Bonnie didn’t wait for me to disembark either. She jumped onto the boat and wrapped herself around as much of me and Joshua as she could.
‘Ew.’ Her breath was warm on my shoulder blade. ‘You’ve got a neck tattoo. Do you want people to assume you’re a ruffian?’
‘Who the fuck has said the word ruffian non-ironically in the last decade?’ I turned to sneer at her, Joshua still moulded to my front. ‘Are you showing your age, old lady?’
She grinned up at me. ‘Ah, Cobbler. How I’ve missed you. No one else on this island truly gets that sharing insults is a love language.’
‘The best one.’ I straightened and patted Joshua on the back. ‘Come on, Joshie. I’ve got a whole load of people to say hello to.’
Reluctantly, he let me go. But he didn’t go far. As I wobbled down the gangplank to the jetty, he kept a hand on my shoulder. He pressed into my elbow as I gathered Mum and Dad into my arms.
‘You look wonderful, love,’ Mum said after I let go, gazing up at me with watery blue eyes.
‘I like the new specs.’ Dad tapped his gold rimmed pair. ‘Reckon something like that would suit me?’
Since the first time I’d met Dad when he and Mum walked into our foster carers’ living room, he’d worn the same glasses.He toyed with the idea of changing them every time I switched mine out for a new style.
‘Why mess with a classic?’ I pulled him into another hug, his glasses frame digging into my pec.
After stepping past my parents, a blur of welcomes and introductions followed. Callum wasn’t the only member of the pack to find himself a boyfriend, although his talked enough in the thirty seconds while Callum gave me a hug and rubbed his face into my neck – he and Errol were the only pack members tall enough to do this while standing – that I would have been forgiven for believing there were ten new people hanging around. Kit held the hand of a tanned guy, both of them radiating the kind of happiness that only came from new love.
As a churning mass that never separated Joshua from my side, we made our way to his and Bonnie’s cottage. He’d explained during one of our calls last week that he’d had a baking mishap, so I was pleased only one of his delicious roasts and a fresh apple crumble greeted us when we walked into the cramped kitchen-diner.
I kept a smile on my face as I skipped from conversation to conversation; asked about the bakeries I’d visited and the cities I’d seen, filled in on the gossip at the brewery and Callum’s life up in the mountains. It was a lot after weeks of meals eaten alone or in the company of one or two new friends.
I wondered what the reaction would have been if I’d said I’d have liked a more intimate welcome home, that I would have preferred to spend time with my parents and brother and sister-in-law.
Shock. Hurt. Nothing good.
Nothing worth making a fuss over. I’d get time with Joshua and Bonnie, after I slotted into living with them again. I’d seek out my parents soon, sit down at the table in their kitchen whereI’d moaned about arsehole teachers and made my first elaborate bakes.
Mum and Dad said their goodbyes once the apple crumble dish was scraped clean. I stretched, paving the way for excusing myself to go to bed. Before I retired to my boudoir that I wished didn’t share a wall with Joshua and Bonnie’s bedroom, I’d subtly get an idea of when the pack would descend again. Maybe I’d accidentally double book myself with something that couldn’t be put off. Establish right from the get go that I didn’t need to be invited to every single gathering.
My sleep posturing was wasted. Just as I cracked my jaw on a yawn that started out fake and became real, Bonnie and Callum’s heads snapped up. Their eyes unfocused, like they were using their super beast senses to focus far outside of the cottage.
Callum blinked, then stood. ‘Something’s here.’
‘You and you.’ Bonnie pointed at me and Aster. ‘Stay here. Everyone else, follow me.’
Like the good little minions they were, everyone but me and Callum’s new boyfriend filed out of the kitchen behind Bonnie. Callum lingered to kiss Aster, then ran out of the cottage after the rest of the pack.
My heart, which had been somewhere close to content in the company of my twin during the raucous meal, sank much further inside my ribcage than should have been biologically possible. I’d hoped to get through a day or two, to fill my mind with all the things that were good about the island, before anything that royally sucked came along.
Being left behind sucked. Being dismissed as useless and puny sucked. Being included until it became glaringly obvious that my twin stood on one side of a divide and me on the other totally fucking sucked.
I tapped my fingers on the tabletop.
Not a mistake. Not a mistake. Not a mistake.
