Somewhere New (Isle of Doughnut #1)

Chapter Eight

CHAPTER EIGHT

CALLUM

I didn’t fully relax into holding Aster. I remained vigilant, ready for the first sign he wanted me out of his space.

I tensed when he sighed, his breath rushing over the side of my neck, but he didn’t step away. His fingers grasped my collar and danced in incomprehensible patterns between my shoulder blades.

I would hold him forever if he let me.

I’d watched as he’d finished setting up squares of twine around short wooden stakes earlier than usual and hiked back to the cabin. My annoyance had been illogical. Aster had never agreed to any kind of routine—that would involve talking to one another—but I needed to take the bread out of the proving drawer in the next half hour otherwise the loaf would be ruined.

I’d lingered outside the cabin, hoping that after Aster finished chatting to his dad, he’d leave. I’d only realised I was too focused on eavesdropping when the goat I was meant to be examining bit my wrist.

‘That’s unkind,’ I admonished her, then held my hands up when she bared her teeth. The expectant mothers were getting cranky. They didn’t appreciate being manhandled, and especially didn’t appreciate me drifting off in the middle of a check-up.

I’d lived so far from people for too long. Aster fascinated me, but I would have been captivated by this overheard conversation anyway. The love between the father and son was evident in every word leaving their mouths. They clearly took such joy in each other’s company, even through a phone screen.

Like when Aster cried as he looked at the empty husk of my family home, listening to this conversation with his father made me ache. And not just because Aster didn’t mention me at all, which shouldn’t have been a surprise since I’d made it my mission to avoid him. No, the ache came from that place inside longing for this kind of easy love no matter how many times I squashed and denied it.

The joyful banter didn’t cease until the call ended. That’s why it took a few seconds for what happened afterwards to register. All of Aster’s words had clearly been formed through beaming smiles while talking to his dad, so I couldn’t immediately decipher his choked breathing once the call ended.

I stood up when I realised he was crying, and I knew the avoidance I’d been practising couldn’t continue.

Aster’s scent had become no less intriguing. Even without that, everything I’d observed of him in hidden snatches made me want to get closer. The arguments that I had to be alone and I didn’t deserve friendship sounded weak when someone I desperately wanted to know was in my home. Aster wouldn’t be here forever. Once he was gone, I would go back to the life I should be living. This time with him would be a brief reprieve from the yawning loneliness of the rest of my life.

I’d been half thinking these things as each day passed, but when I heard Aster crying in the cabin the last thread of my self-control snapped. I couldn’t leave him to be sad alone. I’d raced across the grass and crashed inside.

What followed were a series of unreal events. I cringed at myself for making Aster feel unwelcome, but of course he’d interpreted my absence in that way.

Then he’d hinted at wanting me to touch him.

I’d barely breathed before he clarified, and hoped he would be too distracted by the embrace to question how quickly I’d crossed the room.

He couldn’t know extracting the promise that I wouldn’t disappear again was unnecessary. I’d resisted closeness with Aster, but now I knew he wanted me here, nothing would keep me away. Not my dark history, not my habitual aloneness, not the frightening idea that letting someone close was what had ruined my life before.

I breathed deep, letting Aster’s ever-shifting scent fill my lungs. I was exactly where I should be. At least for now.

‘You’re a good hugger,’ Aster mumbled into my shirt.

I didn’t know how to reply. I hadn’t had much hugging practice, and it was lucky desperate clinging appealed to him. I didn’t think he’d want to hear how wonderful his arms felt around me. I’d not thought I’d craved this before, had gone years touching others in a purely perfunctory manner, but this hug hadn’t even ended yet and I was already longing for the next one .

Despite that, when Aster edged his feet back I loosened my arms and stepped away.

To resist staring into wide brown eyes framed by long lashes, I grabbed the bread from the proving drawer. I washed my hands, spread flour over the counter, then pounded air out of the springy dough.

My shoulders stiffened when Aster stood beside me, leaning his hip on the counter. It wasn’t that I didn’t want him close, but I didn’t know how to be around anyone else. I’d been alone for too long.

‘Are you mad at the bread? Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather you took your rage out on dough than on me or an unsuspecting goat, but has it wronged you in some way?’

I buried my fist in the dough. ‘I’m knocking the air out.’

Aster shrugged, his eyes tracking me as I shaped the loaf and placed it on a baking tray. ‘I’ve never seen anyone make bread before, except on Bake Off . They don’t make knocking look quite so vicious.’

‘What’s Bake Off ?’ I opened the proving drawer and settled the dough inside.

Aster went through a series of complicated arm movements, shaking his head. ‘You. You don’t. Bake Off . Really?’

Despite how his voice rose higher with every word, I wasn’t sure anything he’d said constituted a question. I kept quiet as I walked over to the fridge to grab the beef joint I’d defrosted overnight and a handful of vegetables.

Aster pressed a palm to his chest and forcibly slowed his breathing. I had to reach around him to get a knife and chopping board, but I didn’t ask him to move. I liked him close, liked not having to strain to hear the steady thump of his heart .

‘Let’s start with the basics. You know who Paul Hollywood is, right?’

I set a pan on the stovetop and poured in a dash of oil. ‘No.’

‘How am I only now realising you don’t have a TV?’ Aster’s face was a mask of disbelief. ‘What do you do with yourself after a long day of roaming the mountains and whatever outdoorsy shit you get up to?’

‘Eat.’ I turned the gas on under the pan and stripped the outer layers off an onion. ‘Read. Sleep.’

‘All acceptable activities.’ Aster nodded pensively. ‘We’ll be returning to the reading because I need to know your favourite authors and series and the reasons for such favouritism in detail. But seriously. TV. You’re missing out.’

I chopped the onion and threw it in the pan. It landed with a tangy sizzle. Before I could reply, Aster charged across the room. He returned with his laptop, which he set on the deep windowsill behind the sink.

‘We need to start your education pronto.’ He clicked through a series of options. ‘I’ve only got two months and three weeks to get you up to date with the wonder that is TV. We’ll start with Nadiya’s season of Bake Off , since it’s the best and you need to see Mary Berry in action, then we’ll move on to Friends and Parks and Rec .’

‘I’ve watched some Friends .’ I picked out the familiar title in the jumble of words Aster threw at me over the jolly tune playing from his laptop. A series of cakes flashed on the screen.

‘You’ve watched some. Please define some.’

When I looked up from seasoning the beef, his eyes were narrowed. I wanted to lean over and kiss his wrinkled nose .

I snatched my gaze away and focused on the stew, mumbling vague answers to his continued questions. I couldn’t blame that impulse on Aster’s scent. The cooking onions and raw meat basically overpowered it.

No, this was something else. His proximity. His enthusiasm to share something with me. The way his face scrunched when he was sceptical.

I filled the kettle with water and lowered the beef into the pan. Temporary friendship with Aster was good, but nothing else could happen. I wouldn’t force myself on him, and he wouldn’t find me attractive after I’d avoided him for a week and could barely form sentences around him.

We’d be friends and I’d ignore anything else I wanted. It would be fine.

And it was. Over the next week, we settled into a comfortable rhythm. I waited each morning for Aster to get up so we could eat breakfast together, nodding along as he gave variations of the same lecture that I shouldn’t move him to my bed at night because the sofa was good enough for him. I’d make our lunches, then we set off on our separate ways. For hours, I’d hunt down goats and check on the strategically placed huts, ready for them to seek shelter when they gave birth. Late in the afternoons, we returned to the cabin. While Aster nattered about his day and explained the thousands of thoughts popping into his head, I made bread and dinner. We watched TV, then I waited each night for his snores to fill the air before carrying him through to my bed and retreating to sleep on the sofa.

He kept hugging me. In the morning, his hair messy with sleep. Before we set out across the mountains, his body cushioned by multiple layers of fabric. If our paths crossed during the day, his chest knocked the air from mine as he flew into my arms. And always, the long hugs when we returned to the cabin at the end of the day.

It was perfect, or as close to perfect as my life could get.

Bonnie must have sensed it. She’d assured me that becoming Alpha hadn’t done anything but heighten the abilities she already had. Even though her heart didn’t skip a beat, I wondered if she’d found a loophole around our inability to lie to one another.

‘Bonnie wants to have us over for lunch tomorrow,’ Aster murmured into where he was cushioned against my chest. He’d gotten back to the cabin before me today. His hair was damp from his shower.

For the first time since he’d asked me to hug him a week ago, I was the one who stepped away. ‘What?’

Aster extracted his phone from the front pocket of his bright yellow hoodie. ‘Yeah. She said it’s about time she apologised for almost killing me and that I should bring her loser brother down to the village for lunch.’ He tucked his phone away and raised his hands. ‘Her words, not mine.’

I walked over to the fridge, busying myself with prepping tonight’s stew. Aster and I had been living inside a bubble, and it was about to pop. I didn’t realise how stiffly I was holding myself until I finished pouring water over a pan of chopped vegetables and a soft hand rubbed between my shoulder blades.

‘We don’t have to go, you know?’ Aster left his hand in place so he half hugged me as he leant to look at my face.

I closed my eyes, then twisted to rest my forehead on his shoulder. His hand moved in circles at the top of my back.

‘You go.’ I raised my head and stepped away to grab a couple of chicken breasts from the fridge. ‘I have things to get in the village. I’ll give you a lift down. ’

I could see how Bonnie hoped this would turn out. Force me to live with someone, and magically all the problems between us and in my life would be solved.

If it took rejecting her invitation once more for her to get the message that we could never have a real relationship, then so be it.