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This time he grins. “There’s a great huge one in the middle of Holyrood park, sweetheart. But don’t worry, it’s been extinct for about a million years.”
“It would be my luck if this was the weekend it woke up,” I grumble.
Callum coughs out a laugh. “I’m guessing geology isn’t your strong point, then? I said extinct, not dormant.”
“Same difference,” I mutter.
He catches my hand, pressing my palm to his groin. “The difference between dormant and extinct, babe, is that with dormant you've got a chance of it waking up. As in my cock has been lying dormant for a number of hours, but right now there's definite signs of activity.”
I press harder, feeling him stiffen against my palm. “Seems like there's a big chance of explosion,” I whisper.
“Eruption, Amy,” he retorts, his hand still firmly on mine. “Keep with the game.”
Cocky Scottish bastard, I think, but I test out his theory anyway.
* * *
He drags me out of bed at stupid o'clock the next morning. The sun's barely risen when we're sipping coffee in the garden room, propping our feet up on stools and looking out to the lush vegetation surrounding the small gravelled courtyard. The bushes are strung with lights, and I imagine it must look magical at night time, as though a thousand fireflies have come to land.
“This would be a lovely place to sleep,” I say. “If it wasn't so bloody cold. Maybe we should come in the summer, we could set up camp in here.”
I don't even feel embarrassed suggesting we'll still be together next summer.
“I can tell you've never been to Scotland before,” he remarks. “It's always bloody cold, even in the summer.”
After breakfast we head out to do some shopping on George Street, where the higher-end boutiques are found. To my surprise Callum is a laid-back customer, rifling through racks and showing me things he likes. He buys me a leather jacket and a woollen scarf to make up for the fact I underestimated how much colder it would be here than in London. Then he drags me into an elegant shoe shop, where he makes me try on flat, comfortable shoes, assuring me I'll be glad of them before the day is out.
I don't doubt him for a second.
“I didn't picture you as a shopper,” I tell him, as we head down Princes Street towards Holyrood Park. My arm is slipped inside his, and I'm luxuriating in the fact we don't know anybody here. It's so nice to be able to show him affection in public, to walk arm in arm just like any other couple.
“What do you mean?” he asks. “Everybody shops, don't they?”
“They do, but most men aren't as enthusiastic as you,” I tease. “I think you actually enjoy it.”
“Is that a bad thing? Don't all girls like shopping?”
“This girl does,” I tell him. “And it's not a bad thing at all.”
Holyrood Park takes my breath away. It's hard to believe such beauty can lie so close to a city centre. It's alive with grass and gorse, lochs and knolls. At the centre, rising majestically from a series of hills, is Arthur's Seat—the long extinct volcano Callum promised me. It's as though somebody dropped a little bit of the Highlands into the city, the wild nature co-existing peacefully with the old brownstone of the town.
“It's beautiful,” I say.
Callum seems bemused by my response. “You're like a kid who's never seen the sea before,” he says, putting his arm around me. “It's only a park.”
I shake my head. “This isn't a park. London has parks. This is like a piece of
magic. I can't believe you got to grow up so close to this. I'd have spent most of my life here if this was me.”
He seems enchanted by my response to his hometown, pulling me to him and kissing me. I kiss him back eagerly, sliding my hands into the back pockets of his jeans, and more than one passer by clears their throat loudly at us.
“Are we making a spectacle of ourselves?” I ask, still clinging tightly to him.
“Who cares?”
When we get to the foot of Arthur's Seat, Callum suggests I replace my shoes with the flats we bought back in the boutique. Though I roll my eyes, I follow his suggestion. The volcano—extinct and all—looks higher here than it does from the distance.
We follow the main route around to the right—a gentle climb at first, which Callum assures me isn't strenuous. Passing through the broad valley of Hunter's Bog, we ascend upwards on the narrow dirt path. Though it only takes twenty minutes or so to get to the top, I'm already captured by the beauty.
