Becoming New (Isle of Doughnut #2)

Chapter one

LUCAS

Floorboards creaked overhead. I gripped the knife I’d been using to slice rounds of goat’s cheese. It had been my hope and dream to make it out of the cottage before Kit got up.

‘Do not make a twat of yourself again,’ I muttered.

I’d arrived on Doughnut yesterday – my best friend Aster repeatedly calling the island that during his many stories about his time here finishing off his botany master’s and falling in love had lodged its nickname firmly in my brain – but my schedule was jam-packed for the next few weeks.

No one had said it, but judging from my back-to-back appointments across the island it seemed the previous vet had been letting things slide for a while.

It provided the perfect excuse for spending as little time as possible with my new cottage-mate, although it was annoying that I wouldn’t see my best friend/worst enemy until tomorrow night. I had no spare time before then to trek up the mountains to shout at him.

Aster had been unrepentant when our welcoming committee bundled us into the mayor’s house last night.

He insisted my mistaking Kit for Callum after being told to look for the hottest guy wasn’t anything to be embarrassed about.

Aster said Kit would see it as a compliment.

Everyone else would forget about it, probably already had.

The pink tinge to Kit’s smooth cheeks all evening suggested that at least one person wasn’t unruffled by the case of mistaken identity.

My new cottage-mate barely looked my way as we walked home together last night, his voice just audible as he’d rushed through a tour of his bookshop, then the open plan kitchen/dining/living room above.

He’d ushered me into my bedroom on the top floor, murmuring that I must be tired.

I’d laid awake for hours on my double bed under the sloping ceilings, not an inch of the long summer brightness sneaking past the black-out curtains.

I relived the moment when Aster could have kept his mouth shut and not revealed I’d chosen the wrong hottest guy.

I wondered how irreparable what I’d done was.

Kit had featured in a few of Aster’s Doughnut stories.

He’d sounded sweet and a little shy. Hopefully he wasn’t the type to hold a mistake I’d made as soon as I stepped onto the island against me.

All I needed to do now was be the most perfectly normal person to live with ever. Then our rocky introduction would be forgotten, and maybe I could have a friend besides the blabbermouth I couldn’t get to without hiking up a mountain.

The stairs leading to the two bedrooms and the shared bathroom overhead squeaked and clicked as Kit descended.

First a pair of worn black Dr. Martens came into view, then tight fitting jeans.

A thick jumper bulked out Kit’s slim frame.

He was a couple of inches taller than me, but I was more muscled.

Hauling animals on and off examination tables had a use beyond covering me in fur.

Kit’s jumper was deep purple, the scarf wound around his neck a lighter lilac.

His lips, which looked incredibly delicate, stretched into a smile when he spotted me lurking in his kitchen.

His brown hair, lighter than mine and threaded through with strands of burnt gold, tumbled over his forehead in a way my tangled mane point-blank refused to even when Aster spent hours attempting to tame it.

I’d turned from the kitchen counter when Kit entered the room. It would have been the height of rudeness to keep my back to him, but it wasn’t so much ingrained manners as the inability to look anywhere else that kept me facing him as he gracefully stepped away from the staircase.

Aster was wrong last night; I didn’t think Kit was hot. But I did think he looked soft and kind. I really wanted him to forget about my mess up yesterday so that we could be friends.

‘You look lovely,’ I blurted.

I shook my head, my heart galloping. No. Not again.

Kit’s eyes widened as I reached up to grab handfuls of my hair.

A hard thing to do when holding a knife.

The sharpened edge skimmed the top of my ear.

‘Oh, fuck.’ It didn’t hurt, but having a knife anywhere near my face was startling even if I had no one to blame but myself for such proximity.

I dropped the knife. Obviously the best thing to do when holding a sharp blade at head height.

Thankfully, at least I wouldn’t have to add maiming myself to the list of stupid things I’d done since arriving on Doughnut.

The knife bounced off my shoulder and clattered harmlessly to the polished floorboards.

Kit bent quickly to retrieve it, like he didn’t trust me to not fling it across the room next. Good instinct.

‘Sorry I almost stabbed myself in front of you,’ I babbled as I spun to finish my half-made sandwich. I’d chopped off enough cheese to cover a quarter of a slice of bread. That would have to do. ‘And sorry for throwing a weird compliment at you. And for helping myself to your food.’

I slammed together the sandwich. I was fully prepared to shove it in my pocket and bolt downstairs when a hand rested on my shoulder.

‘Hold on.’ Kit leant close to my side. ‘I don’t think you hurt yourself.’

His breath was warm on my ear. I’d not considered that I might have cut myself with the wayward knife. There wasn’t any pain, which suggested I hadn’t chopped off my ear. That was good enough for me. Being around Aster and his flailing elbows/knees/fists had helped me develop a high pain threshold.

I could only see Kit out of the corner of my eye, since he was intent on examining where I’d introduced part of my anatomy to a blade.

Not looking at him freed me up to concentrate on other things.

Like how the amount of pressure he put on my shoulder to keep me from running off was perfect, nothing like when Aster manhandled me approximately every five minutes when I was in his presence.

Or his smell; a mix of something sweet like a freshly baked cake and the inside of a newly printed book.

Before I could do anything stupid like turn my head to sniff him, which would have defeated the purpose of him standing close to examine my ear, Kit let go of my shoulder and stepped back. Now there was no danger of accidental sniffing, I looked at him.

‘Your ear is fine.’ He smiled again, like he was pleased the randomer he’d allowed into his home was only going to cause social awkwardness, rather than chop bits of himself off.

‘And this is your home now, so please help yourself to anything in the kitchen. Help yourself to anything, really.’ Rosy blush coloured his pale skin.

‘And please don’t apologise for complimenting me. I’m glad you think I look lovely.’

My head snapped away, my face burning with blood that wouldn’t make my skin glow like Kit’s but rather blazed in uneven patches. I grabbed my sandwich and slipped it into some Tupperware patterned with dogs that Mum gave me last Christmas.

‘I swear I’m not normally like this.’ I allowed myself to wonder if that was actually true or not.

I didn’t spend much time with people without Aster.

His nattering normally negated the need for me to say anything.

For all I knew, I’d been an unfettered weirdo from birth and it hadn’t been unveiled until now.

That would explain why, at the age of twenty-three, I only had the one friend.

‘I promise to be much more normal the next time we’re together. ’

Before Kit could foist more forced reassurances on me, I grabbed my backpack and rushed downstairs. There was a narrow hallway at the back of the ground floor. One door led to Kit’s bookshop, the other to blessed freedom.

Despite it being the height of summer, cool air lapped my overheated face as I stomped across Kit’s garden and down the path running along the back of the row of cottages.

Aster boasted that he’d picked the perfect nickname for the island, since its actual name was unpronounceable to outsiders.

The small bay the terraced cottages curved around looked like someone had taken a bite of the island from above.

The huge loch in the middle reinforced the idea that a mammoth green pastry had been plonked into the sea near mainland Scotland.

The path connected with the island’s only road, which I followed to the east. My mind cleared as I pounded along the firm tarmac, the sound of crashing waves and crying gulls receding as I moved further inland towards my first task as the island’s new animal doctor.

I would keep my promise to Kit. He’d been a good guy, had let a stranger live with him, and I couldn’t make that weird.

I’d chalk my mistakes so far up to the strangeness of interacting with someone without my best friend to steer the conversation in a million different directions.

I had always been socially awkward. Before that had leant towards tongue-tied-ness, rather than blurting out whatever weird thing popped into my head.

‘You can do better,’ I coached myself as I walked up to the gate to the island’s only farm. A cattle grid glinted on the other side. ‘You can make a friend on your own.’

I refused to listen to the voice in my mind arguing the contrary.

I’d had months with Aster nowhere near while he completed his master’s here, had attended countless classes at university and training placements without him, had worked separately to him for years – all of which resulted in absolutely zero Aster-independent friendships.

I was determined things would be different here. Aster would be around, but he and his intimidating boyfriend lived up in the mountains. I couldn’t depend on my bestie to hold my hand and help me connect with the people here.

I pulled open the latch on the gate. I wanted to do better, and I couldn’t let a couple of hiccups stand in my way. I might have followed my best friend here – which was possibly a strange thing to do, but no one else had a best friend quite like Aster – but I was ready to step out of his shadow.

I just hoped I hadn’t ruined things with Kit permanently. Maybe he wouldn’t mind being friends with someone who would manage to constantly do and say not quite the right things. Aster had no problem with it. He couldn’t be the only person on the planet capable of liking me.

‘You can do this,’ I murmured as I pulled the farm’s gate shut behind me, balancing on the cattle grid’s slats. ‘You can totally do this.’