make a mean Chicken Kiev, roasted asparagus, and Caesar salad. Watched some of those cooking videos on the Ghoul–Tube that Em and Noss put up, and voilà, I was a chef. When you and Glo get done with the honeymoon, I’ll whip up dinner for all of us to celebrate.”

“Okay, Chef Mick, what about dessert? You know I gotta have my dessert."

“For tonight, Lucy gave me the recipe for Vi’s favorite chocolate covered cherries. They are damned good, too, if I do say so myself.”

“Alright, Betty Crocker,” Chris teased. “Go put on your apron and get busy. Keep that Mate of yours happy, ‘cause I’m not lettin’ you crash on the couch if you piss her off.”

“Don’t you worry about that,” his brother answered, his tone dreamy and blissfully happy. “This Mating thing is for life–no more couches for me. Just you wait and see, Brother. Just you wait and see. You’re gonna be just as dreamy–in–love as the rest of us before you know it.”

“I’ll let ya’ know if and when that happens.”

“When, Kiddo. It’s definitelywhen.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Chris nodded even though his brother couldn’t see the expression. “I know you’re right. Glo is the girl for me. I knew it all those years ago, and the feeling has only gotten stronger every day.”

“See? You got this.”

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