I didn’t want to be with someone who couldn’t even acknowledge me in public—except that was half a lie. I liked Natty, and I wanted to see where things could go with him. I just didn’t want to be his dirty government secret.
I tore my thoughts away from Natty with difficulty. “So, why are we the only members of the Dauntless Island Amateur Historical Society when we’re also the only two people on the island who aren’t from here?”
“Well, I’m here because it’s both my job and my hobby,” Eddie said, and took a swig of beer. “And you’re here because you have no friends.”
“Touché.” We clinked beer bottles.
“I’m doing a side project on the island families,” Eddie said. “But it’s a mess. I spoke to Tall Tom for an hour the other day about John Dinsmore, who was the mayor during the Second World War, and it turns out he was telling me about three different John Dinsmores at once—John Dinsmore the mayor, John Dinsmore the cousin of the mayor, and John Dinsmore who ran a boat to the mainland twice a month back then. There might have even been a fourth; I’m not entirely sure.” He shuddered. “It’s like trying to keep Marvel’s multiverse straight.”
“We’re not doing that tonight, are we?” If we were, I’d have to rethink my group membership.
“No! We’re eating pizza, drinking beer, and compiling a list of military sites from the war,” Eddie said brightly. “Which is basically the radar station, the house they built for the guys working the radar, the jetty, the airfield—though that’s all overgrown these days—and I think there was possibly an anti-aircraft gun station up at Mayfair Bay or Seal Beach, and maybe some dummy stations around too, but I haven’t had a chance to go looking.”
“That actually sounds really interesting.”
Eddie shot me a wry look. “No need to sound so surprised.”
Busted.
It was a pretty fun evening. I restricted myself to one light beer in case I got a call about anything—not likely, since the islanders would rather die than ask me for help—but Eddie didn’t. By ten p.m. he was very wobbly on his feet, and I was wondering if I could trust him to hold on if I gave him a ride up to the lighthouse on my dirt bike, or if I’d have to carry him.
And then the doorbell rang, and I opened the door to Red Joe.
“Oh, hey,” I said. “Um... he’s pretty drunk.”
“Joe!” Eddie warbled from upstairs. “Is that you? Are you wearing your sexy lighthouse outfit? Come and look at my tower!”
Red Joe’s face turned the same colour as his hair and he mumbled what might have been an apology. Or a prayer for sudden death.
I led the way upstairs to the living room and cleaned up the plates and bottles while Joe hefted Eddie into a bridal carry.
“Bye, Dominic!” Eddie called over Joe’s shoulder as Joe carried him down the stairs. “Thanks for tonight! History is fun!”
I followed them down and shut the front door behind them. Then, because it still felt too early for bed, I wandered around the small front foyer of the station and made sure all the posters were straight and the pamphlets were stacked neatly. Not that anyone on Dauntless would ever pick one up and read it.
When I finally dragged my arse upstairs to bed, I opened my window out of habit to signal to Natty that I was here—at least, I thought we’d been signalling to each other throughout the hot, weird fever dream that was the last week, but it wouldn’t be the only thing I’d misread, would it? I leaned on the sill for a moment, but Natty’s bedroom window was dark.
So much for that.
I hoped I’d already come to terms with my disappointment, but no, here it was again, sinking like a stone in my gut. I’d miss Natty, and not just his nightly show.
I told myself I wasn’t heartbroken, but the ache in my chest didn’t believe it.
For the first time since getting to Dauntless, I truly wished I’d never come here. All those other times a part of me had laughed at how ridiculous it was that nobody here liked me—their fault, not mine; their issues, not mine—but that was a whole lot harder to stomach with Natty. He hadn’t been looking at my uniform when he’d told me he didn’t want to talk to me again. He’d looked me in the eye.
I stripped down to my T-shirt and boxers, throwing my uniform pants and shirt over the chair in the corner of the bedroom in case I got called out before tomorrow morning. Which I knew I wouldn’t—this was Dauntless—but I’d also been a copper for long enough to know there was no such thing as a safe bet. On anything.
I dozed, but I didn’t sleep. I heard every creak that the old house made and the thump of Frank jumping from a chair to the floor in the living room. I heard the dry scrape of twigs against the side of the house as the wind jostled the bushes and the trees. And underneath it all, like the faint roar of blood in my skull, the heavy sigh of the waves against the harbour wall. The moonlight painted faint shadows on the wall, and I stared at them until I didn’t know if I was awake or not.
A knock jolted me back into awareness, and I was out of bed and hauling my clothes on. I turned on the hallway light before I stumbled down the stairs and through the station to the front door. I yanked it open.
Natty.
He looked just as beautiful in the moonlight as he did in sunlight. He looked ethereal. Well, as ethereal as a guy could in tartan pyjama pants and a faded Parramatta Eels singlet. Which—well, it was Natty. He looked like a misplaced Renaissance angel whatever he was wearing. And then my tired brain caught up, and I remembered the sting I’d felt yesterday when he’d said he couldn’t talk to me.
“Is everything okay?” I asked. His gaze dropped to my chest, and I fumbled with the buttons of my shirt.
Natty’s mouth opened and closed like a guppy’s. And he still somehow looked unfairly angelic.
