Chapter 42
LUCY
The first thing I’m aware of is something heavy. Specifically, a warm, rumbly, furry, deeply inconsiderate weight directly on top of my head.
Confusion wars with nostalgia in my sleepy mind.
I haven’t woken up like this since…
“Dinah?”
My eyes snap open to find bright green ones staring back at me from roughly two inches away, Spiderman-kiss style. A pink nose twitches inside a mass of orange fur. Whiskers whisper across my cheekbone like the world’s least subtle alarm clock.
I blink.
Green orbs do the same with one long, deliberate, deeply unbothered blink.
“Dinah!”
Her name comes out in a squeal, and she lets me haul her into my chest like I’m ten years old again, her purr vibrating against my sternum in a frequency I’ve missed deep in my soul for six agonizing months.
“You’re heavier than I remember, angel. No offense.” Her fur also smells faintly of bonfire smoke and sea air. I press my nose into her scruff and breathe her in as my eyes sting with emotion.
“Hey now, don’t go drowning her too.”
I scramble upright so fast Dinah makes a surprised mewl and hops out of my hold through the curtain acting as a makeshift door between the sleeping quarters and the galley. Frowning, I gather up my quilt around me and slide the curtain open to see Hatton at the hot plate.
Hatch moves around the galley, bare-chested, sweatpants hanging low on his hips, feet bare on the worn floorboards.
His hair is still damp, curling a little at his temples.
He doesn’t look at me, but I feel his attention with every move he makes.
The muscles in his back shift under tattooed skin as he pours boiling water into mismatched mugs.
Steam from the kettle hangs in the tiny galley. It coats the windows, beads of condensation running down the glass. The air is thick with the smell of strong tea and sweet and savory breakfast.
Hatton’s sweatpants look soft. I have the strange urge to reach for them and touch but can’t bring myself to stand. My body feels weak and hollowed out from fighting with myself and the ocean.
He flicks me a careful glance, like he’s trying to assess my mood. Good luck, because I have no idea what I’m feeling.
“Hey, bunny,” he murmurs. “Sleep alright?”
I’m about to answer when he shifts, and I see across the tiny cabin, leaning against the doorjamb with his arms folded and a scowl that could curdle milk, an older man I recognize.
“Harry?” I say dumbly. First Dinah, now Harry? With a six-foot-five Fury in the mix, this houseboat has suddenly become quite crowded.
“Alice.” Harry nods once, then fights a twitch of a smile on his lips to glare where Dinah rubs against his shin with a loud purr. “Or Lucy, I suppose. Small world, huh?”
By his other leg, Chessy sits watching Harry with an expression of pure reverent adoration that I have literally never seen on that cat’s face directed at any living creature, including me.
“Chessy likes you?” I point, slightly betrayed. “He barely tolerates me.”
Chessy flicks a dismissive look in my direction, then turns back to Harry and gives him a long, slow blink.
Harry’s mouth turns upside down when the corner tries to kick up.
“Well animals are excellent judges of character,” he shrugs. “Even annoying ones.”
I cross my arms and harrumph at Chessy. “I’ve fed you sardines. Do you know how smelly those are in a houseboat!”
Chessy merely yowls angrily at me, and Hatton snorts.
“Ugh. Hatton said you were a jerk, and I didn’t want to believe it.”
“Told you so.” Hatton gifts me with a quick grin and pours batter from a bowl onto the skillet.
It sizzles, and a warm, buttery, impossibly divine smell fills the cabin.
“Are those pancakes?” I ask, salivating.
“The boy can cook a mean breakfast. Takes after his grandma with that,” Harry offers. “Granted, it’s dinnertime, but you get what you can from a Fury man.”
Geez, did everyone know Hatter was Hatton Fury before me?
“Harry, what’re you doing here?”
“Brought your cat? What else?” he scoffs like that was the dumbest question in the world. “And clothes. Ain’t got a lick of sense running around naked as a bluejay in March.”
Hatton rolls his eyes. “I can hear you, old man.”
“Good. Then hear this part. If you break another stovetop—”
“I told you that was a wiring issue—”
“—oh, ‘wiring’ my ass—”
“—and this is a hot plate so it’s hardly the same.”
“—I ain’t never had a problem in thirty years.”
“Because you hadn’t used it in thirty years.”
“That was wartime manufacturing! They don’t make them like that anymore—”
“And which war was that again?”
They go on like that while I just blink, my gaze volleying between them. They both argue like they’ve won this argument a million times in every iteration it’s taken, but I’m having trouble even following who’s the injured party here.
As they gripe at one another, Harry scoops Dinah up with the practiced ease. She immediately goes boneless against his chest, purring loudly enough to rattle the humid cabin
“Speaking of the lady,” Harry interrupts—I think? I haven’t really been paying attention—and his dark brown eyes soften at the edges when he looks at me. “How are you doing, little McKennon?”
My cheeks heat. How much does he know?
As if he can read my mind, Hatton says, “That was quite a tumble off the dock this morning.”
Relief floods me, cooling my skin. “Yeah. I’m okay.”
Harry whistles. “You couldn’t pay me to get in that water right now. Glad you made it out.” Then he scowls at Hatton. “Saving that girl’s probably the only good thing you’ve done since you got here.”
An almost sad laugh huffs out of him. “You’re probably right.”
I want to reach out to comfort him… but I also have no idea where we stand.
With the warm light of sunset beaming through the porthole and coloring our tentative truce in a rosy shade, do we pretend like nothing happened?
That I’m not upset he’s my lying, stalking fiancé, and up until this morning, I was afraid I was falling head over heels for him?
Or does using those particular set of criminal skills to save my life constitute a blank slate?
Harry’s eyes flicker with something that might be guilt, but it disappears into—you guessed it—another scowl.
“Boy, I’m about sick and tired of seeing you feeling sorry for yourself. Just give me a Tupperware, and I’ll be on my way. It’s the least you could do after you left me to take care of all that nasty business you left behind.”
That gets Hatton to smile. “Don’t act like you weren’t itching for a fight too.” But then his brow furrows. “X helped you, didn’t he? That’s what his message said, at least.”
“Yeah, till he had to run home for something or other. He helped with the pick-up and clean up but hopped off the boat before we could take off,” Harry continues. “His girl called him. He skedaddled pretty quick. Left the rest for me to throw overboard.”
“Huh.” Something flickers across Hatton’s face, but he schools it quickly as he plates a heap of pancakes, eggs, and bacon into yellow plastic Tupperware that looks a decade old and I didn’t even realize I had.
“Well thanks. Appreciate the assist, old man. Honestly. I was a little, um, preoccupied after.”
Hatton flicks me a heated look that makes my lower belly flip. Then he clears his throat, tops the container that’s nearly too full to close, and turns to Harry.
“A feast as payment.” He hands off the to-go meal. “And send me the links to the tile you want.”
“Now that’s what I’m talking about.” Harry’s eyes light up with satisfaction at the food piled a mile high, but Hatton’s words seem to register as he takes it, and he scowls. “I want the same exact tile.”
Hatton sucks his teeth and shakes his head. “Yeah, pretty sure they don’t make linoleum from the Stone Ages anymore.” He shrugs at Harry’s scowl. “Sorry.”
Harry grumbles but takes the Tupperware and steals a fork from one of the small drawers. “You Furys are nothing but trouble.” He points the silverware at me. “I’d say watch out, little McKennon, but the Troisgarde is even worse.”
My jaw drops, but he turns his fork on Hatton. “And I mean what I said, boy. Don’t you go burning my stove again.”
“Dadgummit, old man, I already told you that fire wasn’t—” A sneeze detonates from him, racking the small boat. “—my fault,” comes the muffled conclusion.
Harry shakes his head with the all the disappointment of a man who thinks he’s surrounded by idiots.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You do keep telling me that.” He tsks then waves over his shoulder as he turns. “Y’all be good now. And eat something, Lucy. You look like death warmed over.”
He lets himself out, closing the door behind him, and I fix my shock on Hatton.
“Does he seriously think my family is somehow worse than yours?”
Hatton snorts, but it ends in another sneeze into his arm. When he recovers his nose sounds a little stopped up. “You would think that.”
“Do you need your medicine?” I ask, and he shakes his head.
“Harry brought it by with Dinah and the change of clothes. Just waiting for it to kick in.” He frowns. “I have an uncomfortable suspicion Pining might interact well with these meds. I haven’t been by the club in two days, and the shots don’t hold up like they were.”
I grimace. “That’s so weird.”
“Yeah, tell me about it.” he laughs wryly. “Add it to the list of fucked up shit on Wander Isle.”
He pours more batter into the skillet, and I watch him as he cooks—yet another thing that’s shocked me this morning—erm, evening.
Hatton is in his backward cap and new, dry low-slung gray sweatpants, and that’s it.
He’s shirtless, one hip braced against the narrow counter while he works the spatula with ease and familiarity.
His other hand hovers near his face, fingers loosely curled, like he’s physically guarding his own nose against his next betrayal.