Somewhere New (Isle of Doughnut #1)

Chapter Seven

CHAPTER SEVEN

ASTER

C allum was avoiding me.

I went through a series of emotions once this fact became too apparent to be ignored any longer. One day of not seeing him was strange. Two was unusual. By day three, I couldn’t deny there was something going on.

First came anger. Callum was obviously some kind of man-child who couldn’t accept sharing his space so he was hiding. How juvenile.

Then I switched to bargaining. If I got up earlier, maybe I’d catch him. If I went back to the cabin for lunch, he would be there. If I stayed awake a little longer, he would walk through the front door.

Nothing.

I bypassed depression and landed straight on acceptance. This was Callum’s home, and my presence clearly made him uncomfortable. If he wanted to manage that by making himself almost totally absent, then I had to roll with it. His cabin, his rules.

I say almost totally absent, since there was clear evidence he hadn’t abandoned me and found a cave to dwell in for the duration of my stay. It would have been a reasonable conclusion, as abandoning helpless flora students might run in his family.

Each evening when I returned to the cabin, fresh bread and a steaming meal waited on the kitchen counter. Each morning, I woke in Callum’s bed despite wrapping myself in blankets each night on the sofa. His toothbrush moved around in the pot in the bathroom and his folded clothes depleted from the top of the chest of drawers.

Apart from setting my alarm for 2 a.m. and forcing him to talk to me in the dead of night, I had to respect that Callum didn’t want to be around me. His unfailing ability to have hot meals ready yet be gone when I strode into the main room of the cabin was a mystery, but if he wanted to keep me well fed and well rested while not spending any time with me, that was fine.

I didn’t need him to help with the project I’d come to Doughnut to complete. After my day of aimless exploring, I’d gotten to work. I spent a couple of days mapping out the areas I wanted to study, making sure to pick a selection from near the loch, along the cliff-lined coast, up in the snowier parts of the mountains, and in the grassy hills around the cabin. I’d sketched and marked maps, then placed the examination squares I’d study in the coming months.

And I wasn’t actually alone. Albert had become an extension of me. He’d rounded up a gang of goat cronies who appeared as I spread out a blanket each day at lunchtime and disappeared once they’d nabbed the last chunk of bread.

They were a rowdy bunch and good company, even if they were only around to benefit from Callum’s superior cooking skills. Normally, I would have named them, but I was wary of doing so after Callum’s reaction to the-name-that-shall-not-be-spoken. That was one item on the ever-growing list of things I would have spoken about with him if he wasn’t choosing avoidance over the infinite pleasure of getting to know me.

It took a week for me to break.

The day started out like all the others since I’d come to Doughnut. Wake up in Callum’s bed despite falling asleep on the sofa, then stumble into the main room to find Albert and a steaming bowl of porridge waiting. Head outside after breakfast and set up examination squares until the sun crept towards the horizon.

But I’d organised a FaceTime call with Dad late in the afternoon, so headed back to the cabin while the sun was high in the sky. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping this change to my routine would mean I’d catch Callum making bread or one of his epic stews, but the cabin was empty.

I stashed my backpack in a corner of the bedroom, changed into a pair of Hulk pyjama bottoms and a thick jumper, then tapped at my phone. I bounced on the sofa as it rang. I hadn’t chatted to Dad for a whole week, the longest we’d ever gone without speaking. The gap was due to his wickedly long shifts at the station and the necessity of trekking all over the island to get my project kicked off.

I bounced harder as the call connected. Dad’s face filled the screen.

‘Aster, stop moving,’ he said, instead of any normal greeting.

I attempted to limit my jiggling as I grinned at him. ‘Dad, I’ve missed you.’

‘I’ve missed you too, son.’

I swear I was super happy for the whole conversation. Dad told me about his latest visit to a school to explain fire safety—exasperated despite all the other lessons he’d taught that children were far more interested in his helmet than in stopping fires—and how a Starbucks had opened where his favourite coffee shop used to be. I confirmed my basic bitch status by lamenting the lack of pumpkin spice lattes on remote Scottish islands and explained the progress I’d made on my project.

I might have neglected to mention that the person I was staying with was avoiding me like I had weird cooties and that my best friend was now a goat—sorry, Lukey—but those were things Dad didn’t need to know.

I didn’t realise I’d missed those things out because they were wildly depressing until we ended the call and I promptly burst into tears.

Okay. I’d admit it. Maybe being alone wasn’t fine. Perhaps I hadn’t entirely bypassed depression after all.

I hiccupped and wrapped a blanket around myself. It wasn’t that goats weren’t great, because they definitely were, but they weren’t people. I hadn’t realised before how much I did need another person to talk to. I dominated a lot of conversations, but I still valued the contributions of lesser mortals.

I’d come to this island to learn to be alone romantically—and to study the flora, obviously—but I hadn’t planned on being completely alone.

Since there was clearly a law on Doughnut that Callum would always appear to bear witness to my lowest ebbs, the door of the cabin crashed open. I stood up as he stomped in, like being taller would make crying by myself less pathetic.

‘Aster?’ Callum’s forehead creased with concern as he shut the door and tugged off his boots. ‘What’s wrong?’

I sniffed, trying to regain a modicum of composure.

‘I’m so fucking lonely,’ I blurted out. Wonderful. Really slick there, Aster.

Callum blinked, his thick black eyebrows frozen midway to his hairline.

‘Okay. I know you don’t want me here. That’s fine. It’s weird that your sister arranged for me to stay somewhere that only has one bed and is clearly the cabin of someone who enjoys living alone,’ I babbled, using the blanket around my shoulders to mop up the tears and snot covering my face. ‘It’s just, I’m not used to living alone. I’m not good at it. And I understand that your way of dealing with an unwanted person in your space is to?—’

‘I don’t not want you here.’

I stopped talking at Callum’s interruption, scrunching my face as I puzzled out the double negative.

‘You’re welcome here,’ he clarified, looking like every word caused him an unhealthy amount of pain. Not that any amount of pain was healthy.

‘Okay? Okay.’ I nodded, trying to absorb what he’d said despite it being at odds with almost every one of his actions since I’d arrived. I balled my hands into the blanket. Callum might not mind my presence, but he probably wasn’t going to be overjoyed about the request I was about to make. ‘Since I’ve been here, I’ve been pretty much alone barring my uncomfortable arrival, and the less said about that the better. Albert is the best goat in the world, but he’s not up for cuddles and shit. Not a good hugger, is that goat.’

I trailed off, waiting for Callum to connect the dots. But his face was locked down. He was making me work for it. Fine. Let it not be said that I’d hold on to my dignity when a snuggle was at stake .

‘If you’re comfortable with it, I was wondering if you would maybe mind giving me a hug?’

The words were barely out of my mouth before I had a whole lot of Callum up in my space. I didn’t know how he’d cleared the distance between us in the millisecond after I stopped talking, but there was no hesitancy. His arms, which were as strong as I remembered, wound around my back and his face pressed into the crease where my neck met my shoulder.

Fighting with the blanket now bracketing me, I freed my arms and wound them around Callum’s neck. One of my hands landed on his broad back, while the other smoothed across his collar and brushed the soft hair at his nape.

He huffed into my skin. ‘Is this okay?’

My loneliness fell away with a dull thud. ‘This is fucking amazing.’

‘Good,’ Callum mumbled, his short beard rough on my skin. I’d have red marks across my neck for the next day or so, but it wasn’t like there was anyone up in the mountains I’d have to explain them to.

I clung to Callum, using the way he breathed deep and didn’t loosen his arms as encouragement that he was enjoying the prolonged hug as much as me. This close, I could smell his fresh sweat and the coolness of outdoors that had to always cover his skin with all the time he spent out there.

‘Don’t disappear again,’ I whispered, the demand slipping free before I could consider how needy I wanted to be today. Asking for a hug was probably enough for a normal person, but I wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t pushing the boundaries of social niceties.

‘I won’t.’ It was a sign of how correctly I’d interpreted Callum’s actions over the last few days that he didn’t attempt to pretend he hadn’t been practising Aster-avoidance.

‘Promise?’ I rubbed my thumb in a gentle circle on the back of his neck.

He shivered, but his arms remained tight around me. ‘I promise.’

I pushed up onto my tiptoes to press my face into the side of his neck, wondering if he could feel my cheek-splitting smile against his skin.