Somewhere New (Isle of Doughnut #1)

Epilogue

EPILOGUE

LUCAS

TWO MONTHS LATER

‘ L ook, Lukey. Can you see those teeny-weeny dots? Those will be your best friends from now on. Except for me, of course. Not even the most wondrous pygmy goat—and those fuckers are pretty wondrous—could usurp me. Would a pygmy goat save your life four times like I have? I think not. They wouldn’t even save mine once, and that was a goat I’d formed a freaking bond with. Did I tell you about when I got trapped under a boulder and Albert abandoned me?’

‘Yeah, you did.’

My words didn’t deter Aster, like I knew they wouldn’t. He babbled on about how he’d been mortally wounded after he’d purposefully tripped into a valley. The first couple of times Aster told me this story, I asked him to explain exactly what tripping purposefully looked like. The resultant demonstrations weren’t worth the damage to both my person— bruises on my cheek and chest—and property—I’d stopped buying any lamp that cost more than a fiver years ago.

Aster nattering in the background, I gazed at the approaching island and wondered—not for the first time—how I’d ended up here. I understood the literal logistics—it wasn’t like I’d fallen into a waking coma for the past two months—but between Aster barrelling into my examination room while I manipulated a golden retriever’s anal glands and stepping onto this boat, there was a step missing.

I hadn’t, at any point, actually agreed to come here.

At first, I’d been caught up in Aster’s excitement. It was impossible not to be. He’d been a different person since coming back to London. Still his distractable self, but quieter. Some of it was steadiness that came from being madly in love and being madly loved back, but some was sadness. He’d told me in a great rush about his time on the island—with far too much detail about his and Callum’s sexual exploits—and how they had fallen in love and he was returning to the island after he finished his master’s.

We’d sat and stared at each other for long seconds after Aster’s monologue, then both promptly burst into tears.

Aster living on a remote island in the back end of nowhere while I lived in London had never been the plan. We had separate lives, separate dreams, but one thing that never changed when either of us imagined our futures was our proximity to each another. His trip to Scotland was the longest we’d spent apart since Aster sat down next to me in preschool and explained at length why I should share my cookie with him.

I wasn’t sure I’d agreed to that either, but his pudgy hands had split the treat in two and we’d smiled at each other as we chewed. Best friends, instantly .

Melancholy lingered between us since Aster came home. He’d gotten everything he wanted. A dream job. A dream guy. But it came at a cost.

That’s why, after he crashed into the examination room then promptly exited when he saw where my hand was, I’d been swept up in his wild enthusiasm. He shouted through the firmly closed door that there was a vacancy for a vet on the island. He’d already applied for me. And after a recommendation from my boss that Aster had extracted through a combination of perseverance and bribery, I’d been offered the job. Which he’d accepted on my behalf.

We’d come up with our signatures together. Sometimes our ability to commit forgery was helpful. Sometimes it was not.

What followed were weeks of Aster gushing over how much I was going to love the island and shopping for an improbable amount of thermal underwear, which he said I’d thank him for when winter came. He’d enrolled me on a short course on goat care that filled my evenings.

There wasn’t a pause when I could consider if this was what I wanted. It made my best friend too happy for me to utter a word of doubt.

Mum was no help. She’d been hinting for months that it was time I moved out and spread my metaphorical wings. I thought moving hundreds of miles away would dampen her enthusiasm to oust me, but she hugged me and said how proud she was. I worried about leaving her alone, while she happily made plans to convert my bedroom into a craft studio.

Even Aster’s dad, usually the voice of reason, didn’t make a peep. Maybe because—like me—he’d been too saddened by the Aster we’d said goodbye to before he went to Scotland. He was a wreck. Jamie did a number on him. The smiling Aster we got back was too good to let go of. Harry had even been talking about how he’d always wanted to retire to a rural community.

So here I was. Sea breeze lashing my hair away from my forehead. My eyes fixed on the steadily growing mountains. A path set before me that I hadn’t planned on, but which seemed to make everyone around me ecstatically happy.

Maybe I was happy too. I wasn’t too sure about leaving London, but if the choice was between living in the city without Aster or on some random island with him, then the random island won every time.

He grabbed my hand where it clutched the boat’s railing. ‘Everyone’s come to welcome us. Lukey, you’ll get to meet the whole gang at once.’

‘Perfect.’ I swallowed a lump of nervousness. Aster was the outgoing one, the one who spoke for me when my palms got sweaty and words refused to form. At least he would be the centre of attention when we reached land. He was the prodigal, whereas I was the friend no one knew yet.

‘Callum and Bonnie and Joshua and Louisa and Kit and some of the council oldies and Callum.’ Aster’s hands moved too erratically for me to get a handle on who was who.

‘You said Callum twice,’ I muttered. My chest tightened as I stared at the group on the jetty. ‘Which one is he?’

‘The fucking hotter-than-the-sun one,’ Aster crowed happily. ‘Just look for the fittest guy, and you’ve found Callum.’

I leant towards Aster, trying to figure out which of the group he was making heart eyes at. With the bobbing of the boat and Aster dancing about, it was impossible to tell.

One of his regular laments was that I wasn’t the best judge of when a guy was hot. Aster often complained his life would have been much simpler if I’d admit being straight was incredibly boring and marry him.

I examined the group on the jetty. The old men I could discount immediately because although Aster said Callum was a bit older than us, the sexual activities he’d told me about in great detail required a level of stamina a more elderly gent wouldn’t be capable of.

That left three guys. One of them had his arm slung around the shoulders of a woman whose eyebrows came into focus way before the rest of her face. Judging by the way she nuzzled into his neck, this was Bonnie and Joshua. Unless there was some polyamory going on that Aster had decided not to tell me about. And since Aster had never once decided not to tell me something, I guessed I was correct.

One of the remaining guys stood apart from the rest of the group. He was tall and broad and generally intimidating. We were closing in on the island, so I could make out more details about our welcoming party. This guy had an impressive pair of eyebrows too, but whereas Bonnie’s quirked as she jostled her husband, this guy’s brows pulled down in a deep frown. If it wasn’t clear enough he was a tough guy, he also flexed his huge muscles around a pair of goats, one tucked under each arm.

I groaned under my breath. I’d wondered when it would begin. I hoped I would at least be able to step off the boat, maybe have a shower and a warm meal, before people started bringing their pets for me to look at.

I wouldn’t be able to say no to this guy. He would crush me beneath one of his mud-caked boots. Or drop-kick me into the ocean. Or squish me between his overly muscled finger and thumb .

He wasn’t the kind of guy Aster would go for. The other guy, standing beside Bonnie and Joshua, was much more likely to be Callum.

A patterned scarf swayed around his neck. The colours perfectly complemented a green knitted jumper and dark blue jeans that showed off his lean frame. He was probably the same height as me, maybe an inch or two taller. Whereas my hair fell in a messy tangle, his was a mass of curls. Like his creamy skin, his hair was a shade lighter than mine, light brown to my almost black.

He smiled as the boat pulled close to the jetty. I wasn’t in the habit of calling other men’s lips pretty, but I’d make an exception for him. They were pink and wide. When he grinned, a dimple formed in one cheek.

I could see why Aster would fall for someone like him. I wished, as my eyes travelled over his body again, that I didn’t know in soul-crushing detail exactly what he liked in the bedroom. It was hard to form a friendship with someone who you knew had a strange fixation with your best friend’s inner thighs.

Captain Errol flung a rope over the side of the boat and settled a gangplank into place with the same calm efficiency he did everything. The only time I’d seen his face in anything other than a gentle frown was when he first saw Aster. Grinning, he’d practically thrown himself off the boat and into my friend’s arms. I was too startled by how much rubbing of faces and necks there was to say anything other than a quick hello when he stepped away.

Since the boat set off, he hadn’t said a word. I didn’t want to blame that entirely on a less than ideal introduction, but I was determined my first meeting with Callum would go well. Better than well: good. Swimmingly. I needed to get on with him. He was the love of my best friend’s life.

No pressure then. Wiping my hands on the sides of my jeans, I grabbed my bags and walked down the gangplank. Since Aster had insisted on bringing basically the entirety of his life to the island, I left him to wrangle his luggage with Errol.

I could do this on my own. I didn’t need Aster to introduce me to someone I basically knew anyway because of the amount of repeated stories I’d heard about him.

I dragged my suitcase across the jetty and held out my free hand. ‘Hi, I’m Lucas. You must be Callum.’

Conversations around us fell silent. Callum—who was even prettier up close, with wide brown eyes and flawless skin—stared between my face and my outstretched hand. His scarf moved in the wind, green diamonds on a navy background.

A familiar laugh broke through the quiet. ‘This is the best day ever.’

I twisted around. Aster had abandoned his bags to throw himself at the big goat-holding man. Only, he wasn’t holding the goats any more. They danced around his legs. No, his arms were now full of my best friend.

‘Oh, shit,’ I said under my breath, my face instantly flaming red. ‘No, Aster, don’t?—’

I didn’t think my best friend—and I would be seriously rethinking that title after this—heard my stuttered attempts to stop him.

‘I told Lukey that Callum was the hottest guy on the island.’ Aster pointed gleefully at the guy opposite me. ‘My bestie thinks Kit is hot.’

Around me, strangers laughed. No jeering or anything, it was all perfectly good-natured, but then they hadn’t just made an utter fool of themselves in front of their new community.

I wondered if there was a second cabin in the mountains I could hide in. Or whether Errol would consider taking me back to the mainland. Immediately.

I startled when a hand slipped into mine. I hadn’t realised I’d left my arm outstretched. I swung around to look at Kit.

Pretty and kind. His eyes crinkled with sympathy. He squeezed my hand once before letting go. His palm was warm and broad, his fingers long.

‘Don’t worry.’ His voice was soft. A cosy blanket I wanted to wrap myself up in. ‘They’ll get distracted by something else soon. Like how Aster wanted me to pick out the best scarf for a sexy dance or how Bonnie fell into the sea last Tuesday after the council meeting because she was, and I quote, literally too mad to see straight .’

More laughter erupted, drowning out Bonnie’s and Aster’s outraged protests.

I kept my eyes on Kit. Thank you , I mouthed.

He smiled, and that dimple dipped into life again. ‘Any time.’